Hypnotic Evil of the Streets by W. T. Knox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1911

Hypnotic Evil of the Streets

By W. T. Knox

We are consciously and unconsciously affected by what we see. Evil appears to us in many suggestive forms, and the impression oftentimes is no less marked in the life because the grosser evil is thinly veiled. Mr. Harold Begbie, in a more recent book called “The Hands of the Potter,” speaks of the hypnotic power attending London street scenes:—

A visitor to England from India or China, whose purpose was to study the followers of the Son of God at the center of their national life, would surely feel himself, in the streets of London, to be the victim of an immense hallucination. He would see on every side an ostentation of wealth bewildering in its profusion and staggering in its effrontery. He would find it impossible to distinguish the lady of fashion from the public woman of the streets. He would see in the shop windows the manifold production of a commerce created by vanity, voluptuousness, and sensuality. The boardings would shock his modesty by their prurience, or disgust his intellect by their vulgarity. He would feel himself the witness of a carousal. It would seem to him that every unit in the multitude was dressed to attract attention, was bent upon self-indulgence, had no purpose in life save dissipation.

Of the responsibility of the church in view of this lowering of the Christian standard he says:—

The great note of Christianity—selflessness—makes no sound in the symphony of the public streets. Is it a great thing to expect that every man and woman in London whose life has been touched and exalted by the character of Christ should, by the simplicity of their dress, the beauty of their manners, and the nobility of their pursuits, convey an impression to the streets which is at once a reproach to vanity and an invitation to holiness? Is it not high time that the church awake to the tremendous power of hypnotic suggestion, and make definite war upon the extreme luxury, license, and gaudery of society, which are now spreading through the streets of the town a contagion terribly destructive to the noblest virtues of the human soul?

Truly it is time that the church of Christ awake to its tremendous responsibility. Some there are who sense this burden; but the great majority, we fear, do not. But upon those who see and recognize the evil tendencies of these times, there is thrown a burden of sounding a note of warning, and of seeking, so far as in them lies, to erect in the midst of abounding iniquity the standard of righteousness.

The foregoing quarterly report of mission receipts is in the main quite encouraging. If the receipts for the remaining three quarters of the year should be in proportion to those for the first quarter, the gifts for the year would slightly exceed ten cents a week per member. There are, however, some facts to which our attention should be called. The months of January and February contain quite large receipts from the annual offering and the Harvest Ingathering campaign, from which sources we shall have but comparatively small receipts for the remaining nine months of the year.

The receipts from all sources for the first two months were almost $70,000, or an average of about $35,000 a month, while the receipts from all sources for March were a little less than $20,000. It is unreasonable to expect the volume of offerings throughout the year to be in proportion to the first two months’ receipts. But a little calculation will reveal what monthly receipts of only $20,000 will mean to the Mission Board and the foreign fields, if continued throughout the year. Instead of receiving $330,000, the amount called for by the Ten-cent-a-week Plan, the Mission Board would receive less than $270,000, a shortage of $60,000, an amount almost sufficient to meet our operating expenses for two months. This would mean, then, nearly two months in which our mission fields would be without support.

Surely the distress of the mission fields in 1910 is too fresh in our minds to necessitate enlarging upon the imperativeness of faithfulness and liberality on the part of all in this service of proper support of our brethren in foreign fields. It is far better for us now, in the first months of the year, to understand the situation, appreciate the danger of an empty treasury, and guard against it while it is possible, than to wait until another crisis is upon us.

W. T. Knox, Treasurer.