THE National Child Labor Committee, with its headquarters in New York City, has recently sent out the announcement that the factories and similar industries of the United States contain such a host of children that if they were placed in a procession twelve feet apart, the line would reach from San Francisco to Boston, and thence to New Orleans, a distance of about 5,000 miles. It may appear that each one of these children is under the necessity of being put to labor in this way in order to assist in supporting the family; but throwing that question to one side, what does such a procession of children wearing their lives out in factories, cut off from the usual joys of childhood, and shut away from the opportunities of education, speak concerning the greed and the heartless, grinding power of wealth? There is an abundance in this great nation to supply the needs of all; and were it not for the selfishness of the time, these children would not be forced in their tender years to a life of grinding toil. Facts like these lay the foundation for the appeals and agitations of the Socialist, of the Syndicalist, and various other organizations that believe that the "existing conditions of society should be overthrown and a different order established." There is no question but that the existing order will be overthrown. Men are looking this way and that, and are proposing all sorts and kinds of solutions to these difficulties. But God's word has said that "the last days" shall be made perilous because grievous times will come through the love of self and the love of money. Please read carefully the first part of the third chapter of 2 Timothy. Oppression, greed, and debauchery, according to this prophetic utterance and many similar utterances in the divine Book, will characterize the last days of the reign of sin. And just as God overthrew the old world by a flood because of its wickedness, and just as He overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness, and just as Tyre and Sidon were providentially destroyed, so will God destroy the greed, the luxurious wickedness, and the crimes of this time by the second coming of Christ. That event of Christ's coming is hanging by a brittle thread over the world at the present time. God is graciously waiting for men to hear the call and to get ready to participate in the joys of the great occasion. But those who are not ready will find that the last days mean everlasting ruin, in the place of the everlasting joy God intends.