A VIGILANT COMMITTEE OF FIVE THOUSAND
It is reported that a vigilant committee of 5,000 is being formed in New York under the direction of Bishop Potter for the purpose of hunting out dens of vice and reporting them to a central committee that will apply means to have them closed up. Bishop Potter thinks that there ought to be a large committee in New York, similar to the committee of 25,000 in San Francisco. It is to be hoped that the bishop's committee of 5,000 will be more successful in New York than the committee in San Francisco has been; for, while the bishop was talking of this committee for New York and comparing it with the one in San Francisco, vice had become so flagrant in some quarters of this latter city that the mayor recommended that it be allowed to go on in the open, and that the city put a revenue tax upon it to keep it within certain bounds. This was suggested as a means of keeping from corrupting the police thru the bribes that this vicious element is continually giving them to avoid being arrested. Let the men of the world seek in any way they think best to reform the evils that are filling them with alarm, but the Christian, and above all the minister of Christ, should be so familiar with his Bible that he knows that we are very near the end of time, and that vice and crime will be so outbreaking on every side that it will fill the days with peril and the nights with dread for every one who is not under the protection of the heavenly Father. The thing for us as Christians to do is to point men to the shelter from the approaching evils, and tell them that there is no hope anywhere else. The furies of the coming storm may be held somewhat in check by these reform efforts of good men, but let it be known far and wide that the only thing to hope for is to lead as many individuals to Christ as possible, and in this way to save some. Every one who does not rest under the protection of the Almighty Father will be soon swept into the whirlpool of destruction.