INTOXICATED WITH FRIVOLITY
By Editor
The Exit of the Solid and Serious
The Entrance of Folly and Fiction
AN editorial in the New York World has some rather significant paragraphs, under the heading of "The Passing of Harper's Weekly," or in other words, the reversal of its policy. One of these paragraphs is as follows: "In the passing of Harper's Weekly is further evidence of the American public's present reluctance to support a serious political weekly. In other quarters, the same conditions are to be seen. The Nation, stanchly true to its old standards of taste and independence, during the last ten years has declined in circulation. In the struggle to maintain its hold on public favor, Collier's is compelled to give first attention to fiction. The New Republic, well written and eminently judicial in its treatment of topics, appeals to a limited class, and is still in the experimental stage. The Outlook and Independent, once religious publications, have been compelled to widen their scope, use illustrations, and seek to make themselves entertaining to casual readers." According to this paragraph, the American public is reluctant "to support a serious political weekly." Therefore Harper's must change. The Nation, another stanch old paper, is declining in circulation. "To maintain its hold on public favor, Collier's is compelled to give first attention to fiction." Note it particularly, "to give first attention." Furthermore, the Outlook and the Independent, "once religious publications, have been compelled to widen their scope" in order to keep themselves alive. The manifest tendency of this time is to run toward fiction, folly, and mere fun. The serious things of life, that build into the solid foundation of a substantial social and national structure, are taken only as an extreme necessity, except by a comparatively few people. The world is intoxicated with the entertainment craze. People do not care to be developed strongly in a mental, moral, and spiritual way; they care, rather, to be frivolously entertained. MORE and more do we find that the people are giving their first attention to pleasure; and too often, this pleasure degenerates into gluttonous, drunken vices, and the gratification of animal lusts. The fact that some people cannot see this, is merely an evidence of their blindness. It is no evidence that these depraved and demoralizing conditions do not exist. The world is delirious under the spellbinding influences of folly, pleasure seeking, and light entertainment; and in its delirium, it is chanting the refrain that everything is growing better and better. But while singing this fascinating song, it is dancing to the devil's bewitching music, along the edge of the precipice, ready to plunge into irretrievable ruin. Paul, the apostle and prophet, in viewing these times, gives a list of nineteen striking characteristics that would mark the age and make it a time of peril. (See 2 Tim. 3: 1-5.) One of these nineteen speaks of the people as "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." God Himself offers pleasure. As declared in the beautiful, poetic language of the psalmist, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." Ps. 16: 11. True pleasure is one of the eternal gifts of God; but the counterfeit pleasures of the world, according to the apostle, will so intoxicate humanity as to constitute one of the great perils of the time. How clear and how forceful is the prediction, and how striking and how universal are the events that fulfill what the prophet has foretold!