AS IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF SODOM

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 12, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 31.

“AS IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF SODOM.”

As it was in the days of Sodom, or Lot, our Lord tells us, “thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:28-33. “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me; therefore I took them away as I saw good.” Eze. 16:49, 50. The idleness and fulness led to abominable licentiousness. This history is repeating to-day. Says Dr. Wilbur F. Crafts, in the Union Signal of July 15:—

“Impurity is increasing apace in all parts of the land.” This was the verdict of a recent convention of physicians, based on the awful evidence which comes to this profession in diseased men and ruined girls. The crowded divorce courts, and, yet more, the divorce lawyers, tell the same story. Mrs. Maud B. Booth, several years ago, on the basis of abundant information gathered by the Salvation Army, estimated that there were in this country 230,000 professional prostitutes. Adding the apprentices, there was even then a full quarter million, supported by more than a million male prostitutes. In this, as in other crimes, the offenders are not more than one-tenth women. They follow this awful trade but five years, on the average. That means 50,000 deaths a year, and 50,000 seductions to fill their places—1,000 a week. No other vice more swiftly and surely ruins body and soul, and none has been so fatal to national life. Babylon, Greece, Rome, all were destroyed by this plague, and France is dying of it to-day. In no other civilized nation is impurity so bold as in France, and in no other is the birth rate falling below the death rate, a warning to individuals and nations alike.”

And the only reformation which will cure the evil is the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, through consecrated and willing hearts. Civil law may cause a vice to hide, but it will not change the fountain. But grace will do it if the fallen are willing.