PROSTRATION OF SOCIETY WOMEN.
THE evil effects of fashionable society life are very apparent from the facts set forth in the following paragraph from a recent San Francisco Chronicle:- "The long strain of the social season is beginning to make alarming inroads on the health of prominent hostesses. Several times during the past week dinners have been practically suspended on account of the sudden illness of those seated around the board. At a dinner given Thursday by the Swiss minister, Mme. Calvo, wife of the minister from Costa Rica, became indisposed at the table and fainted before aid could be rendered. Mme. Hengelmuller fainted at a dinner given by the Secretary of State, as did Mme. Assis-Brasil at a dinner given by Assistant Secretary of State and Mrs. David J. Hill. At a ball at the German Embassy Thursday night more than a score of ladies were taken ill. One Cabinet hostess gave a dinner of sixteen covers last week, and only five of her original company sat down to the feast. Miss Wilson and Miss Cassini are among the most prominent of the younger set who have temporarily withdrawn from social duties." THE details of the American foreign commerce, ending with February, show a remarkable increase. Every few months we get reports of the great increase in the commerce of this country. Ordinarily this ought to indicate great prosperity, and the discontent of the laboring man ought to be at an end. But such is not the case. The smoldering embers of discontent were never more ominous, and the conflagration that may break forth was never more greatly to be feared. This world is in the grasp of the powers of evil. You can not meet a man anywhere who does not deplore the political corruption that is polluting the world everywhere and hurling it to the ruin that inevitably follows decay. Vice is brazen with boldness, and crimes of every description defy justice and laugh at the idea of retribution. Can a just God look upon such a condition as this with indifference? Will He not arise and execute justice in the earth? We should not be blindfolded by the theories of those who, with frenzied voices, are telling us that we are on the eve of general prosperity and universal peace and good-will. The material that is in the world now could not build anything but the exact opposite of such a happy condition. Let the Lord be heard in His own words as He speaks to us of this time. He says: "The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord; the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord; and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung." Zeph. 1:14-17. There can be no mistaking the time to which the foregoing scripture applies. Neither can there be any mistaking that it is describing scenes that are all about us, and that will be greatly intensified in the days that lie just before us. Be not deceived. Stand in the light of God's Word.