p. 96 | What They Say

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · OAKLAND, CAL. · Dec 31, 1874

What They Say.

Europe Expectant.

The military manœuvres on the Continent have once more fixed attention on the stupendous preparations for war by which the period is distinguished beyond all others in historical memory. Disguise the fact as we may under the high-sounding terms used to express purely defensive measures of preparation, it is still a fact that Europe is being transformed into one vast camp, and that, in round numbers, some six millions of the best manhood of the leading powers of Europe are withdrawn from productive industry to prepare for some unforseen and deadly contingency. The question is where and whence this contingency may arise, and it is only when we try to answer this question that the real difficulty of the problem presents itself. Men who are familiar at the embassies can tell no more than the manipulator of Reuter's telegrams or the speculative writer of a leading article in his dingy garret.

Baron von Molrowscratch shrugs his shoulders when you ask him what he thinks of the state of Europe, and if you persist, only wanders away into commonplaces and thinks it all very sad. France cannot fight; Germany does not want to fight; Austria will not move in her fine strategic position until she is absolutely compelled; Italy has enough to hold her own; and Russia has more to gain by watching events than by precipitating them. Something like this is the sum of all that can be said on the subject by those who ought to be the best informed, and it is precisely because this is the case, while notwithstanding all the powers stand ready armed against some common and ill-understood danger, that the situation is dangerous.—Broad Arrow.

Asia's Cry of Anguish is the title of a Mohammedan paper at Constantinople, which represents that Asia, the mother of Islam and of all science and culture, is in danger of being overrun by the barbarians. The Russians, it complains, are navigating the Oxus in order to penetrate to the heart of Asia; the Dutch are stamping out civilization in Sumatra; and the English, under pretence of supressing the slave-trade, are persecuting Mohammedanism in India and Arabia; while the Asiatics, instead of repelling the Europeans, are at war with one another.