PREPARING STRIFE by S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 2, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 40.

PREPARING STRIFE.

By S.

THE growing spirit of disregard for law was forcibly illustrated recently in Fort Scott, Kansas, where a mass-meeting of property-owners was held to consider what action should be taken against a minister who had been very active in working for the enforcement of the State prohibitory law. As a result of this meeting the minister was served with a notice that he must leave town, and a committee of fifty was appointed “to see that the resolution ‘was executed.’” The report does not indicate how the “committee” proposed to deal with the offending minister in case their demand upon him went unheeded; but it is safe to conclude that the course of procedure which they contemplated was as unlawful as their demand was unjust. The spirit manifested in this is the same spirit that rules in the mob and the lynching bee, even tho the mass-meeting and its “committee” were composed of “property-owners.”

Thus is growing on every side that spirit of restlessness under lawful restraint which marks these as the closing days of earth’s history. It is the spirit of self-serving which will brook no interference with its purpose, unlawful tho it be. Day after day—and sometimes every day—the press brings the ghastly details of midnight executions, by fire or hanging, of those who have or who are believed to have committed some heinous crime. The law is trampled upon by the mob that the individual who disregarded law may pay the penalty for breaking it. Paradoxical as it may seem, such terrible occurrences go on with increasing frequency. The vengeance of the lyncher seems only to add fuel to the flame of wickedness that is burning in the breasts of the lawless. In fact, lynching itself is one of the most effective educators in crime. In the dark chambers of its tribunal men learn to look lightly on the value of human life; they learn to take life; and thus are they and their children given that preparation which will enable them to lift, unflinchingly, a murderous weapon against another when anger rules the brain.

In the midst of this terrible schooling, Anarchy—the repudiation of all law—is industriously propagating its principles in this as well as every other civilized country. Hounded to the earth by the secret service of the Old World, the devotees of Anarchy are planting their working colonies in the New; and the silk spinners from Italy are plotting the death of the rulers of the Old World, while watching their bobbins and spindles in the silk factories of the New. The Anarchist has carried disrespect for law to its ultimate; the lyncher’s disregard is specific and for the occasion at hand; but it tends in the same direction. The one disregards law in toto; the other disregards that which he does not choose to obey, whatever that may be; and the farther he gets from God, the more laws will he find that interfere with his purpose, and therefore the more laws will he find for which he has no regard, until all law is obnoxious.

Thus is strife in process of preparation for the days that are just before us, when “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse;” when “men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good.” 2 Tim. 3: 2, 3. That time is now, and these are the terrible characteristics of these days, as Inspiration has foretold. The apostle declares that these are the characteristics of the last days; for he says (verse 1), “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” They have come, and the peril is increasing and will continue to increase, and the cause of the increase is seen in these things that are preparing strife in and for the last days. S.