HERE are two prophecies, among many, of these days of ours:
"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." 2 Tim. 3:13.
"For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness" "Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths." "In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey; and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment." Isa. 59:3, 7, 13-15.
The first prediction, it will be seen by reading the context, comes in close connection with a prophecy of the last days, which is considered in the first article in this paper. The second is composed of brief extracts from Isaiah 59, the whole chapter of which speaks of the crime and wickedness even among those who profess to be the Lord's children, and which will be especially manifest among them when Christ shall "put on the garments of vengeance," when "the Redeemer shall come to Zion," and will execute judgment "according to their deeds." Verses 17, 18, 20.
And we see it all now, even in this country, considered the best on the face of the earth. Untold and unnamed crimes of thirty years ago are now common. Reported embezzlements in 1906, $14,739,-653, over five millions more than in 1905. Bribery and betrayal of trust are notoriously prevalent even among public officials, and the mass of the people are becoming utterly indifferent. There were 9,350 murders reported by telegraph last year, 138 more than in 1905. Nineteen of these murderers were women. There was a large increase of "hold-up" murders. Murders in 1886 were 1,449. Suicides last year numbered 10,625; in 1899 the number was only 5,340. In England suicides, or self-murder, has increased 200 per cent. in fifty years. The increase of the population was fifty per cent. during the same period. Crime is multiform and rampant, and the newspapers are filled with its reports. It is a sign that the last pages of earth's history are being written.