A Natural Question and a Singular Answer.
By Uriah Smith
In a column headed “Questions and Answers” in the Christian Union, of Sept. 13, 1871, we find the following:— Is this continent or our country anywhere referred to in the Bible? Not that we know of. A very good description of “Young America,” restless, dashing, and progressive, may be had from Paul’s pen:— “In the last days perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves; covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy; without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good; traitors, heady, high-minded; lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”
It is very natural that the question should suggest itself to many minds whether or not our country, occupying so important and prominent a place in the world’s history, is a subject of prophecy. But it seems a little strange that the language of Paul in 2 Tim. 3: 1–5 should be taken as descriptive thereof. This application, if seriously made, is an acknowledgement that Paul’s prediction is fulfilled in our own day and our own land. Yet the Union would not doubtless wish any one to understand that we are now in the last days. Another feature of the extract is worthy of note, and that is the easy, smooth-it-away manner in which the Union speaks of this state of things. The picture Paul draws, if carefully considered, will be seen to be a fearful one; but how does this paper speak of it? Oh! as nothing very bad, only “restless, dashing, and progressive.” Nothing very bad in being restless, dashing, and progressive, as the world estimates moral worth; and if this is the estimate put upon the character Paul describes, it is no wonder if the masses readily come to assume that character. The most effectual way to cause sin to spread, is to destroy in the minds of the people the conviction that it is evil. We wonder in what direction the Union would consider a man “progressing,” when guilty of the sins which Paul enumerates? U. S.