THE IMPURE VISION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 22.

THE IMPURE VISION.

AMONG the barbarous tribes children are sacrificed to deities of lust and passion, and it is called religion. In this country we do worse. On altars of indifference and carelessness we sacrifice our youth, and our cities tolerate and license it under the name of recreation.

The case in point, which needs no eloquence to drive it home, is found in the busiest thoroughfare of Chicago. It has a counterpart in every large city in the land. A keen-eyed woman reporter for a Chicago paper discovered it, and sounded a note of warning. It is nothing more than a "moving picture" parlor. Its innocence of name and exterior makes it doubly dangerous. Music from a rich-toned organ, and scores of really fine views of natural scenery, provide an atmosphere of respectability. The newspaper woman was attracted by the remark of a young boy to his companions: "Come up-stairs; there's a dandy there." She followed, and as the lads each deposited a penny in the picture slot machine, she observed their faces—"a study in curious animalism—in each boy was the possibility of a first-class levee wonder." They were first shocked, then guiltily curious, finally shamelessly inquisitive for more of the unthinkable, unspeakable vision.

These enterprises for the expenditure of a cent, and a few minutes of time, guarantee to fill the innocent mind with the concentrated impurity and immorality of a life-long roué. What does it all mean? The correspondent logically and courageously traced it out to its tragic conclusion. It means that the levee, the saloon, the gambling houses, and unmentionable resorts are being filled by such material faster than any city police force can clean them out.

There is one law of chemistry that no student in the laboratory dare overlook. To ignore it is to fail. It is the law of purity. In this branch of natural science purity is power. The elements will refuse to combine if an impure acid be used in the experiment, and the care and skill of the chemist are of no avail. Not otherwise is it in the laboratory of life. In homes, in schools, in institutions of reform, men and women are working night and day, spending thousands of dollars trying to secure a combination of wisdom and righteousness as shall produce strong, true men and women. Yet through the medium of these abominable places of so-called entertainment in an idle five minutes is precipitated into those characters in process of formation an element of impurity. In that little space of time the love and devoted efforts of fathers, mothers, and friends are defeated.

Impurity of thought seeks expression in impurity of speech, and impurity of speech hastens on to immorality of action, and power and virtue have gone forever.

To permit this crusade of vice among our children is to insure moral paralysis for the society of the future.—Union Signal.