Evangelizing the World.
By Editor
The General Agent of the American Tract Society thus writes: "How great our privilege, how high our responsibility, beloved brethren, in having in our hands one of the mightiest agencies for good with which God has blessed the church and the world. More than two thousand different evangelical works in eleven languages, selected by thirty years' labor of the Society—the choicest productions of many of the most able and holy men of different denominations—the very cream of the gospel—free from controversy and sectarianism, adapted to all ages and classes, accompanied by 500,000 monthly numbers of the American Messenger and Child's Paper, all filled with thoughts that breathe, and words that burn—one hundred and eighty millions copies, exclusive of periodicals already sent forth on messages of love, and about 30,000 copies a day now being issued by twenty steam presses. These publications are scattered over our land and world, by many local auxiliary societies; by our five or six hundred colporteurs carrying the bread of life to our unevangelized masses; by nearly ten thousand voluntary colporteurs or monthly distributers in our cities and large towns, purifying those great centers and fountains of influence; by the pastors and members of our churches, by the missionaries on our frontiers, and by hundreds of missionaries and native converts in foreign and heathen lands. What friend of the Redeemer can fail to thank God and take courage when he sees such a mighty and holy agency encompassing and blessing the world?" These are indeed powerful agencies, and, under ordinary circumstances, capable of producing infinite good. But the inquiry that spontaneously arises as we look abroad upon the world is, Where are their results? for it presents to us nothing but the mournful spectacle of growing worse and worse, and that continually. In view of the gigantic efforts, the good design, of which no one can question, put forth to arrest this decay of morality, how shall we account for this state of things? If there are already "ten thousand voluntary colporteurs in our cities and large towns," endeavoring to purify "these great centers and fountains of influence," why are they not purified? Why are they rather, according to the testimony quoted in another column, rapidly descending to the level of Sodom and Gomorrah? Do these queries admit of solution? They do; but only on the ground that the solemn voice of prophecy is now fulfilling, which says that in the last days perilous times shall come, and evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse. Now when any agency for good is brought to bear upon a community, and fails to arrest its downward course, it argues there, a bad state of morals and religion; and the more powerful the agency at work, if it produces no results for the better, the worse does it speak for the condition of that community. This principle holding good the world over, what shall we conclude when we behold the most enlightened portions of our globe, our own country not excepted, in spite of all the light of science and the gospel, fast sinking in every principle of morality, virtue and true religion? He who foresaw the end from the beginning, has told us that goodness and virtue should gradually cease to find an abode in the hearts of men; that wickedness and vice in most hideous forms, should increase and flourish, till his little flock, scattered and few, would cry day and night for deliverance; and the exclamation was wrung even from our Saviour's lips, "When the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?" These declarations are drawing to their fulfillment. No agencies that man can employ, however powerful, can stem the tide that is setting in towards destruction. Truly broad is the way that leads to death, and many there be that go in thereat. All that we can expect is, that by earnest efforts in declaring the plain truth as it is, a few may be saved.