The Futility of Reforming Cities
San Francisco is starting another war against the evils on her “Barbary Coast”,—the name by which she designates her worst “red light” district. Much is promised in the reforms that are proposed. The dance halls are to be regulated, women are not to be allowed in certain resorts to solicit the sale of liquors among the patrons, and a lot of other things are to be done to “regulate” the evils that exist. We are coming to expect these periodical spasms in attempting reforms of the glaring evils that infect all our great cities. First one city and then another is widely advertised as having found a hero of reform that has taken hold of things—and the city will soon be cleaned up. At least its evils will soon be “regulated” so that things will be passably decent. But nowhere has the utopia of expectation and promise been realized. Our cities are reeking with corrupting vices and crimes, and there has been no means devised to stay the evil. Among the latest plans is to have the “federated churches” take hold of things, and great promise is held out from this quarter. But God has said that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,” and He furthermore declares that right at the end of time “the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” This old world is soon to go down beneath its weight of corruption and crime. It can not be “reformed” nor saved as a whole. The only thing we can do, is to raise the warning in no uncertain tones, and urge all that can be reached to hasten to escape from the impending destruction. God has provided a means of escape and safety, but it is not to be found in any of the political methods of reform that so many are leaning on. God provides now, as ever in the past, the all-powerful and the all-cleansing gospel. And those who seek through a knowledge of His Word for this citadel of power, will find a perfect shelter from the storm that will surely and quickly break upon the whole world.