Your ShelfYour Projects

Note and Comment

10%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 23.

Read the full edition

Note and Comment

On the Down Grade

By this heading to one of its editorials the New York Weekly Witness of May 13 expresses its convictions regarding the influences which are operating at the present time in the religious, social, and political worlds.
An ex-minister who has organized what he calls a church of social revolution, created a disturbance in Calvary Baptist Church last Sunday with the aid of some of his followers. As he had given notice beforehand of his intention, there were a number of policemen on hand, and the intruder was arrested after a sharp scuffle.
Over in London, a bomb was exploded in Spurgeon's Tabernacle by suffragettes.
Out in Ludlow, Colo., it is said that the military authorities, who now have control of the situation, have orders to drive out all nonresident miners. At least, that is the newspaper report.
And the United States Supreme Court has set free men sentenced for contempt of court, on the ground that it is too late to punish them.
All these incidents are signs of the times, and very bad signs. They all tend in the direction of anarchy. They all tend to make life less safe and business less secure. They all tend to excite the turbulent element of the population to be more turbulent, and thus to deprive peaceable citizens of that protection which the government is bound to afford them. They all tend to make this country more like Mexico—a country where "might makes right."
Up to the time of the Civil War, many persons in Europe thought that this country could not last as a republic. They thought that anarchy or schism would overthrow it. But the Civil War and its outcome seemed to prove that there was enough conservatism in the people of this country to sustain any shock.
The present situation and the tendency of public sentiment are, however, well calculated to awaken fear that the republic which has stood so many tests, and stood them so well, may some time become the home of anarchy.