Does Not Indicate Greater Morality
By T.
WE have organization after organization that is working for the moral uplift of society. We have civic leagues; we have vice commissions; we have peace societies, church federations, and so on to the end of the long, long list. We are assured that this great army of organizations is working to one great, common end of bringing humanity to such a high moral plane that the millennium will be ushered in. They expect, through publicity, to cast such odium upon crime and wickedness of every sort that these evils will be completely cured. But does this multitude of organizations indicate that we are going to have a greatly improved condition of things in this world? Does it not rather indicate that the world has become so manifestly filled with immorality that one doctor after another arises, thinking that his particular remedy is the one thing needed to cure the social ailments? There seems to be a general consensus of opinion that things are going very much wrong; and under the exciting and exhilarating influences of some of the large conventions that are held for the purpose of finding and administering a remedy for the ills of society, it is very easy to see that people under the intoxication of the occasion might be led into the belief that they are going to do some wonderful things. But when the excitement dies down, and each one of these individuals who has attended the convention settles into the actualities of real life, they must be convinced that conditions are growing worse and worse. Many of these organizations may be doing much to retard the progress of the disease in the social patient, but nevertheless the malady continues to become more alarming, and in reality these many organizations are only so much evidence that the patient is extremely sick and that it has become necessary to have a multitude of doctors. This condition will keep up until finally it will seem necessary to have a world-wide consultation of these social physicians. When they come together, they will embody a great many ideas along all the lines of religion, sociology, politics, etc., and eventually we will have a combination of all of these organizations with one great, overweening power taking the lead in things. When we look about for the one leading power that is world-wide and dominant in this field of activity, our minds naturally go to the great church that has its headquarters on the Tiber in Italy. It will be the one power that will cause all of these organizations to cohere in one supreme effort to advance the many reforms that they are seeking to put forward. And then we will have the greatest religious combine that this world has ever seen. And we will have a short, sharp conflict that will put in the shadow all similar conflicts of the past ages, because we are in times when nervous energy is keyed to the highest pitch. In this high-tension condition, movements go with swiftness and intensity. This is no fanciful picture that will never come, but any one is able to see that the great movements that are forming in society are headed clearly in the direction of one great central world-movement that will undertake to be all-embracing in its ideas of reform. As this movement progresses, the notions of many men will undergo much change. They will throw away a great deal of that to which they are now holding. And they will do it because we are rapidly coming under the spell of federation, and are being taught with great enthusiasm and little reason that we want to subordinate our "little differences and come together on some great common platform." That means that a few strong minds will subordinate everything to themselves, and a federal despotism will finally be reached. Such a world-wide organization would be a grand thing if it could be formed on correct lines and upon a sound basis and permeated with true principles, but such will not be the case. All of the similar religio-social and political organizations of the past have been despotic, bigoted, and narrow; and such will be that which is forming in these times. If any one desires prophetic evidence for the statements made in these paragraphs, he needs only to study carefully the second chapter of Isaiah and the fourth chapter of Micah. There are many other scriptures that are of the same general import, but these two are very concise and specific in telling of the great world federation that shall be drawn together in the last days under the influence of the "many people" who will be stirring popular sentiment in a world-wide movement. T.