INCREASE OF CRIME

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 12, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 11.

INCREASE OF CRIME.

We need not say that crime is increasing; every one who reads the newspapers knows it. A thoughtful article in the Wave of February 29 opens thus:—

“The tendency towards crime seems of late to have received a mysterious quickening into action. When the perpetrators of evil deeds often go undetected, and, in any case, the deeds multiply, thoughtful men begin to study the situation, to wonder at it, but they can not explain it. Whence comes the sudden impetus to violence and crime? It can not be ascribed to any sudden change in social conditions, to any unparalleled laxness on the part of the police. Yet the hand of the law seems often powerless. Ready to grasp an offender, the offender slips away in the darkness, and the old belief that murder will out is no longer accepted as a truism.

“A casual glance at the daily press shows that elsewhere murder in its most brutal form is alarmingly prevalent, but there is no necessity for looking away from home.”

After referring to some of the more brutal, revolting, and mysterious crimes of San Francisco, committed within the last years, the Wave concludes:—

“Police activity may do something to lessen the prevalence of crime, but it can not dam the flood of it. Courts can do something, but in the place of the criminal they punish two criminals spring up. The suppression of the criminal is not a mere matter of punishing him. In the light of the apparent fact that the world is growing worse, it stretches into a broad and deep economic and social problem.”

But in the light of God’s word all this “mysterious quickening” of the “tendency towards crime” is explained. May we suggest one of the great causes?

According to the prophecies of the word of God and the facts of history, the law of God, which has been changed and trampled underfoot during the Dark Ages, is to be restored. Prophecy predicts the reform, in Rev. 14: 6-14, and in other places. But the sad fact is that a great multitude of professed Christian ministers not only trample on the law, but justify its transgression. They tell us that the law which Christ kept, which was inwrought in his character, which was his character in words, is “Jewish,” abolished, changed, subject to man’s whim. The very precept which reveals who the Author of the law is has been set aside, and in the place of the day which God set apart has been placed one of pagan origin. But the pago-papal substitute has been adopted and fostered; men are taught that God’s law may be changed at will by men, set aside, disregarded in one of its vital points; and the mass of men have come to the conclusion that if so in one respect it is so in all. The murder, the theft, the blasphemy, are the legitimate fruits of the attitude of the professed ministers of Christ respecting God’s law, the law which Christ kept. Read Ps. 50: 16-21; Eze. 22: 23-31. “Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall fall therein.” Hosea 14: 9. “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” 2 Tim. 3: 13.