Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-09-24

would utterly despair if we had moth
ing else. But what cheers me is that
our best troops are yet to come. Our
chief artillery is in reserve. Our great
est commander has not yet fully taken
the field. If all hell is on their side, all
heaven is on our side. Now, Let God
arise and let his enemies be scattered. .
Then look at the impurities Of these
great cities. Ever and anon there are i'll
the newspapers explosions of social life
that make the story of Sodom quite re-
spectacle, "for such things" Christ
says, "were moro tolerable for Sodom
and Gomorrah" than for the Chorazins
and Bethsaidas of greater light. 1t is
! no unusual thing in our cities to see
men in high positions with two or three
families, or refined ladies willing SOL
emily to marry the very swine of So
cety if they be wealthy. The Bible all
afame with denunciation against an
impure life, but many Of the American
ministry uttering not one point blank
word against this iniquity lest some old
libertine throw up his church pew.
Machinery organized in all the cities OF
the United States and Canada by which
to put yearly in the grinding mill of
this iniquity thousands of the unsus-
pecting of the country farmhouses, one
procuress confessing in the courts that
she had supplied the Internal market
with $50 victims in six months. Oh, for
500 newspapers in America to swing
open the door Of this laZar house OF So
cial corruption Exposure must come
before extirpation.
The Social Sins.
While the city van carries the scum
of this sin from the prison to the police
court morning by morning it is full
time, if we do not want high American
life to become like that of the court of
Louis XIV, to put millionaire Lotharios
and the Pompadours of your brownstono
palaces into van of popular indigna-
ton and drive them out of respectable
associations What prospect OF social
publication can there be as long as at
summer watering places it is usual to
see a young woman of excellent rearing
stand and shipper and gigsle and roll up
her eyes sideways before one of those
first class satyrs of fashionable life and
on the ballroom floor join him in the
dance, tho maternal chaperon mean
while beaming from the window on the
scene? Matches are made i'll heaven,
they say. Not such matches, for the
birthstone indicates the opposite region
The evil is overshadowing all our
cities By some these immoralities are
called peccadillos, gallantries, eccen-
tricities, and are relegated to the realms
of iocularity, and few efforts are being
made against them. God bless the
"White Cross" movement, as it is call
ed-an organization making mighty
assault Oh this evil. God forward tho
tracts OH this subject distributed by the
religious tract societies of the land. God
help parents in the great work they are
doing in trying to start their children
with pure principles. God help all leg
islators in their attempt to prohibit this
crime.
AS Ye Reap.
But is this all? Then it is only a
question of time when the last vestige
Of purity and home will vanish out OF
sight. Human arms, human pens, hui
man voices, human talents, are not suffi-
Gent. l begin to look up. l listen for
artillery rumbling down the sapphire
boulevards of heaven. watch to see II
in the morning light there be not the
dash of descending scimiters. Oh, for
God! Does it not seem tins for his APP
pearance: Is it not time for all lands to
cry out "Let God arise and let his en-
emies be scattered?"
got a letter asking me if l did not
think that the earthquake ill one OF our
cities was the divine chastisement on
that city for its sins. That letter l an
swered by saying that if all our Amerl-
can cities got all the punishment they
deserve for their horrible impurities the
earth would long ago have cracked,
opening crevices transcontinental, and
taken down all our cities so far under
that the tip of our church spires would
be 500 feet below the surface. 1t is OF
the Lords mercies that we have not
been consumed.
Not only are the affairs of this world SO
a-twist, a-jangle and racked that there
seems a need of the divine appearance,
but there is another reason. Have you
not noticed that in the history of this
planet God turns leaf about every
2. 600 years? God turned IL leaf, and this
world was fitted for human residence.
About 1000 more years passed along,
and God turned another leaf, and 1t
was the deluge. About 1000 more years
passed on, and it was the Nativity. Al
most 2, 900 more years passed by, and
he will probably soon turn another leaf.
What it shall be I cannot say. 1t may
be the demolition of all these monstros-
tiles of turpitude and the establishment
of righteousness in all the earth. He
can do it, and he will do it. l am as
! confident as if it were already accom-
plished. How easily he can do it my
text suggests. 1t does not ask God to
hurl a great thunderbolt of his power,
but Just to rise from the throne ON
which he sits. Only that will be neces.
:ary. "Let God arise.
The Coming of God.
1t will beno exertion Of omnipotence
1t will be no bending or bracing for a
mighty lift. 1t will be no sending down
the sky of the white horse cavalry OF
heaven or rumbling war chariots. He
will only rise Now he is sitting i'll the
majesty and patience OF his reign. lie
is from his throne watching the muster
ing of all the forces Of blasphemy and
drunkenness and impurity and fraud
and Sabbath breaking, and when they
have done their worst ard are most
surely organized he will bestir himself
and say: "My enemies have denied me
long enough and their cup of iniquity is
full. l have given them all opportunity
for repentance. This dispensation of pa
thence is ended, and the faith of the
good shall be tried no longer" And
,,o,,, God haoipc RI ri co and Uho mOun-