A SAD, BUT TRUE PICTURE by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 30, 1876

A SAD, BUT TRUE PICTURE.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

The Chicago Tribune of Oct. 7, 1875, in referring to a certain terrible crime which had just then been committed, makes these sober and sad reflections:—

“It is a sickening task to write of these details or to comment upon them, and, if the murderer is apprehended, death would be a light punishment for the offense. If ever a case called for vengeance by slow and horrible torture, it is this one. It almost leads one to lose faith in humanity, and to believe in the theory that has been advanced by some philosophers, that there are men who are brutish beasts, having no instincts but those of the wolf and the tiger, and in whose breasts there is not a spark of humanity left. It almost induces one to believe in were-wolves and human vampyres who lived upon human bodies and blood, and roamed about in search of it like the brute beast. To comment upon the causes of this fearful epidemic of crime is hopeless and fruitless. It is a branch of moral philosophy without any valuable practical results. While we indulge in nice metaphysical analyses as to the causes of crime, the crime goes on increasing all over the country, and constantly developing both in quantity and in horror. Would it not be better, then, to cease questioning so curiously as to the cause, and see if we cannot find a remedy? Would it not be more practical for Christian men and women, especially those organized into charitable and religious societies, to concentrate their efforts to redeem humanity?”

“For instance, there is now in session in this city a large body of eager and devoted Christian workers, who year after year give of their money and time to the spread of Christianity in foreign lands. We would appeal to them seriously and earnestly, without any intention of belittling the work they are doing or of doubting its efficacy, whether the prevalence of corruption, the frightful increase of crime, the national and individual demoralization in our own country, are not more important and more imperative subjects for prayer and active work than the education of the Turks or the conversion of the Zulus. It is the despair of the situation that the churches cannot grapple with this great problem of the increase of crime. They can only care for those within their own folds, and sometimes find great difficulty in doing even that. Intemperance is the most common root of crime, and yet they cannot even grapple with this vice, not to mention any of the other vices. The circle of their influence never intersects the black tides of vice and crime which swirl and eddy through the alleys and by-ways of the great cities, and in the underground dens and haunts of the vile, where no ray of moral light ever penetrates.”

“With all due respect to the American Board of Foreign Missions, we would ask its members whether it is not worth their while to do something for personal purity, for honesty, for morality of life, and for religion at home. Is it not worth while to do something for the tens of thousands of waifs and estrays in our streets who, without home, friends, or guardians, are daily drifting into crime? Is it not worth while to do something to reclaim the tens of thousands now in penitentiaries, jails, and reformatory institutions? If this Board cannot grapple with the heathenism of Chicago, of New York, of Boston, of every great city, and of almost every town and village of our country, if the interests of the heathen of Turkey and Burmah are paramount to the interests of the heathen of the United States, then is there not room for the organization of another society upon a similar basis and with similar machinery for the spiritualizing of our own heathen? Are not the evils resulting every day from the demoralization of our heathen greater and more terrible than the evils growing out of the creeds of the Brahmin, the Lamaian, the Mohammedan, and the Israelite?”

Is it not astonishing that while the secular press can clearly see and lament the terrible state of society and the fearful increase of crime, the Lord’s professed watchmen see nothing of the kind? Their watchword is “Peace and safety; all’s well.” Alas! for the church when her watchmen are all either blind or asleep.

D. M. CANRIGHT.