A DARK PICTURE by C. M. S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 24, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 17.

A DARK PICTURE.

By C. M. S.

A CABLE direct from Berlin to the New York World speaks of the moral conditions in Germany in the following words:—

“In Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Aix-la-Chapelle trials are proceeding of a scandalous character, which throw a horrible light on the morality of the well-to-do classes in these places. The offense in all cases is the employment of girls under fourteen years of age for immoral purposes. The Cologne cases are particularly bad. Here quite a company of wealthy shop-keepers and merchants are implicated, and a number of arrests have been made. In Aix-la-Chapelle, it is stated that a highly placed official in the civil service has been arrested in connection with a similar case. It is the universal testimony of statisticians, pastors, and physicians, that sexual morality in Germany, in the country as well as in the large cities, has never been at so low an ebb as now.”

This is not published as being a pleasant item for those who chance to read it; for none but the gross and brutish can find pleasure in it; and none but such can fail to be struck with horror at the terrible revelation. And yet Germany does not alone offend. The daily press of America often reeks with just such revolting facts. What a record is continually being made by such cities as New York, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco with its polluted slave girls, London, and Paris; and were these all, the weight of the world’s woe would be a thousand times less than it is; but it is not all, it is not a thousandth part of the whole story. The old world is polluted to the core. The putrefying mass is nearly ready for the fires of the great day. Christ declares, “As it was in the days of Lot, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:28-30. We know how it was in the days of Lot, when the Lord destroyed the Sodomites in their wickedness; but every nation now is dotted with its Sodoms and Gomorrhas; every city and every nation is ripening for its overthrow, and every evil influence in the world is focusing to that point. The point is nearly reached, and the consummation will be soon and sudden.

C. M. S.