Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 29, 1906

SOME men who have not been officially appointed as watchmen on the walls of Zion are able to see the sword coming, and are sounding a note of warning. If the eyes of others were not blinded by a creed which requires them to believe that the world is growing better, they would have no difficulty in seeing the real situation. The peril and the need of the present hour in this country are clearly stated in the following extract from an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, a leading financial paper of New York City:—

What America needs more than railway extension, and Western irrigation, and a low tariff, and a bigger wheat crop, and a merchant marine, and a new navy, is a revival of piety, the kind mother and father used to have—piety that counted it good business to stop for daily family prayer before breakfast, right in the middle of harvest; that quit field work a half-hour earlier Thursday night, so as to get the chores done and go to prayer-meeting; that borrowed money to pay the preacher's salary, and prayed fervently in secret for the salvation of the rich man who looked with scorn on such unbusinesslike behavior. That's what we need now to clean this country of the filth; of graft, and of greed, petty and big; of worship of fine houses and big lands and high office and grand social functions. What is this thing which we are worshiping but a vain repetition of what decayed nations fell down and worshiped just before their light went out? Read the history of Rome in decay, and you'll find luxury there that could lay a big dollar over our little doughnut that looks so large to us. Great wealth never made a nation substantial nor honorable. There is nothing on earth that looks good that is so dangerous for a man or a nation to handle as quick, easy, big money. If you do resist its deadly influence, the chances are that it will get your son. It takes greater and finer heroism to dare to be poor in America than to charge an earthworks in Manchuria.

The spirit of the gospel is the spirit of sacrifice. Luxury and sacrifice do not agree together. Easy money means self-indulgence, and luxury and self-indulgence bring a long train of evils. A revival or ruin are the two alternatives which face this country.