4 For thou art not a El that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.

The world at present.

What does it know or care for the greatness and the glory of God? What conception has it of his holiness? Speak to it of such matters, and your speech is to them the speech of a madman. This helps us to realise how thoroughly evil the world is.

Some people have a difficulty in realising the truth on this point. They certainly think the world was bad at the time of the Roman Emperors, and at the time that Christ appeared; but they have an idea that now we are advancing by slow degrees towards an age of progress and enlightenment, and that in fact the world as a whole is already tolerably righteous. The prevalence of this idea is only proof of the ignorance that exists as to the nature of true enlightenment and true civilization.

The world lieth in wickedness now as much as it did in the days of John. The wickedness has only changed its form a little. Wickedness in our day is refined; it is cultivated; it is methodical; it has got on a beautiful skin outside, but according to the divine standard, it is, perhaps, more reprobate than the untutored barbarism of early days.

It is more proud and more blind to its weakness and dependence. The barbarians had some notion of a God, and entertained some idea that they must give some service to that God; but this miserable world of modern civilization is like to burst with exaggerated notions of their own importance. It is ripe for destruction.

It is respectable enough according to current notions of respectability, but, in the eyes of God, it is sunk in corruption as much as it was before the flood, when mankind had corrupted His way upon the earth Mankind have now utterly corrupted His way, and are walking after a thousand imaginations of their evil hearts, fearing not the Possessor of Heaven and Earth, regarding not His law, nor caring to know the state of the poor.

The Christadelphian, April 1876