Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-03-25
..OTHER RNFUGE HAVE ME- NONEo

TN HERE is a widespread conviction that
nothing but the return of the people
a to God will suffice to correct the con
dition of disorder and decentralization which
has followed the war.
Sensible men that there has been a
fearful decline in morality, which threatens
gravely all other interests, and they refuse
to allow the charge of "pessimism' to re
press the expression of their convictions.
Men widely separated by distance and
more widely by class distinction, are speak
ing out clearly and cogently. The most emil
nent editors, educators, economists, and
statesmen unite with one voice in pointing
out the peris of sin to civilization and in
declaring religion to be the only force able
to avert the dangers which arise from it.
Recently the st. Louis Globe-Democrat
said:
"a state of almost universal degeneracy
is apparent in the decline of moral standards
throughout the world The distinctions of
the war that are counted in blood and treas
ure are perhaps the least of its disasters.
The clock of civilization has been turned
back. How are it's great hands to be turned
forward so as to recover the loss and to
proceed with progress? We say it with So
lemnity that it only be done by the re-
covery of the consciousness of God and of
responsibility to God in the hearts and minds
of men,
The degeneracy to which the editor Of the
Globe-Democrat refers is not confined to any
class of people,
1t is manifested in the form of highway
robberies in our cities perpetrated in open
daylight, and it has broken forth at the
national capital in an eruption of political
corruption that smells to heaven.
Some may say there has been less wrong
doing on the part of high officials at Wash
ingtOn than the press reports have Indicated
and that politicians have exaggerated for
partisan purposes the whole situation. That
does not materially alter the case; for we
forced
been perpetrated or enormous fasehoods
uttered. In either case prominent men in
the government are guilty of the grossest
immortality. Perhaps both fraud and false
hood have mingled in the foul flood of evil
which has filed the federal capital
In many other directions are evidences of
the prevalent degeneracy which the st. Louis
editor so yividy described and so justly
deprecated. They are visible in commerce,
social life, literature and education. During
the war many men rose to unusual heights
of heroism who were without sufficient
moral force within themselves to sustain
them at such lofty levels; and when the in
spiration of the conflict ceased, their high
purposes collapsed and they fell lower than
the moral grade from which they were lifted
temporarily by the stimulation of transient
enthusiasm.
Others were not inspired by the war even.
They were our profiteers, who, like vultures
Toasted and fattened by feeding on both pub
IIC anu pIINdI9 interests WnlI6 the attG0t1On
of others was directed to nobIer things.
These were they who acquired habits of cor
ruption which they were too weak to break
off when peace came. They became, if any
thing, more bold in their theying and more
shameless in their yillainy.
There were yet others who in a period of
imitation became addicted to the widest ex-
trayagance, and who now continue their eff
forts to indulge such Wastefulness. To graf
ify their pampered appetites and satisfy
their worldly vanity requires an amount of
money which they do not possess and cannot
earn. Hence some Of them incur hopeless
Indebtedness and some fall to stealing.
To remedy such conditions nothing less
than a great revival of religion will avail
The gods of greed and pleasure must be de-
thrOned and the God Of heaven enthrOned in
the hearts of the people. They have been
deifying their lusts and crucifyng the Lord,
and now the whole current of their natures
must be reversed by the supernatural power
of the regenerating Holy Spirit.
Shallow and spasmOdic refOrmatiOns viii
not suffice to meet the needs of the hour.
Superficial treatment of outward symptoms
will irritate far more than it will cleanse
the evil away. The life of the people calls
for constitutional rather than ,utaneous
remedies. Social sales cannot take the
remedies. Social saIves cannot take the
In fact, porous plaster reformers have