WHAT IS THE LESSON? by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 1, 1879

WHAT IS THE LESSON?

By Editor

ALMOST in the geographical center of what probably may truthfully be said to be the most favored, enlightened, and Christian nation on the earth, is a large, and, in some respects, flourishing city, the representative of the national growth and spirit. The nation we refer to is the United States, and the city is St. Louis.

If, now, the views of those who claim that the world is growing better, and that the era of moral perfection is about to dawn upon us, are logically founded upon passing events and the manifest results of existing influences, this city ought to be a model of Christian civilization, a city of saints, and a power whose influence should be felt through all the land against all works of darkness and evil.

If it is found not to be so, but, on the other hand, is an actual cesspool of iniquity itself, what face can any one have to assert that men are growing better, and that the influences now at work are about to accomplish the world's regeneration? When are the darker and less enlightened portions of the earth to be regenerated, if the favored cities of its most exalted lands, surrounded by the best influences now at work in the world, are themselves fast sinking to the lowest level of corruption and vice?

We therefore ask the reader's attention to a description of the real condition of the city we speak of, moral and otherwise, as given by one of its own papers, and request him to ponder the lesson it teaches. The St. Louis Dispatch thus says:—

“We have spoken of St. Louis as it is—a city without theaters, or hotels, or books, or music, or art, or monuments, or endowments, or parks, or gardens. It is notoriously, of all great cities, the dingiest and worst kept; it has fewer children at the schools, fewer voters at the polls, than any other large city in the Union. Yet there is something worse than the mere lack of culture in the mind, than mere lack of cleanliness in the streets, than mere lack of interest in great issues and vital questions; there is a blacker stain than the reproach of a single defaulter, a deeper disgrace than the cowardice of the tax-dodger; it is the curse of St. Louis to-day. The curse is that we are ruled by the alliance of whisky and gambling; and the corruption bred by these obnoxious influences permeates our whole local government and our local politics. For the rank and file of the voters, two thousand dram-shops open their seductive portals; for the leaders, the gamblers’ ring offers at once the means of achieving success and the substantial rewards which wait upon success achieved. The pollution of its bribery has silenced a servile press, has corrupted an obsequious police, has defiled the very judgment-seat of justice itself. The congenial alliance between the gambling hell and brothel, the convenient service of the pander and the capper, the coercion of the spy and the blackmailer—these have been the influences which have ruined St. Louis, mocking at honesty, insulting purity, defying decency—our burden, our shame, and our ruin.”