Note and Comment by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1912

Note and Comment

By C. M. S.

An Impending Conflict

In the February issue of the National Ripsaw, a Socialistic journal published at St. Louis, Mo., the editor, in seeking to stir up the farmers of the country to join with labor against capital, has this to say in reference to the conditions that now exist throughout the world:—

We are at the beginning of a crisis which will end either in revolution by force, and carnage and bloodshed such as the world has never known, or in revolution through the peaceful methods of revolution and the enthronement of labor in the administration of justice and the promotion of universal happiness.

In either event, the old systems, which are but relics of barbarism, veneered by a boasted civilization and gilded by a thin pretense to Christianity, must fall, and in their place be established a civilization based upon justice and equality of opportunity.

The logic of events has prepared a new order of things in the establishment of which you are destined to take an important part.

Isolated as you are, you do not feel the throbbing pulse nor participate in the defiant spirit of the great unrest that prevails in our large cities, crowded with human beings and congested with all the ills and evils with which human flesh can be afflicted.

In the coming crisis a vote is the most precious possession of the American.

It is the means that shall determine whether the new order of society, which new inventions and new discoveries have made necessary, shall be established by forceful methods and the sacrifice of millions of precious lives, and amid scenes of carnage and bloodshed such as were never before witnessed, or whether the transformation shall be accomplished by the peaceful methods of the ballot.

Then follows a fearful arraignment of capital, legislatures, and the judiciary; and upon these is placed the blame for practically all the dissatisfaction, injustice, turmoil, sorrow, and misery in the world. The conditions are certainly serious enough; and surely the class hatred exists which seems destined to bring the clash and the revolution that the editor expects to see accomplished, either through peace or through war. But he who expects to see blossom out of that clash a world-nation of true civilization, peace, plenty, prosperity, justice, and love, is doomed to a most bitter disappointment. This condition is graphically described in the fifth chapter of James, verses one to six. But it is followed by this admonition:—

“Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. . . . Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against another, that ye be not judged: behold, the Judge standeth before the doors.” James 5:7-9.

While the conditions of discontent, injustice, and misery are to be deplored, the Lord is not in, and is not sanctioning, any movement or work that stirs up class against class, that makes peremptory demands and talks of bloodshed as a means of securing them. The idea that these conditions are to be remedied by such means is one of the most dangerous deceptions of the evil one. With that deception he will lead myriads straight up to and straight into the day of doom. Let us heed the Lord’s admonition: “Be patient,” “establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

C. M. S.