The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1914-03-26
Who Is At The Helm?
By Paul Wentworth Potter.

There are always plenty of people to
be found who are convinced that the
world was never so bad as 1t is today.
Drunkenness is ever on the increase;
vice in its myriad forms is constantly
raising its hydra head higher and more
threateningly; the young are more
sophisticated and forward; business is
full of corruption and politics another
name for graft; women are smoking
and soaking and tangoing; the discus
sion of prostitution and sex hygiene has
banlshed modesty; easy divorce and
woman suffrage have broken up count
less homes, and it is patent to the most
casual observer that we are all going to
the Everlasting boWwOws.
What is more, the statistics prove It.
Eminent divines who are specializing in
social science are growing frantic over
the untold possibilities of evil. Experts,
who have. with immense devotion to
truth, examined microscopically all the
dens of filth and suffered nausea and
vexation of soul in collecting salacious
details, are getting out reports that
would excite the envy of Rabelais.
1t only remains for the denizens of
the underworld to food the magazines
with the story of their lives-all, of
course, in the interest of truth and up
lift. No doubt there would be money
in it if they could put it over in a
penitential spirit, after the manner of
Defoe.
Moreover, there is a sadder side to
the picture as it is often depicted. 1t
means nothing else than the failure of
Christianity. If the world is getting
worse every day, then the gates of hell
are slowly but surely prevailing against
the powers of good. One or two of the
valiant warriors that could hew Agag
to pieces alone remain. One or two
hero saints, like Elijah in the midst of
the Baal worshipers and calf !,issers,
only are left. The church is gradually
gong under. Minister after minister
is throwing up his hands in despair.
His hopes are no longer fixed on the
throne of grace, but on the ministerial
unions and other devices which, with
more or less frankness, work the
wealthy.
Alas for the good old times, the
golden age of faith and piety, when
everybody went to church and enriche d
the sacredotal coeffrs; when the Bible
was an open book; when children
reverenced their parents and devOutly
kissed the sacred apron string! Wei
come ignorance, bigotrY and supersti-
ton! Welcome narrow outlooks, arrest
ed mental development and rabbit
brains, if only those good old times will
return and abide-those times of
Arcadian innocence, when scantiness OF
apparel suggested no evil and the wine
cup tempted to no abuse.
But this is not a jeremiad; it is a con-
tribution to the uplift. The reader who
sympathizes even remotely with the
sentiments expressed above is living in
the only Arcadia the world has eyer
known. He can hardly attain to
greater or more blissful ignorance and
bigotry than are already his.
Surely nothing is more short-sighted
and irreligious than the idea that the
world is growing worse all the time.
1t is shortsighted because it fails to
distinguish between the appearance and
the reality. Mole hills become noun
tains if seen through lens of sufficient
power. So, seen through the higher
standards of each succeeding age, the
really diminishing evils assume startl-
ing and malignant aspect. A single
drunken man magnlfied into an orgy of
Bacchus or Roman carnival, while a
disorderly house becomes a palace of
Messalinas or modern Avignon. Seq
regated districts are now confined to a
few blocks. They used to be limited
only by the city walls. One must read
something of the past to judge wisely
of the present.
But belief in the decadence of the
world is not only shortsighted; it is
irreligious.
Those who believe in God, that He