90 THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY.
accomplishing in the world, but also by reason of the
great evils which the spirit of darkness is spreading
throughout Christendom. The despotic and arrogant
pretensions of Rome have reached in our days their
highest pitch, and we are consequently more than ever
called upon to contend against that power which dares
to usurp the divine attributes. But that is not all.
While superstition has increased, unbelief has done so
still more. Until now, the eighteenth century—the age
of Voltaire—was regarded as the epoch of most decided
infidelity; but how far does the present time surpass it
in this respect! . . . But there is a still sadder feature
of our times. Unbelief has reached even the ministry
of the word.”
Political corruption is preparing the way for
deeper sin. It pervades all parties. Look at the
dishonest means resorted to to obtain office,—the
bribery, the deceptions, the ballot-stuffing. Look at
the stupendous revelations of municipal corruption
lately disclosed in New York City,—millions upon
millions stolen directly and barefacedly from the -
city treasury by its corrupt officials. Look at the
civil service of this government. Speaking on this
point, The Nation of Nov. 17, 1870, said:—
“The newspapers are generally believed to exaggerate
most of the abuses they denounce; but we say deliber-
ately, that no denunciation of the civil service of the
United States which has ever appeared in print has come
up, as a picture of selfishness, greed, fraud, corruption
falsehood, and cruelty, to the accounts which are given
privately by those who have seen the real workings of
the machine.”
_ Revelations are continually coming to li go-
ing beyond the worst fears of those. who hie
the most apprehensive of wrongs committed among
all classes of society at the present time. The nation
stands aghast to-day at the evidence of corruption
in high places which is thrust before its face. Yet a
THE DRAGON VOICE. 91
| popular ministry, in their softest and most soothing
| tones, declare that the world is growing better, and
sing of a good time coming.
The Detroit Evening News of March 4, 1876, re-
| ferring to Secretary Belknap’s fall, said: —
«The revelations of corruption in connection with the
administration of the Federal government have gone fur-
Ether than anybody's worst fears, in the humiliating in-
telligence of Secretary Belknap's disgrace. That among
the underlings there were to be found rascals might have
been expected in such times as these, but that a minister
of the Cabinet should have turned out to be nothing bet-
ter than a vulgar thief is something which must fill this
nation with dismay, and the civilized world with con-
tempt. Where is all this to stop? Are we so utterly
rotten as a people that nothing but vileness can come
uppermost,—that we cannot preserve even the great
offices of the Cabinet from the possession of rascals?”
Again the News says: —
« Washington seems to be ingulfed in iniquity and
iY mg quity
steeped in corruption. Disclosures of fraud in high
‘places are pushing one another toward the light. Bel-
knap, Logan, Delano, Ingalls—and where the black list
will stop, Heaven only knows.”
Since the foregoing was written there has been no
real improvement in the tone of public morals. And
further enumeration is here unnecessary. Enough
crops out in every day's history to show that moral
‘principle, the only guarantee for justice and honesty
in a government like ours, is sadly wanting.
And evil is also threatening from another quar-
‘ter. Creeping up from the darkness of the Dark
7 Ages, a hideous monster is intently watching to
seize the throat of liberty in our land. It thrusts
itself up into the noonday of the nineteenth century,
not that it may be benefited by its light and free-