Are the Days of Noah and of Lot Returning?
We have no hesitancy in answering this question in the affirmative, for we believe the words of the Lord Jesus to be true: “As in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24: 36–39; Luke 17: 26–30). If we are not taught here that the earth is to be “filled with violence” as it was before the flood, we are at least taught that up to the day of the revelation of the Son of man the inhabitants of our world will, as a general thing, in spite of warnings and entreaties, go on in unbelief and worldliness so that the Judgment will come upon them unexpectedly; and other passages show that vice and crime will fearfully abound in the midst of knowledge and professed piety. No cities in the Union make a greater boast of progress and civilization than New York and Boston, and yet the abominations that are committed in them are astonishing. Take the following item from the New York correspondence of the Boston Journal of last week, and see if it will not do to go under the head of “fierce” in Paul’s catalogue of evils which were to render “the last days perilous” (2 Tim. 3: 1–5): “If a man commits petty larceny in this city he is quite likely to be ‘sent up’. If he steals a loaf of bread he will get into the Tombs. But if he robs a company of millions, or steals double-handed from the City Treasury, he stands a good chance to go scot free. The least dangerous pastime is murder. If a man dips his hands in blood, heaven and earth seem to be moved to save him from the gallows. We have in the Tombs to-day twenty-two murderers, and there is no prospect of either punishment or trial. This is understood perfectly well, and burglars go armed to take life on the slightest provocation. It is safer to kill than to rob. The chances of detection are lessened and the danger is less if the party is detected. In the disputes that occur on our ferry-boats, pistols are drawn on the slightest provocation, and on some of the lines of our cars a man who travels after ten o’clock takes his life in his hands. Roughs are especially protected now, as the election is near and every vote counts. A vigilance committee is talked of. We shall have it if the autumn elections do not give us some protection.” But we do not need to travel to New York to find criminals. “The assassination of Mr. Lane, and other crimes of less magnitude,” says the Church and Republic, “leading us to a question as to whether we are tending as a city. We are not sensationalists, nor are we equal to the worse folly of closing our eyes to facts which stare us in the face. The most important is this: that the aggregate of crime has increased more rapidly the past year than at any time before for several years, and that its greatest increase has been during the last four months, as shown by the police records. During the month of September the number of commitments to the city prison were 1551, as against 1143 in 1871. The same increase is to be noted in other recent months. The other fact is that at least three-fourths of all the crime committed—the testimony of police and judges is unanimous on this point,—is due directly or indirectly to the use of intoxicating drinks. Disguise it as we will, we are engaged, as a city, in training up a criminal element which threatens terrible things against us, in revenge for our neglect of duty toward them. More than one ward of our city is unsafe for citizens to enter at night, though an armed police patrols the precincts constantly, watching its inhabitants as though they were beasts of prey.”—Advent Herald.