PERVERTING GOD'S PURPOSE.
By G.
THE power of invention is God-given. The Lord gave special wisdom to the men who constructed the tabernacle in the wilderness (Ex. 31: 1-11; 35: 30-35), also to the builders of the temple (1 Kings 7: 13-51). And He gave His people skill in agricultural work (Isa. 28: 23-29). There never has been an invention the principle of which was new to the Lord. The past century, and especially the last half of the century, has been prolific of invention; but the Lord could have revealed the principles involved thousands of years before just as well, had it been within His purpose. All the wisdom that God has given to men has been for the benefit of the masses, and for the furtherance of His cause. But that which has been imparted, especially in scientific and mechanical lines, has been perverted to selfish purposes to a great extent, and turned from the object of the Giver. The Lord has all the time known this tendency of the natural man, and withheld much inventive skill until the last days,—for the time of which He says that “He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness; because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.” Rom. 9: 28. The spirit of invention which has brought forth the modern facilities for travel and quick communication with all parts of the earth, together with machinery for the production of literature containing the Gospel of salvation, and the manufacturing of appliances for a quick work, was given to men for a specific purpose, for finishing the Gospel work. But while these things are being utilized to a limited extent in the Lord's work, they are to a far greater extent being turned to serve the selfish purposes of covetous man. Not only are the special inventions that are essential to the dissemination of truth thus perverted, but the inventive genius with which the Creator has entrusted fallen man has been used in creating engines of destruction and apparatus whose only purpose is evil. Another point is, that the much-boasted labor-saving machinery is doing its work to such an extent that thousands of poor people who have been reared to wage-working are thrown out of employment. All the mechanical and most of the agricultural industries are conducted by machinery which helps only those who have means to own them, and the comparatively few who are fortunate enough to get the ever-lessening employment of operating them. The results of the selfish perversion of God's blessings to the personal use of the few who have the cunning and the disposition to monopolize them, is illustrated in the following summary taken from an exchange:— Distress of Nations with Perplexity.
Mr. Gladstone said; but a few years ago, that “the productive capacity of the world doubled every seven years, but population does not double in four times seven years, and our consumptive capacity does not more than double in twice seven years.” He estimated the machinery of England, worked to its capacity, as able to produce as much as 600,000,000 men, or half the adult population of the globe, could have done at the beginning of this century, with the tools and machinery of that time. The productive capacity of the machines of Massachusetts is estimated as equivalent to the productive capacity of 50,000,000 workmen sixty years ago. The labor-saving machinery in the shoe industry, employing 215,000 operatives, men, women, and children, will produce as much as 2,500,000 men working by hand. In the steel industry, three men now turn out as many steel billets as 115 men did in 1892. In boiler making, thirty men do the work of 500 but a few years ago. The new type-setting machine threw 15,000 printers out of employment in five years. A modern spinning machine can be handled by a child, and will turn out more and better work than 45,000 spinning wheels, such as our grandmothers used to make cloth with. One boy now attends enough stocking-knitting machines to turn out 5,000 pairs a week. The pneumatic atomizer enables one unskilled laborer to paint more freight cars than can fifteen skilled hands. Twenty-four out of twenty-five men have been displaced in the manufacture of musical instruments. The new machinery for handling coal from piers to vessels does what it formerly required thousands of men to do, and the steam-shovel mines and loads ore for a few cents which was formerly handled at an average cost of one dollar per ton. With the new diamond-match machines 300 girls can turn out as many matches as 8,000 workmen by former methods. From 1856 to 1861, 146,000 embroidery workers were displaced by machinery in Ireland and Scotland, and in 1856 the power loom took the bread from 250,000 hand workers in Flanders. To-day one man and two boys can spin as much cotton as 1,100 could do in 1800, and one weaver can do as much now as fifty-four could seventy-five years ago. One man with one nail machine does the work of 1,000 by hand; eighty-five per cent. of the hand labor has been displaced in the manufacture of watches. In 1891, 2,739,743 tons of coal were mined by the use of machinery; in 1896, 12,553,522 tons. One boy now does the work of eighty men with a machine for making tin cans. These facts show that the more men in their unregenerate condition are entrusted with the blessings of God, the more selfish they become, and the blessings become curses to the masses. Thus we know that the development of invention, the increase of knowledge in our time, is given of God for a special quick work, to be accomplished before men can utterly destroy one another through the perversion of His abundant blessings. Surely “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” G.