HORRORS OF HEATHENISM by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Nov 8, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 45.

HORRORS OF HEATHENISM.

By Editor

SOME idea of the blessings of civilization may be obtained by contrasting our condition with the state of things in some parts of China. We have a graphic account from three English bicyclists, who have been making a tour of Western China, and who spent some time at the large walled city of Chaotung Fu. They found that seventy-five per cent. of the female infants are killed, while a majority of those saved are sold into slavery, the city being famous for its slave girls. It is the custom to throw bodies of girl babies over the walls at night, and in many cases these children are still alive. It is a common sight to see pariah dogs gnawing the arms of living infants. Bodies of the pauper dead are also thrown over the walls, and devoured by wolves and hyenas that come down in the night from neighboring mountains. The city is also famous for in-human punishments. Lately a woman was strung up by the neck, with her toes just reaching the ground, till she died. A murderer was crucified on one of the city gates, red-hot nails being hammered through his wrists. He tried to escape the agony by battering his head against the gate, when the authorities provided a pillow to prevent this. He hung in great agony, watched by crowds of men and children, for four days before death came.—

Christian Conservator.

THE EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE OF WAR.

It was William Tecumseh Sherman who said, "War is hell," and it was James Russell Lowell who declared, "As for war, I call it murder; there you have it plain and flat." But war is now used to justify the taking of human life under other circumstances. Recently a Supreme Court justice of Connecticut declared in an address that a physician is justified in hastening the death of a patient afflicted with an incurable disease.

Now a noted physician contends that "if a patient is suffering from an incurable disease, and he wants relief from his misery, a physician is doing an act of mercy if he helps him end his life." And he further declares, "I have relieved the suffering of a good many patients in the course of my thirty-five years' practise."

In justifying himself in this against his critics, he remarks:—

"As for the moral or religious aspect of the case, it is still a matter to be settled by the individual. To be sure, there is in the Decalogue a commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill.' But there are circumstances under which killing is admissible. The United States takes that stand in her war policy. She is killing Filipinos daily in what she calls a humane war."

All of which is true Jesuitical casuistry—"the end justifies the means." To take life might be an act of mercy, but finite man does not know this. God can permit life to go out; He can give it again. Man is taking what he can not restore. Even tho a physician relieved pain, he does not know that the case is incurable. There have been many who have to all human seeing been taken from the very jaws and throat of death; who have recovered from what appeared to the medical man to be the last agonies of an incurable disease. Such cases may be as one in a million, but what moral mortal man in the sight of God would take even that responsibility?

Again, even tho the patient died, he might in the few hours that the "humane" physician would take from him say or do that which would greatly add to the temporal benefit of the living, or even affect the eternal destiny of himself or his friends.

Man is not God, altho not a few are assuming positions which indicate that they think, as the prophet of old declared, that God is altogether such an one as themselves. Ps. 50:21. But God declares: "I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver."

The moral standard of the judge and physician above referred to is the result of the teaching of a lawless church and the educational influence of a "humane" war.

SIGNIFICANT CONDITIONS.

A FEW days since a laboring man stepped into our office to inquire if we had a certain book written by a college president on a live social theme. We told him that we had the book and that we were interested to know what use he cared to make of it. He said that he belonged to a society that had frequent meetings for the discussion of current topics, and that he was on the program for a debate with another member on the question of imperialism.

The man in question is a mechanic, and does not look a bit brighter than hundreds of workmen that you may meet on the streets or see at their labor every day in the week. But you could not talk with him very long without being impressed that he is doing some thinking for himself on the topics of the day. And not only is he thinking, but he is meeting with his fellows to discuss these things. And their discussions require still more and more research, and keen, close study of the themes under consideration.

The time was when to speak of a laboring man was, as a usual thing, to speak also of one who was ignorant and superstitious; he was a man that blindly followed those who possessed education, and was willing to let others do all his thinking and talking for him. But the laboring man of to-day is a very different person altogether. Some of them may still be ignorant, it is true, but in general they are not.

If you will take the pains to investigate, you will learn that all of our cities and most of our towns have clubs of various kinds of laboring men that are meeting every week for social discussions. And you will also find it invariably true that they are dissatisfied with present conditions. They are strongly possessed with the idea that very radical changes should be made in the present system of business and social life. These men study, dream, and talk of these things; some of them write books about them, and many advocate the adoption of radical measures if a remedy does not come very soon.

You will find by mingling among the thinking workmen that most of them seem to be settling down before the grim necessity of a revolution. They will all express a hope that it may be bloodless, but let it be what kind it may, they say they are ready for it. If many are killed in the stormy times that are before us, they think that those who will be left will have things so much better that it will pay to go through the ordeal. And then nearly every one thinks that it will be the other person that will be hurt or killed, rather than himself, so he is all the more willing to take the risk.

When everything seems to be calm, these elements do not appear to be very dangerous. But let the flood-gates open up, and this stream of pent-up sentiment begin to pour forth, and no one who has not been made acquainted with the writings of divine prophecy could have even the faintest conception of what will surely take place. Men may hope for better times. But all such hopes are vain. The world is plunging into chaos just as fast as it can go, and all should be made acquainted with the fact, so that they can turn to the Refuge from the doom of sin. T.