The Rising Generation by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 11, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 44.

The Rising Generation

By Editor

"The Rising Generation."—The New York World voices a common sentiment in these days of political corruption:—

"This 'rising generation'—young, vigorous, alert, resolute, progressive—has in it none of the stuff of which is made the creature whom Cicero described as the basest of all,—'the slave from choice.' To this 'rising generation' in nation, State, and municipality, we appeal with hope and confidence."

But vigor, alertness, resolution, and progression after a worldly sort will not make honest men. The probability is that the "rising generation" will excel their teachers in the very lines the lessons have been given. Young blood or new blood is not necessarily good blood. Education in a worldly sense does not make men moral; and the crying need of the day in all places of life is morality; and morality can come to men only by faith in the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the transfusion of the life of God in the veins of the corrupt body. The vital question, upon which the very life of the country depends, is not whether the rising generation shall be alert, progressive, or resolute, but will it be moral? The prophetic Word and the inevitable logic of history indicate otherwise.