LAWLESSNESS IN CHRISTIANITY.
The Lord designed that the church should be composed of just such persons as are described in the preceding article. His church is composed of such. Thus standing for loyalty to God, thus representing Jesus Christ, the church is “the ‘light of the world,’” leading it from the darkness of sin’s bondage to the light and freedom of obedience to the law of God’s righteousness and life. Such a church would ever stand for obedience to God, and due honor to all earthly government. Thus standing for loyalty to God, the church would be truly “the salt of the earth,”—its preserving power to keep it from corruption, to stimulate action to better, nobler deeds, to loyalty to law and government. But when the light of the world is darkened, the world must go still farther astray. When the salt of the earth has lost its savor, wherewith can it be salted, or what preserving power has it in the world? The world receives no benefit from the church, and rapidly tends to corruption and collapse. And this is just what is taking place now. This nation is called “Christian” because a goodly part of its population are professed Christians and church-members. Yet how many there are among them, professed ministers of Christ, too, who are openly teaching that the Decalogue, God’s holy law, is abolished. They cast contempt upon it by calling it “Jewish.” They tell us that it is “repealed,” “done away,” “changed,” “of no effect;” just as if the moral law of the unchangeable God could change! This teaching has permeated the church. It has affected men in the world who are looking to the church for moral instruction. It is having its effect. Dishonesty is manifest in all the businesses of life, and is growing. Defalcations, embezzlements, peculations, jobbery, and thieving and swindling of all sorts are reported from all the large municipal and State governments of the land. Human property rights are little regarded. Human virtue and purity are lightly regarded, if one is not found out. And human life is considered of little account. Lawlessness is everywhere rampant. Think of “Christian America.” Of the eighteen assassinations and attempted assassinations of rulers, statesmen, etc., during the last thirty-six years, three of these occurred in America. No other country shows such a record. Of the last seven presidents, chosen as presidents by the people of this country, three have died by the assassin! Mob law is but another form of anarchy or lawlessness. It is the rejection of law and lawful procedure, and the enthronement in its place of the hungry human passions of unregenerate humanity. How rapidly has this increased of late years. In the short space of twenty years 3,130 lynchings have taken place in this country at the behest of mob law. When Sam Hose was burned at the stake two years ago, a thrill of horror shocked the whole country. It was repudiated north and south, east and west. But in the month of August alone, 1901, there were four burnings at the stake, and how faint and feeble the protests as compared with those at the first occurrence of the kind two years ago. How people have shuddered as they have read of the horrible burnings of captives by the Indians, or other barbarous people; but now “Christian” civilization is reeking with the same horrible deeds. Even the communities where these fearful fruits of mad, blind passion are manifest, preserve, as mementoes and souvenirs, pieces of the garments, etc., of the victim. These horrible crimes of lynch law act as no deterrent of crime. The Nashville American truly says:— The mob spirit thrives through suggestion. Lawlessness feeds on lawlessness. Formerly the multitude was satisfied to hang its victim. When the Texas mob burned a negro, it was a shock to the country. The world regarded it with horror. But as crime becomes familiar, its repulsiveness grows less. The first burning of a victim by a mob suggests the crime to others, and it has been repeated so often that it has ceased to be more shocking to the benumbed public mind than an ordinary hanging formerly was. It has grown to be the common method of the mob. It will grow more and more common, and on smaller provocation, until some more fiendish and brutalizing method is resorted to.
The enlightened mind can not fail to realize that such crimes can not be committed without injury to those who commit them. The fire may consume the victim, but the crime leaves black scars on the living which do not heal. There is a penalty for all this which we shall not escape. The thoughtful must shudder as they contemplate this downward drift. Where will it end?
The sad thing of it all is that Christians professedly are found to uphold mob law, and even advise it, as in the case of the wretched assassin of the dead president. But it is all lawlessness, whether in the band of anarchists or in the mad, unthinking mob. It is lack of faith in Christ Jesus, disregard for God’s law, utter repudiation of human law and government. What does it mean? Increasing lawlessness and Christian apathy are signs of the coming end. “But know this, that in the last days grievous [perilous] times shall come; for men shall be lovers of ‘self, . . . implacable, . . . without self-control, fierce, . . . traitors, headstrong, . . . ‘holding a form of godliness, but having denied the ‘power thereof.’ 2 Tim. 3:1-5. “And because ‘iniquity [lawlessness] shall be multiplied, the love ‘of the many shall wax cold. But he that endureth ‘to the end, the same shall be saved.” Christ is coming. Get ready for Him.