p. 7 | THE GENERAL SITUATION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 27, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 43.

THE GENERAL SITUATION.

The general situation in the world to-day is anything but cheering. Our large cities are controlled by rings and cliques, not in the interest of the people, but for the sake of “boodle.” To a large extent the police are bribed to keep their official eyes closed so that they may not see the crimes that are being committed. Politicians keep themselves and their friends in office, and it is an open secret that they make free to loot the public treasury at their will.

And with the guardians of the law and public peace so grossly corrupted, is it any wonder that murders and robberies are of hourly occurrence? And is it any wonder that it is so difficult to apprehend and bring these criminals to justice? Why, our cities have become schools of crime. And no longer is the mature man the only pupil in this debasing study, but even little boys and girls are apt scholars, and soon become adepts in the evil arts.

It has been proved that officers of the law in some of our largest and most influential cities, are under regular pay from thieves and robbers, and instead of being on the alert to catch these villains, they do everything they can to assist in their escape. Even the house of prostitution is guarded by the police, and a stated sum is paid over each month to the city watchman, for his care and protection of these dens of vice. Is it any wonder, then, that some large cities have as many as 40,000 fallen women in them? And when a city has so many prostitute women who support themselves by their life of shame, who will venture the estimate of the thousands of fallen men who are polluting themselves in lust? The picture is surely not very pleasing.

Then we have the conflict between capital and labor. The laborers are combining and striking, on the one hand, and the capitalists are preparing to resist by combines and various other methods, on their part. There is a terrible crash just ahead of us between capital and labor. No human pen can trace the awful details of what will be manifested in that conflict. Inspiration says:—

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” James 5:1–3.

“Weep and howl,” says the Word of God, “for your miseries that shall come upon you.” And all men who persist in piling up wealth, in the face of the discontented spirit that is in the world to-day, are simply piling up “miseries” for themselves. The spirit that would loot and destroy houses and property is very wrong indeed, but fully as great is the evil of a comparatively few men getting control of the world’s wealth, and hoarding it up without any possibility of either needing it or using it, except it be in gratifying some personal whim or ambition. Wealthy men will not be able much longer to keep down or suppress the spirit that is rising against them. And when the crash does really come, it will be terrible. O, that men on both sides of this controversy would heed the Word of God, and be saved from the awful trouble into which they are violently rushing!

A spirit of lawlessness in general has taken possession of the world. This is being manifested in so many different ways. But especial mention should be made of the social disease called anarchy. If it has been true in the past that “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” it is more intensely true now. The high rulers of earth to-day can hardly make a journey without being closely followed by the Anarchist assassin, who is watching a chance to kill him. So great has this evil become that there is strong talk of the powers combining to crush these Anarchists out.

But the roots of the disease spread outside the ranks of openly-avowed Anarchists. That spirit of violence is the ruling spirit of the age. In the first place, men are prepared by the training of militarism to look upon human slaughter as being all right, if only done in the interest of what they consider a good cause. And it is only another step for large combines of men to espouse a cause at variance with the government, and begin wholesale destruction in its interests. And it is especially easy for them to do this when they are persuaded that their governments are corrupt and oppressive.

And there is another great underlying cause for all this spirit of anarchy. Much of the science (“falsely so called”) of this age has been insidiously working to undermine faith in the Bible, the great bulwark and standard of morals. The most pronounced types of Anarchists are fatalists, and have no fear of God before their eyes, while those afflicted with the milder forms of the social malady, look upon the Bible as simply a myth. And yet the Bible is all the time pointing out these evils of our age and telling what they signify.

But only a part of the distressing evils of this time have been mentioned. The war fever is another great malady that has spread all over the world. Every nation is involved in this military evil. The eastern portion of the world has been converted into one vast military camp. And now the direful craze has caught the Western Hemisphere, and the whole world is equipping and drilling for the last great battle.

And then here are the unsettled elements of nature. It would seem that earth and sea and air had joined in the discontent. One day we read of great hail-storms in Kansas. Then there are cyclones in New York, Canada, California, and so on. Great hurricanes sweep the West Indies; earthquakes are causing the solid land to tremble; and thus the whole earth, social, political, and physical, is in a regular boil.

All of these things have been seen in the past, but only in a very limited degree, and in places here and there. But now the evil has spread all over the world. Every locality is being permeated with it. And the earth will not be able to survive these conditions of crime, corruption, and pending revolution a great while longer.

If you have not fully cast off the Word of God, then turn to its sacred pages and read the meaning of all this. But if you have left the Bible out of your reckonings altogether, you are in fearful darkness. And this darkness will grow deeper and deeper. Turn to your only Source of help while the opportunity still lingers.