MILLENNIUM AFAR OFF

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1932, 30 August 1888, Page 3

MILLENNIUM AFAR OFF

+ (1 The Southland Times" m an article on the recent Supreme Oourt criminal sittings at Invercargil) muses thusly :— The recent session of the Supreme Court In Inveroargill was a little more exciting than ÜBual. There was a great variety of oases — laroeny, houaebreaking, embezzlement, cattle lifting, breach of promise, dlvoroe. libel, dog biting, etc., showing that the world still wags along much m the old fashion. The prophecy mongers have been assuring us for years that the Millennium was at hand ; but, so far, they have been out m their calculations, as the oases to whloh we have just referred abundantly testify. Whether the doctrine of original sin be m strict aooo;d with original faot or not, there can be no doubt about the existence of a vast amount of actual transgression. It is only oertaln description of effarcas against the moral law that come before our criminal courts, but theie are enough to show that mankind are a good way yet from their millennial condition ; and it la not a little sad to think that so great a number of the transgressors still belong to the educated classes. The evil seems to run m the blood. Some of our philosophers Indeed hold that it is eternal. Let us hope not, and that religion, education, and other civilising influences and agencies will yet do for tbe blood metaphor.otl what sarsaparllla and Holloway's pills are Bald to do for the blood literal. One of the things most difficult to learn seems to be the distinction between mcum and tuum. It might also be said that mankind are communists by nature — to this extent at least that the majority would be glad to have a good share of what their neighbors possess. When this feeling beoomes excessive it Is apt to bring Its subjects before the dispensers of justice — an article which from the prevalence of wrongdoing has come to mean condemnation or punishment. The thief and tfie embezzler sro, so to speak, exaggerated speoimens of the communist, but such exaggerations as society cannot afford to tolerate.