Increase of Corruption and Crime by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 26, 1870

Increase of Corruption and Crime.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

As a prominent sign of the last days, the word of God often speaks of the great prevalence and increase of wickedness. 2 Tim. 3; Matt. 24: 37; 2 Thess. 2: 7–10, &c. So prominent a feature of the times is this becoming, that many honest and thinking men are alarmed at it, and cry out, “What shall be done?” After stating the sad facts in the case, the Cincinnati Times exclaims:

“What can be done, we know not. We have for years exhorted to the same effect, but the response comes up, “Who cares?”

“Perhaps there is no other remedy than to let things rush on till they dissolve in their own corruption.”

This is a sad end to hope for, but is what will certainly come. In the same strain The Methodist says:

“The truth is, we are alarmed for the country. All the great centers of public life seem to be not merely decaying, but rapidly rotting. We hear of extensive frauds in the Custom-House; of division of spoils on a mammoth scale in the New-York city government, shameless in the face of detection and exposure; of the outright buying up of legislatures by great corporations; of combinations in Wall street, by which a single immoral firm pockets all the gold in the market, and shakes the whole nation to its center; and of courts and judges that seem to hire themselves as attorneys, and some of whom are said to be kept by the great land pirates as a gentleman keeps his coachman, or even as a hunter keeps his dog. The picture is frightful, but seems to be true—at least, it is served up almost every day in the newspapers as matter of fact.”

The Phrenological Journal takes up the alarm, and, in an article headed, “Our Government; Who have we for our Legislators?” tries to arouse its readers thus:

“It becomes honest men and patriots, men who love their country, to take a serious look at the present aspect of affairs. Prudent men are inquiring, ‘What are we coming to?’ Who are making our laws? And who are perverting them? Are we as a nation, ‘on the road to ruin?’ or are we still rising? Is justice to reign in our courts? or are our jury trials a farce?”

“Of late, some very bad men have been elected to very responsible offices. We find notorious drunkards sitting in our courts as judges; notorious gamblers elected to our State legislatures, and even to our national Congress! Some of our State officers are thieves and robbers. Assassins go unwhipped of justice. Rowdies and vagabonds perpetrate crime with impunity, looking to corrupt or lenient judges and to political influence to screen them from punishment.”

“If the evils pointed out be not stopped ere long, our great republic will break down and become worse than a monarchy, or worse than semi-barbarous Mexico, or bull fighting Spain, or priest-ridden and poverty-stricken Italy and Ireland.”

Here is a picture of our own boasted country as it is to-day. When men of the world become alarmed at its own corruption, is it not time for the church of Christ to awake and cry aloud? May the Lord come soon and save his people.

D. M. CANRIGHT.