Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, July 16, 1867

Historical Department.

Prophecy is History in Advance.

THE YEAR 1867.

[The following paragraphs are from an article published in an English monthly entitled, “The Last Vial.” They contain a vivid description of the present state of the world, and a frank admission concerning the character and position of apostate Protestantism, the harlot daughter of a corrupt mother, in which our readers will be interested.—Ed.]

We have entered on a year that, above all the years that are past, fulfils the words of our Lord, “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” There has, perhaps, never, either in ancient or modern times, been a moment so perplexing, so uncertain, and so threatening. Many a year has opened with more certainty of evil; many a year has suspended a heavier judgment over some particular nation; but no year that ever yet was written down on the rolls of eternity, can be compared with the year 1867, in the gloomy mystery of its threats, or in the wide-extended range of its forebodings. One takes up the subject almost with terror, lost in the immensity of the questions and the interests that are brought before the mind.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was held out by some very foolish writers as an era of universal peace. We all know that, from that day to this, there has not been one year without war, mutiny, bloodshed and revenge. From East to West, from India to Jamaica, this Protestant country has been gorged with slaughter and steeped in human blood. Step by step it has waded across the crimson tide, until every bad passion of the heart has been stirred into activity, and our old slumbering furies had awakened, like giants refreshed with blood. They are awakened now, and will not sleep again until they have fulfilled their task, and have proved, what might have been seen before, that Protestantism, when tempted, is just as guilty and as bloodthirsty as Romanism, and that both are equally liable to all the judgments of the Last Days. It is well that this should be manifest. It is well that the flatteries and false prophecies of such men as Dr. Cumming should be brought to trial, and condemned in open court, before those judgments fall which they have attempted to fix wholly upon the Church of Rome.

Look on the ERA OF PEACE which was to have begun at the Exhibition of 1851! Look at the false prophecies of those times, and contrast them with the realities of the present.

After eighteen hundred years of Christianity, and at least eighteen Great Exhibitions, in what condition is Christendom? Engaged in nothing else but preparation for WAR. New implements of destruction have been sent forth by Protestant Germany. Protestant Germany has led the way in violence, robbery, and bloodshed; and Roman Catholic Europe, do what it may, will only be treading in the steps of holy Protestantism. Worse it cannot be; and better it ought not to be in common decency; for has it not been told for three hundred years that Protestantism is the “woman ruling in heaven,” and the “man child” caught up to the throne of God? and it would be presumptuous indeed to be more scrupulous than such heavenly models. ALL Christendom this day is getting under arms. The armies of Europe, which once were counted by thousands, and then by tens of thousands, are henceforth to be reckoned up by millions. Every man is to be a soldier, if capable of bearing arms. The whole ingenuity and science of the age are exhausted in the invention of deadly weapons—destructive powders and iron fortresses, not by land only, but floating on the deep. Day by day some new and hideous engine appears—frowning over the land or gliding on the sea, like some revived antediluvian monster. There were giants in those days, and their strength was in their right hand; there are giants in these days, and their strength is in their machinery of war. Both are equally gigantic in wickedness, and differ only in the weapons which they employ; and both will be alike in their destination. A deluge of wrath destroyed the giants of old, and a deluge will destroy the giants of modern military science; and be assured that Protestants will feel that deluge as heavily as Romanists.

It is most just in God thus to rebuke the hypocrisy of Protestantism and the pride of the world at large. The word of God says that this dispensation is to end in wars and calamities of the most fearful kind—war that “shall take peace from the earth.” Philosophers and infidels say, “No! we will regenerate society by the march of intellect, and render war impossible.” The trial has been made, and eternal truth has triumphed over perishable falsehood. The Great Exhibition of peace has been followed by almost uninterrupted war!

Again, “All the judgments of the book of Revelations are levelled against Popery, and we are the ‘called, and chosen, and faithful;’ we wait with folded arms to see the reward of the ungodly.” So say Protestants, as ignorant of God’s truth as they are of their own hearts. Unfold your arms, throw off your attitude of expectation; there is work for you to do. In all the wars, the spoliations, the butcheries, and the sorceries of the age, you Protestants have taken the lead, from India, China, and Japan, to Jamaica, New Zealand, and the United States. In Protestant America began that sorcery which is now said to be received among twenty millions of mankind, and which is spreading day by day till it has enveloped Christendom. The Church of Rome stands with folded arms and a sardonic smile, to see Protestants taking the lead in all the crimes which it audaciously charged upon Romanism alone—to see the ungodly taken in the pit which he made for others, and enveloped as much as Romanism by all the clouds and terrors of the book of Revelation. In all this we see the perfection of divine retribution upon hypocrisy and pride of mind. *

Europe at large is dividing itself into two great camps—the camps of the North and of the South—of Protestantism and of Popery. Both those religions have long become thoroughly corrupt, alienated from God, and sunk in the world. The love of pleasure is the ruling passion of both; pleasure as pleasure in the South, and pleasure as power and riches in the North. In one respect they agree with that perfect agreement which befits the daughter and the mother; Rome the mother of harlots, and Protestantism the harlot daughter. How perfectly do they agree in one essential point—in the negation of a God. The harlot daughter, Protestantism, as befits her youthful alacrity, has far outstripped the mother.

Atheism is by far more common, or more avowed, among Protestants, than among Romanists: and it is the worst feature, perhaps, of all, that even the religious world has almost abandoned the love of God, and has set up man as its favorite deity. The human soul has for years been made the only object of the religious world, and our Lord and his glory have been reduced to the position of a servant—a mere convenience to work out the salvation of the human soul. The selfishness of the religious world approaches to the very verge of idolatry; for it makes the human soul every thing, and the Redeemer only a convenience; while, in the sight of God, the glory and the kingdom of his own Son are of more value than all the souls that ever rose or fell. Such is Protestantism, the harlot daughter of a harlot mother; and what will be its end?

Ah! what will be its end? It is possible that, for the present, the vast preparations may lead to no result; yet no one who sees the immensity of preparation can expect any other issue than a universal conflict; Romanism, with Napoleon at its head, arrayed against Protestantism without a head; a policy of system against a policy of confusion; a policy with an aim against an aimless ambition.

The French Emperor, last year, had a clear and determined policy before him. That policy was to get Sardinia for himself by assisting Italy against Austria, and then to weaken Austria so far as to bring her into subjection to himself. In the former half of his scheme he has been defeated—not from want of sagacity, but by inevitable events. In the latter half of his scheme he has been completely successful. Austria, from henceforth, will become a vassal of France. Many persons have absurdly blamed the Emperor for not having long ago interfered. The “Times” newspaper, which sets up for an oracle of blunders, tells us that the Emperor should at the first moment have placed an army on the Rhine, and forbidden Prussia to advance. A wise policy, in truth, when he knew only half the strength of his antagonist. He himself was wiser, for he waited to see the effect of the Prussian guns. If he had attacked Prussia without needle-guns of his own, he would have been ignominiously defeated, or perhaps destroyed. He most wisely looked on, and bought all his experience at the expense of Austria, not at his own. He has thus both saved himself and gained Austria as an ally. Austria, Italy, and France, with all the chivalry of Poland to fill up the intervals of their ranks, and to flank their operations. What will be the end, and who will triumph? Hitherto, the French Emperor has never been defeated, but only kept back by circumstances; and we may therefore expect that this vast combination, the work of his own brain, will prove finally triumphant, and that the South will beat back the North. But the South is Romanist, and Poland, the new ally of the South, is equally Roman Catholic, so that the victory of the South would be the triumph of Romanism.

The demands which France has made as to Germany, are now before the public; and, what is of far greater importance, it is said, as a positive fact, that these demands have never been withdrawn, but have only been postponed to a future day. The Great Exhibition must not be disturbed; the new guns must be got ready; and then the demands will be renewed. By that time the league between France, Austria, Italy and Poland, will have been completed. Austria will have had time to re-organize her army, and the Poles will have been thoroughly aroused up. After the Great Exhibition we may expect a new development, both of French aggression and of the Napoleonic mind; and the pacific declarations which we hear of every day, are only intended to keep matters smooth until the new military arrangements have been finished.

Our public press, with the “Times” at its head, is at its old trade again, promising peace at one time—at another, warning the Emperor, and exaggerating the strength of Germany and the force of Germanic patriotism. As we have said before, all may end peaceably. Diplomatic dust, which is another name for “discretion,” may disperse the “bees,” but it seems almost impossible to believe that either France or the French Emperor will acquiesce in the reduction of the French nation to a secondary position in Europe. Hence it is that we hear of alliances between Southern powers; of increase of military force; of new implements of destruction multiplied without end.

Such a war as we may consider almost inevitable, will have a decidedly prophetic result. Let us suppose it to have begun; let us suppose that France and her allies are triumphant. Germany is nominally Protestant, but really infidel—further from God even than Rome itself. France and her allies are nominally Romanist, but really infidel, like Germany. England is one discordant heap of sects and parties, of democrats and aristocrats, which can only be compared to Milton’s chaos—all elements shaken together in such confusion that no one can tell what ultimate form they will assume—whether this or that; but certainly some form that will be hateful in the sight of God.

In short, the year 1867 is the beginning of a new era, or promises to be such. It finds at its opening, all nations of Christendom preparing for action, and watching each other’s movements with a jealousy and suspicion that we believe have never been equaled, not even in the age of the First Napoleon. It finds the Third Napoleon driven to desperation by apparent ill success, but controlling his desperation into calm, indomitable resolution. It finds France throwing off its love of peace, and putting on its ancient

war dress, that it may avenge its humiliation. Both France and the French Emperor driven out, as if by main force, to the battle field, by circumstances which no human eye could have seen. It finds Romanism gathering up its strength, and banding together all its forces, for an attack upon the Protestant states of Christendom; while England, the chief Protestant state is driven to her wits’ end to find an army and a navy. Nor is even all this enough! for it finds the dread Eastern question opening out before it, as if to swallow up all peace in its insatiable jaws. And all the while, Great Babylon is building up her gilded domes and spreading out her purple canopies to receive the nations of the earth, and to display before them all the luxury, the splendor, the art, and the invention, which human genius can devise. The Exhibition of Paris and the preparations of war—the splendor and blood—the dark red cloud above and the glittering pageantry below—what a contrast do they afford? what a scene of horrible splendor and of ghastly festivity! All is Babylon from first to last, whether Protestant or Roman; and Protestant and Roman are rushing to one scene of overwhelming destruction, while decked out in all the ornaments of superhuman voluptuousness; for “pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”