“FOR THEY HAVE FILLED THE LAND WITH VIOLENCE.”
There is nothing that marks this time more strongly than its intense spirit of violence. There is the violence of war that has completely taken possession of the whole world; there is the violence of Anarchist and Nihilist that is seen and felt everywhere; there is the violence of strikes, showing the intense feeling that heaves and convulses the laborer; there is the violence of murderers and outlaws in committing the most barbarous and blood-curdling crimes; and there is the violences of mobs and lynchers as they so suddenly rise up and so furiously destroy their fellow-men. How long can this condition of things endure? Life and property are no longer safe; for the whole of society is on such high tension that a person can not be sure that the words that he speaks with no thought of unkindness, or some trivial act, may not be suddenly seized upon, and before he can get time to explain or apologize, he be violently struck down. Some cruel crime may be committed, and some one may merely offer the surmise that a certain person has had something to do with it, and then like a furious storm the mob rushes upon the individual and murders him, often in the most barbarous manner, without giving the fellow any chance to prove his innocence, and without taking the time to be sure of his guilt. A short time ago two men were walking along the streets of San Francisco, supposedly the closest and most intimate friends. One of them dropped a remark in mere sport. This rankled in the mind of the other, and a little while later he entered his friend's office with a revolver and shot him down. This is only a sample. During the last few days the despatches have told us of mobs that have burned one man alive, and hanged another. But before doing this they tortured their victims by cutting off their ears and fingers and otherwise barbarously mangling their quivering flesh. It is true that at least one of the victims had committed a horrible crime, but that only adds to the evidence of the violence of these times and does not take away the fact that the mob was as horribly barbarous in its violent fury as anything that was ever seen in the most savage jungles. And we make a mistake if we say that such things could not happen only in certain localities. For some of the deeds done in Ohio, Illinois, and elsewhere, are not far behind, to say the least, any of this violence of the South. Where is our boasted civilization while such things continue and increase? The two men in Kansas City who quietly discussed their jealousies of two women, and who deliberately decided to take a bulldog to their room and set him upon them, is another case in point. These ruffians stood by with cold-blooded indifference while the dog caused one of the women to leap out of the window and break her collar-bone in falling, and then they followed the other into the street, whither the enraged brute had driven her, and stood in front of the gathering crowd while her flesh was terribly torn and mangled. Then there is the little boy only nine years of age who a few days since planned in the most approved style of the desperado to wreck a passenger train, and was only saved from it by a section boss just chancing to come along on his hand-car. And we might mention other cases of notorious youthful criminality that have entered the realm of violence, but it is unnecessary. The reader knows too well how truly appalling the situation is to make it necessary for us to even present any evidence at all; for you have the evidence in all its shocking realities all about you all the time. No matter how men may regard this situation, we may learn from the following language how God looks upon it:— “Then said He unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke Me to anger; and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury; Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and tho they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” Eze. 8: 17, 18. The prophet is here speaking of a time when “they have filled the land with violence.” And because of this violence the Lord says, “Therefore will I also deal in fury; Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and tho they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.” This fearful violence that is in the world to-day will surely, and shall we not say speedily, call forth the divine interference. Why, if things are permitted to go on much longer in the way they are going, this world will be nothing short of one vast slaughtering-pen. And will the true and just and tender and merciful and loving God look on with indifference while demons incarnate work the inhumanly barbarous destruction of the race?—Never! “Something great and decisive will take place, and that right early. If any delay, the character of God and His throne will be compromised.”