Iniquity Shall Abound

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 16, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 19.

"Iniquity Shall Abound"

Notwithstanding the nineteen centuries of the Christian church, the three centuries of the English Bible, the multiplied institutions of learning, the thousand and one efforts put forth to raise the moral tone of society, the fact remains that iniquity abounds. Take three cities, for instance:

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is undergoing investigation by the Voters' League. "The city government is corrupt" and has "been opened wide to the prostitute, the gambler, the speak-easy, and criminal classes generally." (We quote from "Current Literature.") Mr. Leo Weil, the president of the Voters' League of Pittsburg, declares that he is "prepared to unveil the whole loathsome, disgusting picture of a city defiled." The majority of the central board of education, one from each ward, "are gamblers, bartenders, saloon-keepers, political employees placed on the board to control voters," and others with education entirely inadequate. There are on this board of education fourteen bartenders and saloon-keepers. A majority of the whole are "dishonest and incompetent." Grafting and wholesale bribery are common. In one instance four directors were to receive $1,500 each for a building contract. In a darkened office four envelopes were deposited in a hat by the contractor. Each of the four entered, one after the other. Two took one each, one took two, and the fourth man was left without anything. "He made a row with the contractor, the contractor accused one of the men with stealing, and after knocking him down recovered the fourth envelope. Children have been robbed of picnic tickets by directors, and the tickets sold or given to friends. Demoralization is fearful.

Chicago is before us again. Some fancied that she was reformed, but the flood of crime is again at high-water mark, and there is no sign of its receding. The "wave of crime exceeds that of New York." "In the month of March thirteen men were killed outright, and nineteen desperately wounded in criminal assaults. Between January 15 and April 6 eighteen murders were committed, and the murderers escaped." Merchants have doubled night guards in the retail districts. "Men are shot down 'almost daily,'" says "Current Literature." The annual loss in lives in Chicago from prostitution alone is 5,000. The annual profit of those engaged in that traffic of body and soul is $15,000,000.

The hoped-for reform in New York under Mayor Gaynor has not by a long way met the expectations of his admirers. Magistrate Joseph E. Corrigan of that city declares that the city is "wide open." He tells us that 312 out-of-town criminals have come to New York within the last year, and are operating. In one district there were 800 unlicensed liquor sellers. Arrests for crime have fallen off, but crime has not.

These are local conditions, but "Current Literature," in the light of what Mr. S. S. McClure, the publisher, has revealed, says that "the lawlessness of the American people and the local revelations assume a national significance." He is quoted as saying: "There are ten times as many murders in the United States per million inhabitants as in any other country. The number of murders in this country in thirteen years makes as great a death list as that of those who died on the Southern battle-fields in the Civil War. Last year saw twenty-nine murders in Detroit and two in Toronto.

A scene in Harbin, Manchuria, by the Sungari River, where the pneumonic plague raged so fiercely. Russian soldiers frequent these saloons and restaurants. (Photos Transatlantic News Co.) Houses of well-to-do Chinese, in the Chinese quarter of Harbin, where the fearful plague found most of its victims. The first reports seem to have exaggerated its fatalities.

Our civilization has not broken down all at once under this advancing lawlessness. It has taken time. In 1881 there were twenty-four murders to every million of population. In the next fifteen years the murder rate grew six times faster than the population, till today we read with indifference newspaper headlines in any paper such as, if they appeared in any European newspaper, would cause a downfall of the power of government."

Jesus Christ our Lord declared that abounding lawlessness would characterize the end of this age. Matt. 24: 12-14. It begins in disregard, in unbelief, of the eternal verities. When men forget God and despise His Word they are bound to go down. The best of all our civilization has been an outgrowth of Bible influence. The men who made the stable structure of our government believed the Book. But now the professed ministers of Christ are, in the minds of the masses, destroying the Bible. Forgetting God, slighting, ignoring, or trampling upon His law, why should the law of man be regarded? The lawlessness of America to-day is the fruitage of apostasy. If the professed ambassadors of Christ had kept before the world the eternal verities, the holiness of God's law, the certainty of judgment, we would have had a different picture than is presented to-day.

Peace Prospects

There is much talk of the desirability of peace, and the strongest sort of assurances are given of peace by high officials in all the great governments of earth; but the very assurances betray their anxiety, and the constant and feverish preparation for war clearly indicates that the assurances are at the least not wholly sincere, or that the assurances refer to the present, the preparations for war are for the future near and far.

The great journals of Europe, which doubtless reflect public opinion, readily acknowledge that all differences between civilized nations ought to be settled by arbitration as suggested by President Taft; but very few of them have any faith in the outcome of such a scheme. Sir Edward Grey's speech in response to Mr. Taft's suggestion is called by a great German journal, the "Taegliche Rundschau," "words, nothing but words." The French "Temps," in close touch with the Foreign Office, says: "What an aberration it is to believe in the efficacy of remedies that can not be applied."

While all praise the idea, they still hold it to be impracticable and visionary.

Yet the nations go on, groaning under their ever increasing war burdens. War is not declared, but it has its victims now, with bowed backs and knitted brows and paling cheeks, staggering under intolerable loads of taxation imposed by the enormous expenses of war material gathered for future murder, when it would seem that a little practically applied common sense between man and man might end it all. But in their mad pursuit they are fulfilling predictions, not of what God wants, but of what He declared centuries ago will come.