WILL THEY CONVERT THE WORLD?
By M. E. Cornell
THE Christian Advocate for Sept. 14th, 1859, published a letter from India, from which I extract the following: "Alas, what sights and sounds meet me! On Saturday evening last I passed a place where it is said ten thousand natives were assembled. And why do you think they had met? It was to adopt a memorial to lord Stanley, the Secretary of State for India, praying that hindrances may be put in the way of propagating the gospel in this land. And while I write, the memorial is lying before me in the Tamil language. Sad, indeed, is the state of matters here. There has not for many years been such a violent opposition to the gospel as there is at present." The same paper speaks of the heathen cutting up and destroying the Bibles in Bulgaria; a large number were destroyed. The N. Y. Independent says: "The preaching of the gospel for a few years past (in the Sandwich Islands) seems to have but little influence on the young. Only one church, that at Waimea, reports a revival. Licentiousness in many places is becoming fearfully prevalent. A disposition is also shown to revive some of the old heathenish practices, and the Hula, a most demoralizing dance, is already quite prevalent in Oahu." Everywhere I go the same evidences greet me, the friends of Christianity are lamenting, while its enemies rejoice over the fallen state of the churches; but the rest are all asleep, having been rocked in the peace-and-safety cradle. The result of the modern revivals in both that and the old country, and the enlarging and multiplying of State prisons, clearly show the downward tendency of the masses. The aggressions of the slave power the last few years are ominous in the same direction. The lying and misrepresentation, the low slang and blackguard, of the political papers in the United States, have become quite general. If one-third of what each party says of the other be true, then certainly they must be awfully corrupt; but if two-thirds be false, they are equally condemned. Alas! what deception and wickedness is practiced by those in high places, both political and religious. Because iniquity abounds the love of many is waxed cold, and the world is ripening for destruction. What reason we have for gratitude, when we consider that these perilous times have been foretold by the prophets, and that this state of things will not long continue. A little room here for patience and faith, and then "he that shall come will come and will not tarry." Even so. Amen. Tipton, Iowa, Dec. 8th, 1859.