Religious Declension of these Days by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 10, 1874

Religious Declension of these Days.

By Uriah Smith

(Concluded.)

If the church is the salt of the earth and the light of the world, as our Saviour declares, a rejection of truth on the part of the church, and a low standard of piety in religious denominations, would inevitably aggravate those evils which find their natural home in the unregenerate heart, and flourish in worldly circles. Hence the way is prepared for the fulfillment of Paul's words to Timothy, that in the last days evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.

Corroborative of the position taken in these articles, we find a general acknowledgment, all over the land, of the unparalleled degeneracy of our times. Testimony on this point might be multiplied to almost any extent. We give only a few from more prominent persons and journals, which may be taken as representatives of the whole. Isaiah speaks of a time coming when “judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isa. 59 : 14. Is not that time already here? Of the New York judiciary, Henry Ward Beecher speaks in the following scathing terms:—

“All the framework of society seems to be dissolving. On every side we find men false to the most important trusts. Even the judges on the bench are bought and sold like meat in the shambles. One must go into court with a long purse to obtain justice. The judiciary of New York stinks like Sodom and Gomorrah. Men say they hardly know a court in which to trust a case. It is no longer an honor to sit on the bench; for if the judge be an upright man, his character will be contaminated by the great majority of his associates.”

Says the Christian Herald:—

“It is a fact that about in the same ratio that the cause of experimental religion declines, immorality and vice increase.”

The Philadelphia Times says:—

“Honesty has fled from the world, and sincerity has fallen asleep. Piety has hidden herself, and justice cannot find the way. The helper is not at home, and charity lies sick. Benevolence is under arrest, and faith is nearly extinguished. The virtues go a begging, and truth has long since been buried. Credit is turned lazy, and conscience is pinned to the wall.”

Says the Hornellsville Times:—

“The records of the past have never presented a more fearful and corrupt state of society than now exists throughout most parts of the United States. The newspapers from every quarter are becoming more and more loaded with the records of crime.”

The North American says:—

“From the terrible evidences of human depravity which develop themselves from day to day, we begin to think that our cities are rapidly descending to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

The New York Herald says:—

“Crimes of all descriptions are on the increase, especially those of the blackest dye, the increase being much greater than the proportionate increase of population.”

Says the Expositor, a political paper:—

“Crimes, unprecedented in number and unequaled in atrocity, fill every section of our country with horrors, exhibiting a hardened barbarity, in their details, only to be exceeded in the bosom of demons,” &c.

Says the Scientific American:—

“It is admitted by all parties that crimes of the most outrageous and unprecedented character abound throughout the country, and probably throughout the world, to a degree wholly unparalleled.”

Says the New York Tribune:—

“The telegraph wires bend under their weight of woe; the old earth quivers with throbs of agony from the center to the pole; cities are shaken down, countries are engulfed, fair domains are overflowed with red-hot lava; wife is arrayed against husband, mother against child, son against father; a hecatomb is sacrificed on one railway, half as many on another, and on still another the width of a hair stands between a thousand and sudden death. In social life, our newspapers are smutched all over with reports of divorce and separation trials, of infidelity and disgrace, of gigantic crimes undertaken, half accomplished, or completed. What shall be the end of these things?”

The Christian Inquirer says:—

“Such an intense and insane rush and struggle for wealth, such reckless, ruinous extravagance of expenditure, such a delirium for vulgar display, this country has never seen. And alas! not only taste, refinement, purity, and piety, have gone down before the tide, but even honesty, &c. Every vice has increased in an alarming degree. Intemperance—not only are our streets and public places full of it—not only do young men and old men and mere boys fall before it by scores and hundreds, but even women, beautiful, accomplished, beloved wives and daughters, carry its fire-blush on their cheeks, and reel and totter under its influence on the sidewalks. There are more gaming places in the city to-day than there were dry goods stores twenty years ago; and the gamblers include all classes, from the boy of fifteen to the roue of fifty. But why enumerate? Every vice on the black catalogue of transgression has more than doubled in volume and in victims within these five years, and our youth, the pride and hope of our land, are falling beneath the subtler destroyer faster than ever they fell in Southern campaign.”

Says Dr. Griffon:—

“The world! the world! the world! This is the object which engrosses every care; this is the supreme deity that is adored. Buy and sell, and get gain—out with the thoughts of death—away with the Judgment and Heaven—my farms, my merchandise; I will have them, though the earth trembles under my feet, and Heaven weeps blood upon my head.”

As it was in the days of Noah, when general unbelief prevailed, and the earth was filled with violence; and as in the days of Lot, when men and women gave themselves up to the most brutal instincts, and bought and sold, and planted and builded, and labored to see who could plunge most deeply and recklessly into the spirit and follies of this world, so, said Christ, it should be in the days when the Son of man should appear in judgment and glory. Men will freely testify that every outline of the picture is fulfilled, but they overlook the fact that these things indicate beyond dispute the rapid approach of the end of all things; and they fail to make their peace with the Son of God, that they may be ready for his coming. U. S.