p. 9 | Civilization and Crime by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 19, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 32.

Civilization and Crime

By Editor

UNDER the above caption, the Christian Evangelist has the following paragraphs:

"Does civilization promote crime? All the love of Christianity in us arises to protest such an accusation. But the facts are startling and demand explanation. It will doubtless be found, not in civilization, but in some of the flaws involved in the civilizing process. Christianity must seek to account for the amazing increase in crime in the United States. It is not a political and police problem so much as it is a moral problem. The churches need to be interested quite as much as the government.

"Fifty years ago there was only one criminal to every 1,647 of our population. To-day there is one to every 300 of our people. We have in our penitentiaries to-day more than 10,000 murderers, and we convict far from all of them. The homicides have grown two and one half times as rapidly as our population. Chicago averages twenty times as many murders per thousand as does London, and Chicago's

average is little above the average for the cities of the nation. Strange to say, the Southern cities have the worst records, their average being three times that of the foreign-filled Eastern cities. This may be due to colored population, but the fact that Middle and Western cities are twice as bad as Eastern makes it appear that murder is more an American than a foreign crime. Increase of petty crimes is due to the foreign populations. They are guilty of from three to four times as many minor offenses, with the exception of burglary, as are native-born folk. It must be said in justice to them, however, that it is their children who are mostly guilty.

"Where is the fault? One half of all crimes are committed by those under twenty-five years of age, and three fourths of them by those under thirty, the great majority of them boys. Over against these appalling facts are the counter facts that there are few boys and young men of those ages in our churches. Our Sunday-schools lose them when they come to adolescence. Experienced judges are telling us that it is the rarest occurrence to find a young person before the bar of justice who is either in church on in Sunday-school. If old methods have failed here, new ones must be found. The churches can find a way. The means to use are not sacred,

In the upper row the table of showbread, the ark of the covenant, and the golden seven-branched candlestick; in the lower row the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering, and the laver but the lives to be saved are sacred. There is no hope for these young men except in religious education.

"The sensational newspaper acts like an intoxicant to the excitement-loving nature of youth. The public school puts all emphasis on fitting a man to contest the world. The children of the foreign-born break away from the old country restraints, and mistake the liberty of the new land of freedom for license. The moving-picture scenes of crime and revelry multiply the 'Diamond Dick' novel's deadly influence by ten in their direct appeal to imagination. The church must fill the breach and counteract the anti-social influences that educate criminals."

These conditions in society will grow worse and worse, and then the tendency and the temptation of the churches will be to unite for the enactment of human laws to correct evils that can only be corrected by divine power. We have frequently pointed out, in these columns, the prophecies which show that these times are to witness a great world-wide religious federation. The papal power will be a leading factor therein in this country, and will be the dominant influence in the Old World. But when that federation is accomplished, it will be a man-made scheme to do a work that can only be done through the simple teaching of a pure gospel, under the administration of God's Spirit, and witnessed to by His power.

God's word presents the remedy that His church is to use for these evils, and that remedy is the gospel preached under the promise that "ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Acts 1:8.

The one thing for the church to do is to seek that purity of life and that divine righteousness which will open the channels for the display of this mighty power; and wherever that is done, the preaching of the gospel will be attended with results to-day just as much as it has ever been. The trouble with so many is that they have a tame message, the central thought of which is to entertain the hearer or the reader, rather than to arouse him to his sinful condition and lead him to call for the only salvation that is offered to the sons and daughters of men. T.