How Is It Leading?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 28, 1903

How Is It Leading?

How Is It Leading?—A writer in the Baltimore American thinks that 1903 will be a bad year for the pessimist, because of its prosperity, its brotherhood, its charity, etc. For the matter of that, every year is bad for the pessimist, who sees nothing good in anything. But on the other hand it is foolish to close one's eyes to facts, full of vital importance to the race, to dangers which lurk to destroy, to tendencies which lure to everlasting destruction. We thank God for all the charity and the brotherhood in the world. But there are dangers, dangers which this very writer points out, for fear his prophecy may not prove true. Among these are rivalry in social extravagances, looseness in marriage and divorce matters, and the wrong life that many are leading in the constant separation of families. He quotes the prophecy, “a little child shall lead them,” and applies it to this young nation in leading the world. Not to argue over the application, How is this nation leading the world? Religiously America is leading the world from the powerful simple worship of the past, to the powerless medieval ceremonialism of the present. Socially she is leading the world in a mad scramble for wealth and tyrannous trust spoliation. Politically, she is leading the world back to the Church-and-State union of the Dark Ages. These are sad facts. Would God they were otherwise.