INCREASE OF CRIME

Pacific Press Publishing Association

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

INCREASE OF CRIME.

It is a good thing that there are some men who are clear-sighted enough and are willing to lift themselves above the range of low human vision high enough to see the condition of the world. Years ago the servant of the Lord told us that evil men and seducers would wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. See 2 Timothy 3. He pointed out that in the last days among those who made profession of godliness there would be no less than eighteen different sins held by those "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof," and our Lord tells us that as the days of Noah were "so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." And we are told that in Noah's day the imaginations of men's hearts ran to evil, while the earth was filled with violence.

Some of these facts, at least, have been noted by the Rev. Wiley J. Phillips, of Los Angeles Emanuel Baptist Church. He is reported to have said that altho this is the twentieth century, almost two thousand years after Christ, less than five per cent. of our young men ever darken a church door, and only two and one-half per cent. are even brought into vital touch with the religion of Christ. One reason for this, he declares, is the defective system of family government and lack of a proper sense of moral responsibility. The child begins with disobeying the parents, a juvenile law-breaker, and continues that way the rest of his life, and finds placed in his pathway more saloons than churches, more saloon-keepers than preachers, more saloon-keepers than Sunday-school teachers. Eighty dollars is paid for the support of the liquor traffic to every dollar paid for the education of our children; one hundred three dollars is paid for the support of the saloon to every dollar we pay for the support of the Gospel of Christ.

He instances San Francisco before the fire, which had thirty-four hundred saloons and less than two hundred churches. During the last twenty-five years San Francisco increased thousands yearly in population, and yet the church membership was several thousand less than it was twenty-five years ago. The excuse is made that saloons are needed for revenue. San Francisco's thirty-four hundred saloons paid last year $268,000, while the city paid for police protection more than $1,500,000. It costs $737,000 more to patrol the city than is gotten from the saloons. And all this is in harmony with the prophetic Word.