A PROPHETIC PICTURE

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 29, 1868

A PROPHETIC PICTURE.

The following description of the moral condition of our country, from the Evening Mail, presents not a very hopeful picture except to those who are waiting for the consolation of Israel, who know that there will be no moral improvement in this state of things, and that all that remains, is for earth to fill up her cup of iniquity, and be destroyed, preparatory to the setting up of God’s kingdom of righteousness and peace. Since this is the only way through to that condition of things for which the whole creation now groans and travails, we can only say, Let the moral leprosy develop itself; let iniquity prevail; let sin and crime hold high carnival, and the sooner accomplish the remainder of their short career; and oh! let the eternal days of purity and glory soon be ushered in. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. The Mail says:—

It is a startling thing to reflect that the nation derives its greatest income from a tax on whisky; that gold is creeping up higher and higher day by day, just in proportion as our foreign trade increases, which consists almost entirely of an importation of luxuries which we should learn to do without; that there is no such thing as public integrity or official honor; that most of our books and newspapers are trash, unfit to read; that heartless fashion and vain display are the ruling sentiments of the day. A people which allows such a state of things to continue, is doomed to destruction. Nothing but a radical change in each individual, will save the nation. Already we see the elements of our own destruction daily increasing in our midst—the decay of the native population of New England; the increase of celibacy; the light regard in which public integrity is held; the frightful blight of intemperance, sweeping to the grave the highest and the lowest; the frequency of divorces; the general dishonesty which prevails.”

“Nothing,” says this writer, “but a radical change in each individual, will save the nation.” Now we ask, Can the most sanguine, even those intoxicated with the idea of a temporal millennium, suppose that there ever will be a radical change wrought in one-fifth, one-tenth, one-twentieth, or even one-fiftieth, part of this nation? Then on this authority, where is the hope of this country? There is only one hope which is not doomed to disappointment, and that is the hope that is built on God’s word, and which looks to the coming dispensation alone for the better state of things.