p. 189 | Only Whitewashed by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 8, 1874

Only Whitewashed.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Those who contend that the world is improving in morals point to the superior intelligence, education, refinement, and polish of this generation as evidence of the correctness of their position. To these arguments the Christian Union, of Nov. 11, makes the following truthful reply:—

“The rudenesses and vices of the last generation are not forgotten or glossed over, but in their very worst developments they did not shock and discourage people so severely as do the wickednesses of which we read now-a-days in reports from Washington. Men can be expected to outgrow savagery and rudeness, but we can hope for nothing from those in whom education and refinement are prostituted to the purpose of making easier and greater certain wrong doings, and of hiding them more skillfully from the public gaze.”

They are polished, but not purified; whitewashed, but not cleansed. Inwardly, they are full of all corruption. The same paper of Nov. 4, while endeavoring to take an encouraging view of the present age, is compelled to make the following confession:—

“Not infrequently do we hear it said that the present is an exceptionally wicked generation, that society is becoming rapidly demoralized, and that the prospect in regard to the future is very dark and discouraging. And indeed it is not to be denied that corruption, both in private and public life, is lamentably frequent, that crime of every grade abounds, and that men in all the relations of life exhibit a degree of selfishness which shows that the millennium is yet far off.”

In harmony with the above the San Francisco Call, of Oct. 22, has the following:—

“THE IMMORALITY OF THE AGE.

If we confined our observations and researches to California, we might think it exceptional as a country of crime. The list of murders, suicides, official delinquencies, and other offenses, stretches out till it is appalling to contemplate. We may and do deeply regret that so much can be said; and yet, when we compare our record with that of other States where the population is less cosmopolitan, and the public morality of older standing, we cannot discover that they have any reason to make invidious comparisons.”

To the same effect, the California Christian Advocate (Methodist), of Nov. 5, says:—

“An observer of public morals at the present day cannot fail to see the effort being made to blend or obscure the line of distinction between right and wrong, in all matters where the pleasures of the world or the gratification of the passions are interfered with. The non-professing world will not—probably cannot—let religion alone. But that kind of religion, styled by St. James, “pure and undefiled, from the Father of lights,” is too stringent, and has too much of the element of self-denial to suit the world. Hence the desire to dilute, to modify, to recast it, and to give it such a mold and form as will make it more inviting to the world and less troublesome to the conscience.”

Such testimonies might be given from almost every journal of the day, all showing that corruption is rapidly increasing among men.

D. M. CANRIGHT.