Gal. v, 20, 21, "Hatred, . . . strife, . . . murders, drunkenness, and such like." 2 Tim. 3, 1-4. "This know also, that in the last days men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . proud, . . . without natural affection, . . . incontinent, . . . traitors, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God." 1 John v, 19. "The whole world lieth in wickedness." Never before has the world been called upon to witness a deluge of crime such as we are now passing. Instance the following cullings from the press of a few days ago. Says The Morning Star of Aug. 30th, 1865, in a leading article:—
"The Theory of Crime," etc., "Passing Events." "Few subjects at the present time call more loudly for the candid attention of the people at large, than the alarming prevalence of crime. It is scarcely possible to open a daily journal without having our feelings shocked by murder, etc., or something of the sort. We are told it is hardly safe to walk at mid-day. . . . In what this state of things will end, unless some means be devised to remedy the existing evils, no one can tell."
Streets and Smith's New York Weekly, of Aug. 31st, 1865, in a leading article, "An Epidemic of Crime," says:—"We are dreadfully reminded of Dahoman customs just now, in reading the record of criminality of our own country during a single month. It is hideous and revolting. As if unsatisfied with our Aceldemas, our fields of blood so lavishly fed with sacrifices during four years of war; we were now inaugurating a 'Saturnalia' of crime, worse than that which degraded Rome under bloodiest tyrants." The fearfulness of wickedness appals us by its increase. It is sufficient, if we recognize it, to fill us with horror. It shows a state of morals that almost threatens to plunge us into anarchy, frightful to contemplate. . . . What a catalogue of atrocities horrifies the public during one month. It would seem as if stragglers from hostile armies were roaming through our villages, with vindictive purpose, marking their path by murders and outrages, simultaneously in a score of localities. Citizens are slain in their beds, robbed in the highways; females are assaulted in their walks, ruined and slaughtered within sight almost of their homes. * Both sexes, and young as well as old, are infused as it were with the contagion, infection, or whatever it may be.
"Two hundred years ago, such multiplicity of offences against life would have been attributed to Satanic influence, or witchcraft. That the malefactors of our day are instigated by the Devil, we have no doubt. * The last drops, black and bitter, of man's red vials seem now to be sprinkling the land."
The Boston Journal of Aug. 25th, 1865, in an article on "The Path of Crime," says:—"The statistics of unusual events, such as tornadoes and murders, have certainly been enlarged to an uncommon degree within six months. Nature, animate and inanimate, seems to be somewhat disturbed in her realm."
The Portland Advertiser, of the 11th of Aug., says: "Crimes of all kinds seem to be on the increase throughout the length and breadth of the land. Rarely do we pick up an exchange, but what some heinous crime is chronicled therein."
When speaking of the New York World of the 9th Aug., the Criminal Era says:—"The columns of the daily World for the past week have teemed with cases of crime, which, should we attempt to transfer them to the Weekly, would require more than our entire space, and surfeit our readers." Again, in its issue of Aug. 23d, in an article headed, "The Second Deluge," it says:—"The war which we have just closed seems to have been only the first act in a grand tragedy of horrors, which is still in course of representation. At this moment the Muse of tragedy presides over the columns of all the journals, and fills them with tales of rape, robberies, suicides, murders, and crimes of every sort and every degree."
The Boston Journal of Aug. 25th, quoting from Wilmer and Smith's European Times, says:—"Great crimes are the painful characteristic feature of our day. One man was taken up for killing his wife and daughter. He stated that the day before he had killed three children. A professed murderer, of the name of Windsor, murdered children at $25 per head."
Says another paper, "If the present state of things continues without modification, we shall have to record murders as regular productions; as we do those of the generous summer and teeming autumn."
One paper contains twenty-nine murders, in its issue. In the Nation, of Aug. 24th, 1865, when quoting from English statistics for 1864, it says, "Coroner's inquests were passed upon 1,337 suicides," and that drunkenness was fearfully on the increase.
Another paper states that the number of convictions for crime had increased in England in ten years from 48,908 to 70,057; in Ireland, in the same period, from 17,669 to 37,637; in Scotland, from 5,289 to 27,643.
In view of the terrific fulfillment of prophecy, who can longer doubt but that the last generation is fast closing, when the sinner will cry for rocks and mountains to fall upon him, to hide him from the Lamb. But the voice of the Christian will be, "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him."—John Taylor, in World's Crisis.