An Ominous Sign of the End by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 20, 1911

An Ominous Sign of the End

By C. M. S.

We see indications on every hand of a deterioration in the physical fabric of the human race, in perfect keeping with the moral retrogression so painfully manifest in the world to-day, especially in that part which has long been considered enlightened and civilized.

There is being continually manifest a strong tendency to an increase on the part of all the various diseases that have afflicted the race; and diseases that were rarely heard of fifty years ago, or even twenty, are now common. The increase is seen in consumption, in pneumonia, in heart failure, in diabetes, in cancer, hydrophobia, and other diseases, while at the same time the skill of the medical profession is being used to counteract them. The grip has been doing a fearful work in weakening the race and rendering it susceptible to every kind of disease; and the cigarette and liquor and drug habits are helping the terrible work along in a marvelous way.

A well-known German professor of pedagogics, Professor Hahnel, recently investigated the cases of 7,338 schoolchildren between the ages of six and eleven, and found that only a little over two per cent were ignorant of the taste of strong drink, while over thirteen per cent admitted having been drunk one or more times. Over eleven per cent of these children had daily supplies of strong drink given them, and a considerable portion received alcohol in some form every morning before leaving home for school. We have no reason for supposing that this is confined to Germany. The drink evil is increasing among all classes everywhere, and thus there is being formed a rich soil for the seeds of all manner of diseases, mental, moral, and physical.

The increase of immorality also is abundantly proved, and is cultivated and propagated by the theater, and the novel in its various forms. In fact, it is quite a question whether novel-reading is not to be blamed for a share of the increase of insanity. It is known to be responsible for some such cases. A young woman, a stenographer, of Syracuse, N. Y., was committed to the insane asylum not long since, whose whole time outside of office hours was given to the reading of sensational novels. A great portion of her time that should have been spent in sleep, was devoted to the novel. Her breakdown was gradual; but she could not break off the chains of her slavery to that habit. We could cite other cases, but this will illustrate the point.

Concerning the perils that beset the young on every side, to snare the feet and turn them into the ways of vice, Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, says:—

There was never an age when cities held more temptations, and the necessity for safeguarding was greater. There never was an era when there were so many forces gilding sin. We have come to a time when all the places where vice reigns and men appeal to the lower passions, are made beautiful. . . . It is an age when beautiful paintings and stained-glass windows adorn saloons and hotels; when men are hired to write alluring plays; when tunes are made catchy to convey suggestive words; a time when gardens such as those on the way to Coney Island abound, where young men and girls stop at first for a chop or a roll, and then for worse. It is easy enough to break through the hedge of innocence. . . . If you could only hear the stories that are told to me. If you ever had to go to pray at the bedside of a dying girl, and heard her curse you with hideous curses for the sin you had heard her confess, you could understand what a pastor sometimes has to hear. Another peril is the tendency of Americans to turn night into day. All the wreckages of life are in the night. Men and women, if you want to ruin your children, turn them loose in the streets at night; give them parties when they are ten or twelve years old; give the boys dress suits, the girls party dresses; teach the latter to count their little lovers before they are twelve; and then God pity the man who marries these unmarried widows at fifteen.

Verily, the race is breaking down in moral as well as physical stamina, and Satan is preparing every possible pitfall to entrap the staggering feet of those whom his devices have made weak and unsteady. It is his last harvest. He has planted diligently, and he is reaping close. He will leave no stone unturned, no trick untried, to compass the destruction of every soul on the earth. The evidence of this moral breakdown is plain, and its portent is ominous. We can not mistake it. The presence of these terrible conditions in the world to-day teaches us that we are in the last days, and that the coming of the Son of man draws nigh. The question for each one to decide is whether he will be a part of Satan's harvest, or a part of that harvest which Christ will send forth his angels (Matt. 24:31) to gather to himself out of the tare-strewn and thorn-infested fields of this wicked world.

C. M. S.