EDITOR’S NOTE: The following was presented at the Annual Lectureship of David Lipscomb College in 1947. Solomon said, “there is no new thing under the sun.” Our society bears out Paul’s prediction that, “Evil men…shall wax worse and worse” (2 Tim. 3:13). By his own wisdom, man always degenerates.
Gus Nichols
It cannot be denied that there is a general letdown in the moral standard everywhere, and the recent war has not helped to correct the matter. The jails are crowded, and the penitentiaries are overflowing. One-fifth of the homes are broken up by divorce, and many others are dens of vice. An alarming per cent of the people either have, or have had, social disease. Human life is so cheap that we have more murderers than any other nation on earth. There are brutal thugs and robbers lying in wait for all thought to have a few dollars. People are dishonest. They won’t pay their debts unless they are tied up by mortgages and have it to do. The golden rule is ignored and the Sermon on the Mount is hardly known. Juvenile delinquency is alarming. Mere children are committing shocking crimes. There is more drinking and drunkenness than in the history of the nation. Automobiles are moving brothels. Cursing and blasphemy ring in our ears even in public places, and is coming from women and children, as well as men and boys. The only use many have for the holy name of God is to curse and swear by it. Gambling, shooting dice, and playing cards are popular sins. Dancing is now so popular that preachers may soon be called to open the ball with an “invocation.” However, the late J. D. Tant would not have thought so, for he said that there never was a dancing foot connected with a praying knee. The seditious movies are showing the youth of the nation how to commit crime, and are abolishing that modesty which is a coat of steel for the protection of virtue. They have already sold our rising generation for filthy lucre. Of course, they put in enough good to get the public to gulp the poison down. The things depicted upon the screen are admittedly too obscene to be described in the pulpit.
