PROPHETIC PROSPECT FOR 1881.
THE beginning of 1881 shows us the world in a more alarming condition than it has appeared in even in years when a war has been imminent between two great nations. Were it not for the unfailing word of Scripture prophecy, we might be at a loss to account for the growing rampancy of wickedness and the hopelessness of the struggle of right against wrong. It requires no small measure of humiliation to take a true view of human nature as it has been since the fall. Consequently, worldly philosophers prefer to see in the spread of civilization and in the increasing justice of legislation, signs that the love of truth is becoming universal, and that individual selfishness will not always dominate human affairs, while far too many Christian believers persist in putting a figurative interpretation upon every declaration of God's word which does not seem to encourage the hope that the church is now on the way to victory. But the teaching of the Bible is that deliverance, not victory, is to be the hope of the church. There is something awfully certain in whatever God once declares will come to pass. At a time when the Israelites were flushed with conquest, and their name was a terror to the mightiest nations upon the earth, Moses recorded the decree that they would become "a proverb and a by-word among all nations" (Deut. 28: 37). That has been literally fulfilled in the reproachful term "a Jew." Moses also wrote, "The Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other" (verse 64). And that has literally come to pass. He said, further, "Ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you" (verse 68). And profane history tells us that even that extraordinary prediction was literally fulfilled in the Alexandrian slave-market after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Once more, when Tyre was one of the magnificent capitals of the world, the Lord God declared, "I will make her like the top of a rock; it shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea" (Ezek. 26: 4, 5). And these words, in no figurative or spiritual sense, but exactly and literally, describe the site of that great city to-day. Again, when Babylon was "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency," its doom was announced with minute particularity, viz., that it would be overthrown and never be inhabited again, that the wandering tribes of the desert and the shepherds on the plains would avoid it, and that it would become a habitation of wild beasts (Isa. 13: 19-22). All that has come to pass, as any eastern traveler can see to-day, not in a spiritual or general sense, but literally and particularly. Regarding the Lord Jesus Christ, it was foretold that he would come in the tribe of Judah and in the line of David, and that he would be born of a virgin. Events proved that "Judah" meant Judah, and not the Jewish race; and that "David" meant David, and not any royal line; while "a virgin" typified no social or spiritual condition, but simply meant Mary, the wife of Joseph, in her virginity. The numerous prophecies regarding the life and death of our Lord were equally explicit, and their fulfillment was equally literal. Now let us take a glance at of the world, and see, on the one hand, how far it agrees with what the prophecies tell us is coming, and, on the other, with what we might expect if there were any power in education or civilization to overcome sin. 1. What is known in Europe as the Eastern question has not advanced one step toward a solution since the beginning of 1880. The succession of the Liberal Government in England, to which many people looked for a speedy settlement of Turkish difficulties, has been followed by no measure of consequence in that direction. Matters seem to be standing still under the development of God's further purposes. There is no prospect whatever of an improvement in the financial condition of Turkey, and without such an improvement there can be no change for the better in its administration. Meanwhile the insurrectionary spirit excited in the subject populations by the late wars gives safe promise of another outbreak at no distant day; and that will call for or lead to the armed intervention of some of the great powers of Europe, with the usual danger of a war between those powers themselves. 2. The imagination palls at the thought of the next European war, for which twelve millions of armed men are kept waiting in silent mockery of the hope that the reign of peace is in a fair way to begin upon the earth. A few days ago one of the daily papers, not over-well versed in the Bible, but with a shrewd practical view of the condition of public affairs, wrote as follows:— "The world has never yet seen war on a national scale. There have been, as in 1812-13-14, many armies, and those numerically as well as otherwise formidable, engaged simultaneously on one theatre. In 1870 the Germans employed several large armies, and the French, too, made considerable levies. But all the conditions of war are different from what they were in the Napoleonic era, and since 1870 several nations have turned or are turning almost their entire population into soldiers. When war occurs again among the great Continental powers there will be such a sight presented as never was seen before. There will be in the first line a chain of armies furnished with superb material; in the rear will be the reserves of trained troops exceeding in number the biggest armies of former times; and these reserves will rest on a succession of strong fortresses and intrenched camps held by enormous garrisons." If we remember with this that every year adds to the improvements in the torpedoes, mitrailleuses, Gatling guns, and other engines for wholesale destruction of human life, it will appear that God knew more about the nineteenth century before the Christian era than we know about it now. 3. The Afghan war is standing still like the Eastern question. In this swiftly-moving age, twelve months more have gone past without a settlement of the relations between Afghanistan and the Indian Government. At the time we write this article it is uncertain what security the new Ameer, Abdurrahman Khan, has for his throne, and in what sense the British frontier is to be protected; while the rebel leader, Ayoob Khan, is at large, able to boast of having destroyed a British force near Candahar, and to laugh over the slaughter in cold blood of a British officer whom he had captured as a prisoner of war. 4. Lastly, the condition of things in Ireland seems enough to open the eyes of the blindest to the gloomy prospect before the world and to the corruption which lies beneath the veneer of its civilization. It is for the first time in history that a Government has tolerated total insecurity of life, liberty, and property without the excuse of war or revolution. A large part of Ireland has been for months past in a state corresponding with the state of Paris during the Commune or North India during the Mutiny of 1857, with this difference—that in the last two cases the murder and violence were stopped as fast as guns and soldiers could stop them, whereas to-day in Ireland the authorities seem to have neither the ability nor the disposition to interfere to any effectual purpose. A lethargy born of an increasingly blunted national moral sense has apparently taken possession of the Government. Even a few years ago such a condition of things would not have been possible; but the principle of the supremacy of the people above the law is gaining ground, and the world is hastening to the state in which it was before the flood—"corrupt before God and filled with violence." (Gen. 6: 11.) It is doubtful if any nostrum of legislation can now restore civil order in the country. The leading London papers are agreed in expressions of opinion like the following: "Coercive acts a few months ago would have been effective, but now they will be useless. The people have learned their power to well to be cowed. This revolution cannot end without bloodshed unless capitulation be made to the Land League, which is out of the question. The rising may be small and ineffective, but it is considered inevitable by many who are familiar with the state of the country. It is beyond question that no land bill, however extreme, will satisfy the Land League, and the movement should be considered in all its significance. According to the clear and repeated utterances of members of the League Executive, the Land League movement is not a movement for the purpose of bringing rent down, but a movement for the purpose of making the tenants the owners of the land." Before concluding these observations on the civil and political indications of the New Year, we will remind our readers that the past year has been signalized on our own continent by an official protest of the United States Secretary of War against the defenceless condition of our sea-coast, and against the shortsightedness of letting our fortifications and munitions of war fall far behind the standard required to meet the armaments of European nations who may one day be our enemies. Is not this the beginning of an apprehension that America may not be able to keep out of the national convulsions that are to precede the coming of our Lord? The above is from the Christian Herald and Signs of our Times for January 6, 1881. There are many other things which indicate the near approach of the end, some of which it goes on to mention, and the article closes with the truthful statement that notwithstanding this, "these things will take place so naturally, and will be explained so plausibly by the wise men of the world, that the last day will come as a snare 'on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth' (Luke 21: 35). Therefore the warning is seven times repeated in the gospels, Watch."