Prevalence of Crime

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 6, 1870

Prevalence of Crime.

Had newspapers been published in the days before the flood, of which holy Scripture says, “The earth was filled with violence,” they could scarcely have contained a more appalling list of crimes than do now the columns of our daily journals. The eye everywhere meets reports of thefts, robberies, homicides, suicides, and murders, to say nothing of adultery, rape, and incest. These crimes are not confined to any section of the country, nor to any one class of people. They are, in proportion to the population, as frequent in the rural districts as in the large cities, and the educated and the wealthy furnish their full share of criminals.

It is sometimes said that crime is not really increasing, but that now, through the newspapers, all is gathered up and thus brought to our notice. Making all due allowance for this increased publicity, we cannot regard the explanation as satisfactory. Had we statistics accurately kept, this might determine the matter; but without them we must rely on those general impressions which find utterance through the public press, and from these we infer that at no time in this land has wickedness of every kind so abounded as now, and certainly never has it taken more bold and atrocious forms.

But it is not with the question of comparative amount that we are now interested. The fact we wish to notice is that these crimes so abound in Christian communities, in a country filled with churches, among a people educated in the principles of Christian morality, and having the Bible in almost every dwelling. That heathendom should be filled with violence ought not perhaps to surprise us. When men worship idols, we may not look for any higher standard of morality, or any strict control over lusts and passions. Always, in heathenism, human life has been held of little account. But in Christendom is worshiped the one holy God; in his laws human life is made most sacred, exact justice and love to all are solemnly inculcated, and in his Son, made flesh, we have a perfect example. How, then, is it that Christendom is as full, perhaps more full, of grievous wickedness than heathendom? Can there be found in any part of the earth, even in the most savage wilds of Africa, or the South Seas, crimes more abhorrent to God and to man than are daily committed in the great Christian capitals of the world? Has Pekin, has Jeddo, like New York, seen the corpses of 600 murdered men in her streets within the past dozen years?

What does this teach us? Has the salt lost its savor? Is Christianity a dead doctrine, embalmed in the creeds and powerless in the life? Is it losing its control over society, and becoming unable to bring, as at the first, fierce and lawless men under the rule of its pure and peaceful principles?

We will not stop to answer these questions, but the facts before us may not be put out of sight. Christendom to-day is full of violence. The blood of His children, poured out by the hand of the murderer, crieth unto God from almost every village. Legislation does what it can, and the courts do what they can, but with little effect. Fear of the law and its penalty seems to have passed away. It is this growing indifference to the threatenings of the law and its severest punishments, that presents the most significant and dangerous symptom. If the State cannot protect the lives of its citizens, a terrible abyss is yawning before us. Already multitudes of people keep loaded pistols in their houses, or carry them on their persons and sleep with them under their pillows. It is a poignant sign, if we read it aright, of a decaying State, of a State whose moral power is gone, and whose most imperative commands cannot enforce obedience, but need to be carried into effect by the armed hand of the individual citizen.

Every now and then we hear a cry of alarm, and a spasmodic effort is made to check the evil, and there are loud calls for good and just government. But good and just government is not a thing to be called for at pleasure, like a garment to be worn one day and thrown aside the next. It is the product of the natural life, and can be great and vigorous only when the moral force of a people is healthy and strong. What we now want is not increased severity of legislation, but that pure source of might and energy that will not confound them, and which calls crime crime, and guilt guilt. When a community believes that murder ought to be punished because it is murder, then will human life begin to be safe. Christianity carried out on its principles of justice, as well as of love, would make real the picture of the age when every man shall dwell in peace, with none to molest or make him afraid.

But these rose-water interpretations of Christianity, which throw out the element of justice, and make sin an imperfection, and crime a misfortune, are fast turning Christendom into the likeness of the world before the flood.—The Churchman.