p. 8 | A DIREFUL YEAR

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 21, 1897

A DIREFUL YEAR.

WHILE a multitude of voices are singing of the coming millennium of universal peace and good-will among men, when the war drum will forever cease to beat, and the parliaments of the world shall know no more estimates for war preparations, the sad facts of every day show unmistakably that the prediction of peace, howsoever desirable it may be, is but a fanciful dream, a falsehood of the enemy. Hatred, murder, and wholesale murder—war—is yet in the hearts of men. There were in the United States alone

In 1894 9,800 murders.

In 1895 10,500 murders.

In 1896 10,652 murders.

All of which were known and reported by the Chicago Tribune, in the years named. How many never came to the public are not known. There were but 122 executions of criminals and 131 lynchings, many of them not for murder. In the city of San Francisco alone there were 43 murders during 1896, but not one execution. It would seem by the slow, legal, technical processes of law and decisions of courts that the whole system was devised to favor criminals and give respectability to crime, instead of the purpose of securing justice and protection to life.

Murder exists in the hearts of men; if not in particular

designs against persons, in the natural hatred of the human heart; for “whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” 1 John 3:15. The various forms of selfishness, ever leading to life-taking, are manifest in the envy and enmity which everywhere exist among rivals for place or profit, in the increasingly brutal athletic contests, in the desire for military glory in state and school and church, in the clamor for war by professed followers of Christ against those nations of earth which in greater degree and less polished way are ignoring the rights of humanity, and in many other ways.

In the days of Noah it was said that “the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” Gen. 6:11. How much does the earth lack of fulfilling these specifications? How long will it be ere the cup is filled?

What does this indicate?—Just this, in the words of Jesus: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man” (Luke 17:26); “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:37). These things are the signs of Christ’s coming to reign, when sinners will be destroyed with the sin they have chosen, and eternal righteousness shall reign forever more. Christ is coming, and this record of crime is one of the many precursors of his approach.