Iniquity Abounds by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 14, 1864

Iniquity Abounds.

By R. F. Cottrell

As set forth in a recent number of the Review, every kind of iniquity is on the increase. A vast number are trying every scheme to rob the public treasury, or to make money in every unlawful way that they are capable of inventing. Some who would seem to be great lovers of liberty and haters of slavery, engage in purchasing men for soldiers as cheap as they possibly can, and then turn them over to the government at the highest bounty, and thus enrich themselves with that which is justly due to the soldier, and heap up to themselves the price of blood. Others enlist to get the bounty with the intention to desert the first opportunity. "War demoralizes." And how many, that before becoming soldiers sustained a good character, have sunk to the lowest depths of vice and infamy. And it is remarkable how eager even the little boys are to rush into the army, and will try every means, even perjury itself to attain an end they think is so desirable. Boys of all ages between fourteen and eighteen abscond from their parents and get admitted into the service, by testifying under oath that they are of the age required by law. Some parents have thus been forced to the alternative to suffer their boys of fourteen or fifteen years to go into the service, or suffer the consequences of their false swearing. How awfully corrupt the veriest youths and striplings are becoming! Disobedience to parents at home, anarchy and rebellion everywhere. Surely, the world has about reached the full measure of its guilt. The day of the Lord is at hand.

R. F. Cottrell.