The statement of the apostle Paul concerning the passing of the years in the Christian era is that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” In the same chapter he names eighteen different sins among those who have a form of godliness, but deny its power. (See 2 Timothy 3.) The days just prior to His second coming Jesus likens to the days of Noah, when the ark was building (Matt. 24:37-39); and the inspired record of those days is that “the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11). To demonstrate the truth of all this in these days needs only the news and comments of the optimistic daily press. Column after column is filled with record of crime and scandal. Page after page is spotted with the evil, violent doings of men educated in modern schools, and in Christian churches and Sunday-schools, reared in homes surrounded by all the refinements of civilization. For instance, the Tribune, of this city, has for its leading editorial, in the last number which came to us, an article entitled, “A Carnival of Crime,” in which it says:— Within a week three murders have been committed in different parts of California by highwaymen in the act of making “hold-ups.” This is a bloody record, and one that reflects sorely on the good name of the State. It is an axiom with economists and criminologists that crime flourishes and increases with decline of prosperity—that hard times produce crime, and that in good times crime is less frequent. Alas the theory, the epidemic of murder and robbery that is sweeping over California is contemporaneous with marked prosperity. Conditions generally are exceedingly prosperous. Wages are good, work plenty, and hours short. Yet every city of the State is infested with bold bands of footpads, burglars, and thieves, while the mountain highways are beset with robbers. Possibly many of these criminals are recent arrivals from the East, but some of the recent murders indicate the prentice hand. Taking the view, from the surrounding circumstances, that many of the recent crimes have been committed by young men inexperienced in crime, one is moved to inquire why the criminal ranks should be reinforced by the youth of the country, at a time when poverty can not be the incentive. Has the intoxication of a material age made drunk and desperate the young to an extent that they can no longer wait for honest effort to make its gainful return? A madness of greed seems to be upon the country. A passion for display and extravagance has flamed up, and created a lust for quickly-gained wealth. This passion is corrupting womanhood and manhood. Virtue and honesty are giving way before it, and the records of the divorce court tell the story of the downfall of the one, while the annals of crime relate destruction of the latter. We are living too fast—living too loud and luxuriously, and the murders in pursuit of robbery are but incident to sexual demoralization and other vices peculiar to an age given over to license and materiality. This is a sad and discordant note in the jubilant “Easter” anthems; but who can say that it is not a true picture of conditions as they are. In the same paper, referring to a recent trial in the East involving murder, suicide, and divorce, all the parties to which are educated and wealthy, the editor calls it “a quagmire of filth,” “redolent of a society that has forgotten what virtue in women and honor in men mean, a society that is fair outside, but is cankered and corrupt at the core.” The school policy of France has been reiterated and emphasized by the government. The vote in the Chamber of Deputies on the 19th ult., says a press despatch, “gives definite form to the present policy of the government to terminate the existence of the religious-teaching orders, and to substitute a system of government schools. The principle of this change was formulated under the premiership of M. Waldeck-Rousseau, but its actual enforcement was left to the present Combes ministry. The law is very brief and negative in its terms, simply refusing authorization to teach to all the male religious-teaching orders. The effect of this is to place the orders outside the pale of the law, and their further existence is through sufferance. There remains to be determined the time the orders will be allowed to wind up their affairs, and terminate their work. Many of the orders, anticipating the Chamber vote of yesterday, have already completed their plans to retire from the field. It is expected that a few months will almost suffice to execute the changes. Numerous incidental questions are involved in the transference of the pupils and the effect on the extensive properties, and notices of several interpellations have been given, with the view of securing delay, permitting an adjustment of the new conditions. The statements of M. Combes and other ministerialists, however, indicate the prompt carrying out of the premier’s policy. The premier argued that the suppression of the congregations was not a suppression of the liberty of teaching. The State had the right to regulate public instruction, to look into its character, and forbid the teaching of doctrines contrary to republican principles. This was what the State was doing, and the country had encouraged the government’s policy in all the recent elections which had resulted in favor of a republican policy.”