p. 219 | WHAT ARE WE BECOMING?

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 27, 1868

WHAT ARE WE BECOMING?

EVERY one who keeps his eyes open to the signs of the times must be impressed with the fearful tendencies to demoralization that are everywhere manifest. There seems to be a general relaxation of wholesome restraints, a deterioration of manly character, a disposition on all sides to run into almost every form of excess. In the pursuit of wealth, of fashion, of pleasure, of amusement, everywhere, except in a strict adherence to the old time-honored principles of Christian virtue and morality, the intemperate spirit of the age is only too clearly seen. The simple integrity, the straightforward, sober industry in one's occupation, the patient waiting for success, the calm content with the more moderate enjoyments of life, that once characterized our people, seemed to have been lost by a generation or two gone by, and in their stead there have come into play a system of sharp practice, a style of fitful galvanic energy, feverish eagerness for the sudden acquisition of wealth and distinction in society, and a restless and insatiable craving for new and more costly pleasures, which are as detrimental to long life, true happiness, and real dignity, as they are to the preservation of a conscience void of offense toward God and man.

Especially is this true with regard to society as it now exists in this city of New York. It is not only among the lower orders, as they are called, that we find the melancholy evidence of this degeneracy of spirit, and this unscrupulous indifference to the requirements of religion and pure morals. Further up in the social scale, in palatial residences, where wealth ministers to the morbid taste for luxury, and surrounds itself with splendor that dazzles the eye, there are scenes and transactions, indulgences and practices, which, if they could be uncovered to the sight of men as they are to the sight of God, would make every lover of his country and his race stand aghast with horror.

It was no mere rhetorical flight, it was a stern and appalling truth, which Dr. Tyng expressed, when, at a meeting held last winter in reference to city evangelization, he said in his address: “Either New York must do something soon or she must take means to defend herself. The condition of New York is becoming more frightful, worse and worse, every day. There seems to be a desire to destroy the church. It seems to be not whether the next generation shall be better than this, but whether there shall be a next generation at all.”

Let any one consider the systematic attempts that are being constantly made to break down the Christian Sabbath, to abolish the law of purity, to deluge society with intoxicating liquor—“distilled death and liquid damnation,” as Robert Hall once called it. Let him consider that the press, a noble instrumentality when used aright and for noble ends, that works with more heads and hands than Briareus could boast when he assisted the giants in their war against the gods, is day after day, and week after week sending forth a subtle, deceptive, corrupting literature that panders to every prurient taste and evil passion, and like the frogs of Egypt that “come into the house, and into the bed-chamber, and upon the bed, and into the servants' house, and upon the people, and into the ovens, and into the kneading troughs.” If it could only find its way into the ovens before it is read, it would be a blessing for which Christians might give thanks. Let him consider the nearly 6,000 licensed drinking places in the city, which involve in various ways by a more than useless expenditure a loss of $736,280 59 per week, or $38,286,590 68 per annum, and let him add to this the $3,000,000 per annum, which are shown by the revenue reports to be the income of the theaters and other similar places of amusement, where the morals of the young are corrupted, and they receive a mighty impulse toward a life of idleness and dissipation. Let him consider that while New York has a population of 800,000 souls, there is no Sabbath in the year when 200,000 can be found in the house of God, and sadder, if possible, than all, that out of this immense mass there are, all told, only 64,000 professed disciples of Christ. And if he does not find in these facts an occasion for the inquiry at the head of this article, a cause for anxiety, and a reason to pray, and labor, and give, he must be strangely insensible to the dangers which menace the welfare, if not the very existence, of society.

But this, alarming as it is, is but a partial enumeration of the forces of evil that are constantly at work. Romanism, Infidelity, Spiritualism, and a hundred others, which time would fail us to mention, are all the while contributing their quota to the hostile array which the church of Christ and the lovers of their country are required to meet and overcome.—Christian Observer.