Days of Trouble by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Sep 28, 1905

Days of Trouble

By W. A. S.

WHAT with plague and famine, earthquake, war, and flood, truly the world is getting a warning as to the times and seasons. The special correspondent of a Toronto paper gives the following account of the harrowing situation in Spain:—

The famine in Spain is believed to be the worst in the history of the kingdom.

Starving men and women are roaming over the country, sacking the farms, and carrying off sheep and cattle.

The wealthier families are flocking into Seville and Cordova for protection. At Ecija, Utrera, and Carmona the prisons are crowded. In spite of the efforts of the police new bands of hungry peasants have forced their way into Malaga.

In Bujalance, near Cordova, the principal square is filled all day with starving people, who lie in the sun, and look like living skeletons. The town council is at the end of its resources, and is in three months' debt to its employees. In many places both cows and goats are failing to give milk for want of food.

Throughout the former fertile valley of Andalusia, children are living on fir cones and the fruit of the wild cactus. The jails are crowded with persons who have committed no offenses, but who have given themselves up to the police on the pretense of having committed a crime, in order to get shelter and food. Hunger riots are of daily occurrence.

Joel’s prophecy of the last days reads like a comment on the situation—“the corn is withered,” “the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.” We read also that India is threatened with another great famine. It is for such a time that the Lord, through the prophet Joel, utters the command: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.”

These great calamities are bound to cause people to give ear to the warning message of the end. They are stirring calls to us who know the advent truth to press into these unevangelized regions. W. A. S.