THE diminishing birth-rate in this and other countries is an evidence of race deterioration, and an important sign of the times. Official reports from all civilized countries show the birth-rate to be diminishing to an alarming extent. France has viewed with grave concern, for some years, a birth-rate of thirty thousand less than the death-rate, and by offering tempting prizes, has sought to encourage the rearing of large families. The birth-rate in the United States has diminished more rapidly than in almost any other country. Our statistics show a decrease of one per cent a year in the birth-rate.
Inability of mothers to suckle their young is an evidence of degeneracy. Dr. Holt, of New York, a great authority on diseases of infancy and childhood, states that "in New York at least three children out of every four born into the families of the well-to-do classes must be fed at some other fount than the maternal breast." An eminent physician, testifying before the Committee on Physical Degeneration in England, stated that only one child in eight born in Sheffield, is brought up upon the breast. Professor Bunge, of Switzerland, an eminent authority, has called attention to the inability of mothers to nurse their children as being one of the degenerating influences of alcohol upon the body.
Time would fail me to continue the evidences of physical degeneracy as indicated in the early decay of the teeth, in the increasing number of persons suffering from defective eyes and ears, of glandular defects, from thyroid and other gland enlargements; of the increasing number of deaf-mutes, epileptics, and other degenerates, as well as the ever-increasing number of neurotics and dyspeptics. Besides these there is the tremendous army of chronic sufferers whose tissues and glands are undergoing degenerative changes, victims of chronic diseases which kill half the people who die in the United States every year. A million and a half people die in this country every year; five thousand every day; two hundred every hour. Nearly two thousand people die in this country every day from easily preventable disease. That is, recognition of the cause of physical degeneracy and the application of simple and natural principles of living would save more lives in this country every day than were lost in the Titanic disaster.
The Causes
And why all this waste of life and persistent and increasing degeneracy? A study of the cause reveals a constant, persistent, and ever-more-subtle effort on Satan's part to lead men to various physical digressions which will result in spiritual ruin. Men and women to-day are as verily being deceived as in the beginning, by that voice that originally inquired, "Yea, hath God said?" The same subtle promise of immunity from consequences is given to-day as in the beginning, but with ever-increasing deceit.
God says, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Gal. 6:7. The devil says, "There is no such thing as disease, therefore no such thing as reaping — no such thing as consequences of sowing."
God says, "Eat ye that which is good." Isa. 55:2. The devil says, "Eat anything you please, and take — Dr. Blank's Digestive Tablets!"
God says, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Matt. 5:8. The devil says, "Sow wild oats for at least a certain period of your life, and then shall ye know both good and evil."
"God SPEAKETH once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. . . . He is chastened also with PAIN upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain. . . . Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man, to bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living." Job 33:14-30. The devil says, "Pain is an enemy, a voice to be hushed and stifled,—which purpose the coal-tar products, phenacetin, acetanilid, and others, are especially designed to accomplish."
"There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Isa. 57:21. "The work of righteousness [of right-doing] shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever." Isa. 32:17. The devil says, "In morphin and cocain is peace, and a sure transport to the Elysian fields, with no sorrow added thereto."
Christ said, "Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God." John 14:1. The devil also says, "Let not your heart be troubled; drown your troubles and let them be submerged in drink."
So on, and ever on, to the complete perversion of every physiologic sense, the devil leads man, until no longer can he "feel after God, if happily he might find Him;" and if permitted to go on for more than a few years, it would needs be that man would sink into the abyss of utter and everlasting hopelessness. Thus we can see, in a physiologic sense, that "except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved."
Some Significant Aspects
There is a special significance in the maintenance of the present death-rate in the absence of the devastating scourges that periodically swept the world a few decades ago. It seems that men more and more are yielding to temptation in forming pernicious and vicious habits, which are rapidly blighting and degenerating them. I give a few striking examples:
Alcoholism
In spite of the tremendous educational campaign against alcohol, and the splendid triumphs realized in the temperance cause, there is more liquor consumed now than ever in the history of the world. In the United States more than two billion gallons of alcoholic liquors are consumed each year, equivalent to a half-pint a day for every man, woman, and child in the country. Christ said, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." It would seem that almost above everything else, the demon of drink is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Certain it is that in addition to blighting every tissue and function of the body, it destroys the only means of communication by which God can appeal to9man — that is, the brain and the nervous system.
Not only is this soul- and body-destroying effect realized in the man's own life, but the iniquity of the father is visited upon the children. Professor Winslow says that when the parents are drunkards, the inevitable result is that the children will be either drunkards, criminals, or lunatics. That this hereditary physical degeneracy is not transmitted in an endless chain, lowering the human plant to a debasing and almost unrecognizable degree, is due to the limiting of its transmission, by an all-wise Providence, to the third and fourth generation.
The degenerating influence of alcohol upon the nations of Europe is graphically portrayed by Bishop Latty, a French prelate, as follows:
"It is a subject which, in the past few years, has occupied and disturbed and frightened all Europe, and France in particular. It is urgent to make heard a cry of alarm at the peril that menaces us, so grave and so suddening are the facts before my eyes. . . . One is justified in believing that alcohol is, at the present time, the chief and most deadly of the plagues that infest humanity.
"What is it, indeed, that distinguishes the nature of man? — Reason. In what consists his welfare? — It is that he may be, and may live in accordance with his reason. But poison takes from man the use of his reason; it takes it from him at intervals more or less frequent, and then little by little it strikes at reason itself in its essential organs. It exposes him to all evil, in altering the chief faculty which urges him toward the good.
"This poison vice upsets the marvelous order of the human machine. There is no longer to be found there either the proper proportion or balance between the various parts or powers, or the measure between the powers and their objects, nothing that expresses harmony and union of the forces that make up humanity. There is no longer beauty, nor the least vestige of moral energy. It is a rupture of the human bond without death; a sort of dissolution of the constituent elements of man. . . .
"One seems to hear in 'alcohol' the dry, lugubrious sound of a cleaver, which falls without ceasing upon humanity. . . . And it insinuates itself throughout the whole human organism, and into each of the systems that compose it. . . . Certainly one can not feel indifferent that temperaments are feeble, longevity rare, madness and sudden death frequent; that alone would suffice to make us curse the poison generating so many evils. But to know that it penetrates still further into the soul, diminishing the intelligence and free will, lowering the most noble and essential sentiments, altering the moral sense itself, and destroying the balance of character in all the fundamental powers of man; . . . I ask you if there be anything more heart-rending, more capable of inspiring sadness and alarm in whomsoever loves his brothers and his country."
The Tobacco Habit
It seems quite apparent that tobacco has come to divide the honor with alcohol in causing physical degeneracy. This subtle poison is striking a deep and deadly wound in the moral and physical stability of the human family. The figures representing the amount of tobacco annually consumed in the United States are staggering and beyond comprehension, there being four hundred million pounds of smoking and chewing tobacco and snuff, seven billion five hundred million cigars, five billion five hundred million cigarettes. And the hopelessness of the situation is emphasized
when it is realized that each year tobacco is consumed in ENORMOUSLY INCREASED QUANTITIES; and, worse still, the tobacco habit among women is spreading with appalling rapidity. Thus one of the last barriers for the protection of children from hereditary taint is fast being torn down. The girls and women and mothers have yielded to the seductive influence of "my Lady Nicotin." Multitudes of our college girls are smoking cigarettes; every large city has its women's clubs with their smoking-rooms; every large hotel and many cafés must now provide smoking-rooms for women. It is now a most common sight, in traveling, to observe women smoking. Last year in New York City it was known that more than one hundred thousand women were cigaret smokers. Many tobacco dealers testify that their trade with women is rapidly increasing in cigars and chewing tobacco, which is known to be for their own consumption. Few women who smoke can long resist the temptation to drink, and few women who drink are able long to preserve a high standard of morality, and their course is rapidly downward.
Women developing the poison habit degenerate much more rapidly than men, their more delicately poised nervous systems being more susceptible to degenerating influences. Now that women have more than ever given themselves over to degrading physical practises and habits, exerting as they do the predominating hereditary influence, the outlook for the future generation is indeed a hopeless one, and the possibility of many generations surviving these degenerating influences is very remote and unlikely. As Depierre, in "Le Tabac," says: "In our time more than ever, these despairing words for the future are repeated everywhere: 'We are degenerate; we are in decadence.'"
Evidences of Physical and Moral Decadence
"The fact is incontestable that within the last half-century, European societies present symptoms of physical and moral decadence, which call the attention of all those who are interested in the well-being of man. This degeneracy is seen in the failing beauty of the human type,—the abasement of the human form,—in the contemptible and suffering appearance of European populations, in the diminution of longevity, in the number of deaths exceeding the births, leading rapidly to depopulation.
"And moral degeneracy is recognized in sterility of intelligence, which produces no more great men or great things, in spite of the wealth of learning of our age.
Transatlantic Co. Baron Marshall von Biberstein, new German ambassador to the court of St. James
The vice vulture. Guard your daughters; only those truly guarded are safe from his clutches.
"Intelligence and reason are being lost more than ever before, in the thousand forms of mental alienation. . . . The moral sense is also degraded, as seen in the ever-increasing number of pitiable beings who are disgusted with life, and others who are forgetful of all duties,—slaves of passion, and willing in the committal of crime. . . .
"These facts are substantiated by the highest authorities; and how shall we explain them? . . . Physical degeneracy, moral abasement, sterility, excessive mortality, we must recognize as actual laws of our social-estates, all of which were unknown in preceding epochs. To what can we attribute these evils, but to the causes which march parallel and immediately along with them?
"How has this so evident, so rapid decadence taken possession of us, in this time when advantages for the perfection of all human kind were never so favorable? What have we introduced into our customs, our habits, which has produced so rapid decay? For these strange and exceptional effects, one must seek for a cause equally exceptional, that did not exist before our great degeneracy, and which increases and marches parallel with it. One may recognize it in nicotinism; that is to say, in all the progressive physical degradation it involves. Yes; we may attribute to tobacco all the social evils that afflict our epoch; tobacco, which, after having been forbidden for its infamies by legislation of the seventeenth century, has insidiously crept into our life; tobacco, which, condemned, as it was, as poisonous, unhealthy, ill-becoming, dirty, is now imposed upon us as the height of elegance and fashion. It is everywhere accepted as a natural pastime and the most innocent of pleasures."
Other Intoxicants
Another prominent sign of the times, and a great factor in the production of degeneracy, is the increasing prevalence of the morphin and cocain habits, in response to an overruling desire in human hearts for peace when there is no peace. It is estimated that there are at least four million unfortunate victims of morphinism and cocainism in the United States, to say nothing of the millions enslaved to the coal-tar products and to tea and coffee.
The cocain habit is developing at an appalling rate, not being confined to any one class, but claiming its victims from the ranks of newsboys, shop-girls, physicians and clergymen, and representatives from all grades of society. The pernicious influence of this drug is rapidly permeating the South, particularly among the Negro laborers, who are readily caught in the web of its mystic power. It is estimated that over one hundred fifty thousand ounces of this powerful alkaloid is annually consumed in the United States. There is not an authenticated case on record of a successful cure of the cocain habit. It destroys a man — soul, body, and spirit, for time and for eternity.
The curse of France, absinthe drinking, has found its way to our shores, and is becoming alarmingly prevalent. Absinthe may now be procured at many of the country bars and railway stations. To become a victim of this habit, as Marie Corelli says, means more than death. It means crimes of the most revolting character, brutality, cruelty, apathy, sensuality, and frenzy. The common symptoms of absinthe are muscular deformity, loss of strength, hallucinations, and epileptiform convulsions, terminating in paralysis.
The people of the United States now annually consume one billion pounds of coffee, one hundred million pounds of tea, and more than one hundred million pounds of cocoa and chocolate.
An Antitype of Ancient Days
"As it was in the days of Noah, SO shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank." That this physiologic sign of the times and evidence of the coming of the Son of Man is everywhere and universally apparent is so altogether obvious as to need no further comment or demonstration. But as the manner of eating and drinking is to be one of the signs, in the world, of the last days, IT MUST be that one of the distinguishing characteristics of the church of God in this age will be an eating and drinking in great contrast to the world, the eating and drinking in a spirit begotten of faith, and with an earnest solicitude that in eating and drinking, or whatsoever is done, all should be done to the glory of God.
Infidelity Fostered by Physiological Science
A further significant sign is the fact that the stability of the Scriptures is being further assailed from physiological grounds. Dr. Carrel, as a result of his really magnificent work along physiological lines, was recently granted the Nobel Prize. He has succeeded in keeping cells alive when entirely isolated and separated from the body, and even noted some slight development and proliferation. Immediately his results are published, the same old voice is heard, "Yea, hath God said?" that life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel? A few weeks ago, Professor Schaefer, in his inaugural address as president of the British Medical Association, referring10to the work of Professor Carrel, created a world-wide sensation by declaring that life and death were purely chemical reactions. The time would certainly come, he said, when the experimenter in the laboratory would manufacture life precisely as he now puts chemical substances together. It is said that Dr. Carrel's work thus sheds new light upon the everlasting problem of the ages — the origin of life, and the particular forces that influence its development. And the questions which Dr. Carrel's work seem to suggest are: Does life originate spontaneously? Is death itself naturally an inevitable consequence? Is old age really a disease, or a fundamental fact of nature itself? Is there such a thing as perennial youth? Can our bodily organism, worn out with hardship and decay, be revitalized and made active again?
It is further believed and said that when medical science has penetrated all the secrets of its microscopic operation, it will have solved the riddle of life itself; that hitherto all attempts to transmit inevitable and crabbed old age into luxuriant youth, to make the jaded human eye regain its luster, have been grotesque failures. The death and destruction of the animal cell has been regarded as a strongly established scientific and theologic axiom. But Dr. Carrel's experiments challenge even this fundamental truth,— he believing that they prove that the animal cell itself is apparently immortal.
These experiments naturally range Dr. Carrel upon the side of those scientists who believe that life is purely a matter of chemistry; and while he has not created life itself, yet he has practically shown, according to Burton Hendrick, that immortality is merely a question of chemical reaction. Professor Loeb, Dr. Carrel's colleague in the laboratory, says, "Nothing indicates at the present time that the artificial production of living matter is beyond the possibility of science." And the significant question is asked: "Are the real waters of eternal life certain liquid substances like Dr. Loeb's salt solution for sea-urchins and Dr. Carrel's laboratory solution for animal tissue? Will human existence, like that of these animal cells on the cover glass, ultimately resolve itself into periods of youth and old age, and then youth and old age again, and so on indefinitely?" And he further adds, "There seems no scientific reason why the miracle should be realized."
I consider these sentiments a striking physiological sign of the times, in that in a particular sense they indicate the time of the end, when the devil has come down with mighty power, knowing that he has but a short time to work, and that here is one of the means, if possible, of deceiving the very elect. But thanks be to God, we are not in darkness. We know in whom we have believed. In Him was LIFE, and that life was the light of men. We will come to HIM, that we may have life — to Him as the ONLY SOURCE of life.
The Only Means of Rescue
I need not say that the only means of rescue from this awful tide of physical and moral degeneracy, and from these deceptions, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Just as surely as the devil is seeking to destroy man eternally by the results of physical unrighteousness, just so surely was the Lord Jesus Christ manifested to destroy the works of the devil, that we might obtain physical righteousness. Jesus Christ came into the world to save the bodies as well as the souls of men. He could not save the one without the other. The whole problem of living is one of faith.
Just as physical WEAKNESS and DEGENERATION is a sign of the end, so should one of the distinguishing characteristics of the people composing the church of God be physical STRENGTH and REGENERATION. It is distinctly the imperative duty of God's people to present to the world a class of individuals who are distinguished by PHYSICAL and MENTAL as well as spiritual power. This must be according to God's plan; for He gave, as an intimate part of the closing message, principles pertaining to the physical salvation and strength. Similar principles given to the children of Israel, en route from Egypt to Canaan, made them appear in great contrast to the nations round about, and resulted in the marvelous blessing that in all their ranks and borders there was not found a feeble person. Should it seem a thing incredible in the present-day journeying from Egypt to the promised land, that similar principles committed to the chosen people, with just as faithful adherence to these principles, should bring equally striking results? The present-day church, failing to attain to this high grade of physical efficiency, in just so far fails to meet God's ideal for her. And in just so far as the world sees physical WEAKNESS, TAINT, and DISEASE, in the church, in just so far does the world fail to see GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH. The church should to-day be giving to the world unmistakable evidence of physical as well as spiritual regeneration.
Count von Bernstorff, ambassador to this country, in court uniform
A Wrong Association
We ourselves need to get as far as possible removed from the old idea that piety and poor physique are necessarily associated together. We need to recognize that constipation and indigestion materially interfere with pure and undefiled religion, and that exercise should be a part of one's religion as well as should saying his prayers. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto physical salvation, and is that which preserves the BODY, as well as the soul and spirit, blameless unto the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
As in a special sense the devil has blinded the minds of those that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them, and as he is thus driving men on to physical and spiritual ruin, so in a special sense has been committed to God's people the work of exalting the standard of life-giving truth. Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people, but the work of our generation is to "rise, shine," because "light is come;" to "cry aloud, spare not;" to lift up the voice like a trumpet, and show the people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sin.
By a greater love for, and a firm adherence to, and an increasing faith IN, the God-given principles of physical righteousness, we should be having our youth renewed like the eagle's, and thus be LIVING epistles, known and read of all men. Thus through the living church of the living God, set in the midst of a darkened and perverse nation, will shine the true principles of life, until out of this horrible pit of human darkness, degeneracy, and awful corruption, will emerge a company who have been lifted from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God; who have received forgiveness of their sins, and a place among those who are sanctified.
In the brief day which remains, and ere the darkness of night shall come, in which no man can work, may God help us to rise in the fulness of light and power and possibility, and complete this great and glorious life-saving work, for His name's sake.
Clinedinst. Attorney-General Wickersham and those connected with him who in Mr. Taft's administration began the decided fight against the trusts
