Basic HTML Version
Conditions in the Cities
There is coming rapidly and surely an almost universal guilt
upon the inhabitants of the cities because of the steady increase of
determined wickedness. We are living in the midst of an “epidemic
of crime” at which thoughtful, God-fearing men everywhere stand
aghast. The corruption that prevails is beyond the power of the hu-
man pen to describe. Every day brings fresh revelations of political
strife, bribery, and fraud; every day brings its heartsickening record
of violence and lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering; of
brutal, fiendish destruction of human life. Every day testifies to the
increase of insanity, murder, and suicide.
The cities of today are fast becoming like Sodom and Gomor-
rah. Holidays are numerous; the whirl of excitement and pleasure
attracts thousands from the sober duties of life. The exciting sports—
theatergoing, horse racing, gambling, liquor drinking and reveling—
stimulate every passion to activity.
[90]
The youth are swept away by the popular current. Those who
learn to love amusement for its own sake open the door to a flood of
temptations. They give themselves up to social gaiety and thought-
less mirth. They are led on from one form of dissipation to another,
until they lose both the desire and the capacity for a life of useful-
ness. Their religious aspirations are chilled; their spiritual life is
darkened. All the nobler faculties of the soul, all that link man with
the spiritual world, are debased.
Through the working of trusts and the results of labor unions and
strikes, the conditions of life in the cities are constantly becoming
more and more difficult.
The intense passion for money getting, the thirst for display, the
luxury and extravagance—all are forces that, with the great mass
of mankind, are turning the mind from life’s true purpose. They
are opening the door to a thousand evils. Many, absorbed in their
interest in worldly treasures, become insensible to the claims of God
and the needs of their fellow men. They regard their wealth as a
80