A PHASE OF LAST-DAY IDOLATRY.
By Milton C. Wilcox
WE can understand to some extent how the unenlightened of past ages could exalt as objects of worship, great warriors, benefactors, or sages. It was idolatry; but it was idolatry almost excusable when compared with the idolatry of our boasted nineteenth century in enlightened America. It is not money worship, great and evil as it is, to which we refer, nor is it the worship of appetite, manifested in the drinking, the tobacco using, the gormandizing, which has cursed the world. We refer to the hero worship which exalts brutality and crime to the sphere of demi-gods. Lawyers lend their powers to defend the most notorious criminals, knowing them to be such; and justice is delayed so long that monstrous transgressions and fearful outrages seem to outlaw, and the criminal is pardoned, or dies a hero. For the sickly sentimentalism and fawning sycophancy now existing, witness the present Sullivan worship. One man proves to have more brute force and is more of a brute than another, and a great part of the whole English world is shouting and singing his praise. And Boston—Boston the Athens of America, the hub of civilization, the home of American art and culture—"goes wild" over the deified brute, John L. Sullivan. He will be welcomed home with flags and banners and music by aesthetic Boston. If she upon reflection should consider that her conduct was in anywise disreputable, she may console herself by her late prosecutions against preachers of the gospel on the Common. Men laugh over how State officials were outwitted and State laws transgressed by prize-fighters and their clique, praise and adore the criminals, pay more for a chance to see the fight than they pay for the religion of Christ for years, faint in their excitement and the heat at the brutal display, and drink themselves drunk after it is over. Whole columns and pages of daily journals are filled with news and remarks upon the cruel exhibition for days before it occurs, journals which would not give one-half column to a prominent religious convention. The whole thing is a mighty educator of the rising generation, and the teaching tends downward. The brutish bull-fights of Spain are preferable to the brutish man-fights of America. It is the above education which leads men and women to condone higher crimes and sympathize with, and make heroes of, the criminals. Mr. P. G. Duffy, police justice of New York City, who, during the past year, "sent to Blackwell's Island some ten or eleven thousand prisoners, their terms of imprisonment averaging from five days to twelve months," says in the Independent of June 27:— "Then, again, a man caught red-handed as a murderer, perhaps who had committed other murders, through some technicality, some artifice, some quibble, will, when at last he is sentenced to be hanged, or 'electrified,' have a number of sympathizers who never knew him before, but who will visit him in his cell, give him consolation, pour lavender water on his head, lament very much his prospective taking off, and sign a large petition to the Governor, saying how sorry they are the man has to expiate his crime on the gallows or in the electric chain." As an instance of the truth of the above allegation, take the following editorial from the San Francisco Examiner of July 1:— "The Charleston dispatches inform us that 'Dr. McDow is the hero of the hour. His parlors are crowded by people offering their congratulations.' The procession of congratulating citizens includes ladies and probably clergymen. The popular ideas of South Carolina civilization evidently needs revision. It is commonly supposed that to secure the honor of a Charleston 'ovation' a man must kill somebody deficient in popularity. Dr. McDow murdered a man universally and justly beloved. Plainly it is the mere effusion of blood, regardless of the character of the person whose veins supply it, that wins approval in Charleston. Until the publication of the impending twenty-four volumes of the Century dictionary, the language will be too poor to describe the Charlestonian homage that awaits the man who shall kill Dr. McDow." But Boston and Charleston are no worse than many other cities. The same thing has been manifested again and again even in our agricultural districts. All these indications of the times, and many more which all may see if they will, have been predicted in the "sure word of prophecy":— "For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth; they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity." "For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them. . . . And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter." Isa. 59:3, 4, 12, 14. And this terrible pen picture of the prophet, of which the above quotation is only a small part, applies at a time when "the Redeemer shall come to Zion" (Verse 20), when he shall "put on the garments of vengeance," and will "repay fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies," "according to their deeds." Verses 17, 18; Rev. 22:12. Paul speaks of the same sins among men of the last days: "Boasters," "blasphemers," "without natural affection," "fierce," "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." 2 Tim. 3:1-4. These brutal exhibitions of trained bullies may be called displays of the "manly art," sympathy for the hardened criminals may be termed "love for the erring," "mercy," etc., but both are but manifestations of the carnal heart which hates the justice and purity of God's law and delights in iniquity. These feverish excitements and palliations of crime are Satan's agencies in preparing men to turn from the last warning message, which God in his mercy is giving to the world. They are agencies which are fitting men for the great delusions of the last days and the sure destruction which awaits just beyond. 2 Thess. 2:8-12. May God help the honest in heart to heed the sure light of prophecy. 2 Peter 1:19. M. C. W.