Seeing Things as They Are by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 4, 1912

Seeing Things as They Are

By C. M. S.

In this world at the present time are many who are professional optimists, priding themselves in taking “a large view.” The evils which they know to exist, they offset with a great general good and a great general progress which they imagine to exist. Although the result is bound to be a deception, yet that is the optimism which is popular to-day.

There is another kind of optimist who sees farther in reality than this class sees in imagination. He sees the evils that exist; he recognizes them as such; he knows that they are increasing rapidly; and, believing God, he knows that, until Christ shall come to set up his kingdom, there is no hope nor promise of a better condition in this world. But beyond that event he sees the final glorious triumph of truth and righteousness, when the problem of sin will have been worked out, and the scepter of righteousness will have displaced the bayonet and battle-ax; when the kingdoms of this earth will have given place to the kingdom of our God.

This is the true optimism. Anything else is a deceiving of one’s self which can only end in ruin, nevertheless, it is looked upon by the worldly optimist as a pessimism only worthy of contempt. He refuses to believe the condition of the world to be as it is or as it is to be. Consequently, he will not be prepared for the great deceptions that are to overwhelm the last generation of men. The pilot who thinks he is going against the current when he is going with it, is not a safe navigator. The man who makes himself believe that evil is growing less and the race is growing better when the opposite is true, is not a safe spiritual guide—is not a true optimist. The latter sees in these very conditions a sign of our Saviour’s return, for they are so used in the Scriptures.

It is impossible in one article to reveal the true condition of this world at the present time; but a few representative facts may be set forth which will show the direction of the winds that are blowing now—winds that are swelling into a gale.

The records of the Paris police department for thirteen years ending in 1900, show a remarkable increase in criminal propensities in the young. In the year 1888, twenty young persons under twenty-one years of age were arrested in Paris for the crime of murder. There was a comparatively steady increase in the number of that class of persons arrested for that crime from 1888 to 1900. The number so arrested in the latter year had increased to 138, or nearly seven times as many as in 1888. It may fairly be supposed that crimes of other kinds increased in like proportion.

The increase of crime among children and youth is looked upon largely as a result of alcoholism on the part of the parents. But alcoholism is also increasing, and so we may expect the results of it to increase. It is due also to the prevalence of the deplorable cigarette habit among both parents and children. Likewise the increase of that practise entails an increase in the results of it.

“In Paris,” says Dr. Garnier, an official of the prefecture of police, “we have seen alcoholic insanity progressing with astonishing rapidity; but excessive precocity in crime fills us with wonder.” But it is only the natural result of the conditions which exist.

In the catalogue of increasing evils naturally comes the increase of drinking among women—an increasing evil which is bound to entail other evils through the unnatural appetites begotten in the offspring. The State president of the New York W. C. T. U., with another influential and reliable woman, recently made an investigation of this practise in the fashionable dining-places in New York City. In these places she found that the tables at which some kind of liquor was not served was the exception. Drinking was almost universal among the women who dined in those places.

And this is not all. The smoking of cigarettes by women has come to be one of the evils of the day, against which even secular journals are sounding warnings; but the practise seems to be unquestionably on the increase.

With such things there is bound to go a lowering of the tone of morality in both men and women, and, consequently, in the children who are coming up to take their places. And a lowering of the tone of morality is but the equivalent of an increase in vice and crime. That is the seed-sowing of the present time, and it requires no prophet to foretell what the harvest will be. Opportunities are being multiplied on every hand for increasing the drink evil; and with its increase there is bound to be an increase in the fruits of that evil, both in those who do the drinking and in the offspring of such, as the records of Paris, above referred to, have shown.

The Atlanta Journal states that the brewing companies of this country paid $97,000,000 of the Spanish war-tax, or about one third. This shows something as to the amount of the business done by the liquor interests of this country in undermining the manhood and womanhood, the physical constitutions, and the morals, of the people of this generation. There is no greater evil in the land—no evil which is in itself responsible for so many others; no evil which is doing more to bring about the terrible conditions which exist to-day, and which are increasing so rapidly.

Dr. Wilbur de Lyon Nichols, one of New York City’s society leaders, has the following to say concerning the increase of drinking among women:—

Indulgence in strong drink is on a more alarming increase to-day among women society leaders than the baneful fascination of the gaming-table. Drinking has increased at an alarming rate in both London and New York. At many fashionable restaurants to-day one can see well-dressed women who show they have more than they can stand.

And right in line with this deplorable practise is the remarkable increase of gambling, incidentally referred to in the last quotation. The prevalence of this practise is recognized by all. It has entered the sacred precincts of the home. So all-pervading is the spirit that the children catch it, and gamble over their dominoes, authors, ping-pong, checkers, and chess. Thus such homes become very kindergartens of the devil. Here they are tutored in the ways of the gambler, and get their first lessons in taking that which is another’s “by trick and device.” With such an education, it is not astonishing that our jails are being crowded to their greatest capacity,

or overcrowded, and that deadly encounters between youthful playmates are of frequent occurrence.

We can not hide from our eyes these scenes of violence that are occurring on every hand to-day. They are fulfilling the predictions of the Word in regard to this very time in which we live. Many will refuse to believe that there is anything ominous in these things, and will allow themselves to be led blindly up to the very climax of this world’s history, deceived to the very last. But it is not necessary. The Word is clear; the conditions that fulfil it are plain; and we as individuals are alone responsible if we are taken unawares, and overwhelmed in the overthrow. The simple fact is that the world is ripening for the harvest of the great day of God. But beyond that harvest the true Christian sees the glorious inheritance of the loyal follower of the King of Righteousness. C. M. S.