p. 7 | A Startling Comparison

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 31, 1908

A Startling Comparison

Although this nation has not been in existence a century and a half, it has yet passed through an experience which has often filled the history of many centuries in the case of some other nations. The transformation which has been wrought in the comparatively brief period of time since the founding of the nation has been well stated in this paragraph:—

The America of to-day is no more the America of Washington and Franklin “which so forcibly impressed all Europe with its marvelous simplicity and strength,” than the Rome of the three losses, which Ferrero’s third volume on “The Greatness and Decline of Rome” describes, was the Rome of Cincinnatus. It is true that we have created an extreme concentration of wealth, and with it much poverty and a highly differentiated social structure. We have “acquired an unbounded taste for luxuries,” and “the luxuries necessary to satisfy that taste.”

This view of the present condition of things in this country, which will appeal to every one familiar with the facts, is of much significance in its bearing upon the fulfilment of prophecy and the events of the near future. In its declining days the Roman republic sought the aid of the church to insure its stability, and the union brought ruin upon both the state and the church. The same course on the part of the American republic will bring the same result.