p. 16 | The Days of Sodom by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 12, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 49.

The Days of Sodom.

By Editor

The unspeakable and appalling revelations of vice in San Francisco recall the same thing a few years since in London. Then the world was shocked by the revelations of corruption made by the Pall-Mall Gazette. In San Francisco it seems to be even worse. Girls, children, mere infants, seduced, corrupted, debauched by gray-haired reprobates, and the corrupted ones paid to induce others to come to the dens of infamy. It is enough to send a thrill of shuddering horror through every mother who hears of it, and to make the blood of every true man boil with righteous indignation. We are glad that there is a God who knows all these things, and who will punish every man according to his deeds. So let it be. It is right that the civil law should take its course. It can only hope to restrain by punishing the evil doer, and protecting the innocent and weak. God will deal, as only he can, with the motive—the very blackness of the sin. We sympathize with those who are stirred by the evil, and hope that such a course may be taken by the authorities that the evil henceforth may fear and the children be protected. But, dear reader, these appalling sins are evidences of the coming of our Lord. As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be also in the days when the Son of man shall be revealed. See Luke 17: 26-37.

A Lesson.

But we hope that mothers may one and all learn a lesson from these things and from the sins of Sodom. Because of her abominable sins, Sodom was utterly destroyed. But the cause lay farther back, and so it does here with those who are ruined in these days. “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness 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.” Eze. 16: 49, 50. The idleness of children is one of the curses of the day. Whole gangs of hoodlum boys and girls infest our streets. Thousands of children are in idleness in the cities around the bay, and presumably the same in other cities. Parents seem to have but little interest in the welfare of the children. So long as they are not bothered, what matters where the children are? It is hoped they are all right. And in this way, for want of a little wholesome interest, proper work at proper times, together with proper restraint, thousands of children are going to eternal ruin. It is time for parents to awake.