Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · February 11, 1868

SOME FEATURES OF OUR TIMES.

THIS is an age of brilliant pretensions, but sad realities. Its professions and practices, its facts and theories, present a climax of contradictions.

There never was so much of the form of godliness, and never so little of the power.

NEVER were there so many professors of religion, and never so little of religion itself.

NEVER so many assurances of peace, and never so extensive and urgent preparations for war.

NEVER so many tokens of coming danger and calamity, and never such a feeling of security, expressed and implied, on the part of the people.

There never was a time when the doctrine of the immediate opening of the temporal millennium was more universally cherished and talked of, and never a time when every feature of society, social, moral, and political, rendered such an idea more preposterous.

There never was a time when there was so much money in the world, and never a time when there was more wide-spread and distressing poverty.

There never was a time when there were so many remedies for every disease, real or imaginary, which profess to be sure cures, absolutely infallible, and never a time when there existed so much disease, sickness, suffering and death.

There never was a time when there was so much boasting of progress and advancement on the part of the race, and never a time when they gave more palpable evidence of fast descending into every depth of iniquity and sin.

And what does all this show? It shows that the pretensions on which men build themselves up are a sham, and their professions, hypocrisy. They are willing to deceive others, and to be deceived themselves. This is the time when the prophet tells us that evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. We see this work going on before us, which proves that we have reached the time when the prophet's words apply. There is nothing to which men will not put their hand for gain. With worthless nostrums, which the venders know will not accomplish what they claim, the confidence of the afflicted is secured, and their means filched. Falsity and hollow-heartedness exist on every hand. Truth is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter. Nor will this state of things improve in this present dispensation, but grow worse and worse. Let us be thankful that the Lord sees it all, and is displeased; Isa. lix, 15; that he is about to put on righteousness as a breastplate, and the garments of vengeance for clothing, and recompense fury to his adversaries, but come in mercy to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression in Jacob. We have reason to sigh and cry for the abominations done in the land. We patiently wait for the end of that which is false, evil, and full of violence and strife, and long for the approaching reign of truth, righteousness, and peace. Not before He whose right it is, the Prince of the house of David, takes the throne, will this be. Hasten, O King of kings, the glad day.