Indissolubly Linked with Alarming
Insanity Increases
By
O. S. PARRETT, M. D.
INCONTINENCE and lack of natural affection were among the characteristics that were to mark the time designated by the apostle as "the last days." See 2 Tim. 3: 1-3.
Certain phases of these existing evils are of such a nature that the attention of the general public is called to them from time to time. Among these is the "divorce evil," which is making such inroads upon that most sacred of all social relationships, the family. Many prominent individuals and organizations, both civic and religious, have viewed this with alarm, and have sounded notes of warning as carefully gathered statistics have shown a rapidly decreasing difference between the number of marriages and the number of divorces. In some American cities, the per cent of divorces in relation to the marriage rate is alarmingly high, and the former steadily increasing toward the latter.
But there are other conditions which, while perhaps just as fraught with significance, do not come so prominently before the general public. There is something about the present time that seems to be tearing people away from customs and practices and even the ways of thinking of a generation ago. Things old are viewed with suspicion, while things new are entertained too often without due consideration.
The Scarlet Life Increasing
IN the religious world, we have organizations whose very names are given in this spirit, such as "New Thought" and "Higher Criticism." University professors are discussing the antiquity and defects of the marriage relation, and daily are suggesting revisions of the Ten Commandments, which contain all the moral regulations required to keep man upright.
What are these things leading to? — They are sowing the seed for a harvest, the ripening of which may already be seen. Only recently the writer, attending a lecture given by a prominent worker of a national society organized to combat the social evils, heard the speaker say that "the most carefully gathered information shows that an alarmingly high per cent of the young men of America are leading the scarlet life."
This same speaker expressed himself as being optimistic over the future, in the hope that this state of affairs could be remedied. We might well hope that such efforts as the speaker was making should help to stem this tide of evil that is flooding the country as a result of the breaking of the dikes of morality.
80% Are Innocent Victims
A BODY of physicians appointed by the New York County Medical Society, after investigating carefully, made the appalling statement that 200,000 people infected with one of the so-called social diseases are walking the streets of New York City. The health statistics compiled by the board of health of one of our leading states estimate, that in that state, one out of five is infected with disease of the same nature.
A sad feature of these conditions is the extent to which the guilty cause the innocent to suffer. The following statement is made by the American Medical Association — the highest authority in America: "Of all women who die of diseases peculiar to their sex, eighty per cent are innocently the victims of a single social disease."
Another disease belonging to this same class brings one of every five cases to our insane asylum, afflicted with a form of insanity that is of the most hopeless and helpless character. This is no small factor in the great increase in the number of insane. This increase is so much more rapid than the [[FIGURE]] rate of increase in population that if it were to continue at its present rate, less than two centuries would see it include the entire population of our country.
Perhaps no subject of like importance has been treated with such indifference as the one under discussion. It is such a momentous evil, and so deeply rooted in society of all castes, that it seems to resist all efforts that have been made to check its invasions. Such efforts seem only to be cutting off some of the small branches, while the tree is nourished by all those who would by precept and example take away the force of God’s moral law.
Responsible for the Flood of Evil
CHRIST Himself said He came to magnify His Father’s law, and He pronounced the lustful or evil thought a sin as verily as the act in violation of this law. Let those who would change the Decalogue, or try to lessen its binding claims in any particular, shrink from such presumption, lest they make themselves responsible for the flood of evil that is resulting from such indifference to the requirements of God’s law.
Christ, the divine Son of God, came to this world, and spent His life of thirty-three years, living in every detail in harmony with His Father’s law, not to give us license to break that law, but to give us power to keep it.
Let us, then, not join influence with that class who teach that its righteous precepts are no longer binding. Rather let us gather with Christ, and lead men to recognize all the precepts of the law and all the injunctions of the Word as righteous, and for our eternal good. In this way alone may we expect to accomplish much in reforming the lives of men and women.
