THE SHADOW OF THE DARK AGES.
By L. A. S.
THE rapid spread of the spirit of lawlessness in this country within recent years is doubtless but slightly realized by the vast majority of the American people, but few of whom have opportunity to observe, individually, more than a minute fraction of that which constitutes the evidence on this subject. Here are some statements made by Booker T. Washington, in an article covering the first page of the Sunday School Times of November 2, which are worthy of note:— “The average citizen may not appreciate the fact that a lynching has taken place within the last twenty years within every one of our States except five.” “During the exciting days following the shooting of the late President McKinley, it was my privilege to mingle a good deal with the people in one of our Western States, and almost every other man who referred to the crime expressed himself as being in favor of burning, or the execution without trial, of Czolgosz. As I listened to these expressions day after day, it convinced me, as never before, that a spirit of lawlessness has got a hold upon the whole country that few of us realize.” Years ago Seventh-day Adventists were told that “a new power is springing up from beneath, and taking fast hold of all Satan’s agencies,” of which fact a marked increase in lawlessness would be the natural indication. In this, as in other important matters, they were privileged to have the truth years in advance of other people. But do Seventh-day Adventists realize even now, as this observer does, the abnormal nature of the times we have now reached? Truly we, who have so long been told what these things mean, should not be behind any others in knowing that these things are so. “Perhaps the most demoralizing and hurtful result of mob violence,” Mr. Washington says, “is the hardening effect which it has upon our youth. . . . One of the saddest remarks that I ever heard come from the lips of a child was when he said, in my presence, that he wished he could see a man burned.” This observer computes that “on an average fifty persons witnessed the execution” of every person lynched in this country, of which witnesses many were youth of tender age. Do we ever stop to realize that while many years, historically, separate the world to-day from the Dark Ages, we are separated from them, educationally, by but a single generation? in other words, that the rising generation, educated as were the youth in those savage times, would bring the Dark Ages again as soon as they reached maturity. And just that education, in many places, is now being given. But the hope of the world is the coming of the Son of man. * L. A. S.