Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jan 2, 1908

Ominous Conditions

THERE are more Sodoms than the one so named in the Bible. Many of our great cities to-day would put Sodom to shame. They are filling up with thousands who are controlled by the spirit of that ancient iniquitous city whose sins cried to heaven. Sodom and Gomorrah were types of the sinful condition of this world when ripe for its destruction. We see frequent indications that the ripening is now going on with great rapidity. On the night of December 9 there took place in one of our largest cities what the secular press fitly termed an orgy. The press said of it:—

Vice was given its annual immunity bath last night. Thirty thousand people attended the First Ward ball, a money-raising function conducted by Aldermen Blank and Blank. The only mishap was that the supply of fifty thousand bottles of champagne was not equal to the demand, and special supplies had to be carted in during the early morning hours. A majority of the dancers, of whom it is estimated three thousand were women, came from the tenderloin districts, but thousands of spectators were from the fashionable districts. It eclipsed anything in the way of a carousal this city has ever known, and it is probable that its like was never known in any other section of this country. The march circled and re-circled the hall, men in evening dress and women in silks and laces, and all bedecked with diamonds and jewels, presenting an imposing array of the First Ward's profits from drink, white slavery, and kindred vices.

And this is only a fragment of the picture of the carousal. What more could Sodom have done? The rapid increase of such conditions indicates clearly that we are reaching the time specified by our Saviour as the last days.