The Blowing of the Winds
By L. A. S.
The spirit of revolution which is so markedly on the rise in Europe at this time, recalls to mind the fact that once before, near the middle of the last century, there was a sudden and remarkable outburst of revolutionary sentiment over that continent, which threatened for a brief time to sweep everything before it. That was at the beginning of the special work of God in sealing a company from among all nations for salvation in the day of the appearing of Christ. The facts pertaining to that short but eventful period of European political history, as related to the work and providence of God, are of special interest. The revolutionary movement at that time was stayed, but not through natural causes. From that day to this, it has been waiting, and when the appointed day arrives, it will again break out, and no power will stop it. A writer who is familiar with the events of the revolutionary movement of the year 1848, gives this description of its sudden and unexpected beginning:— It is reported that one evening of that eventful year, when the courtiers of Louis Philippe, king of France, were gathered around him, he said: “I was never more firmly seated on the throne of empire than I am to-night.” In the twilight of the next evening, wearing a “pea jacket,” disguised as a hackney coachman, he fled outside the walls of the city of Paris, seeking a refuge for his personal safety. The cause of this great and sudden change is said to have been the result of some movement on his part favoring the papal usurpation, which offended his subjects and his soldiers. He had on that day completed, in the city of Paris, a grand military review of the French army; and when their arms were stacked, he retired to the palace, when suddenly a small boy jumped upon a cannon, waving a tricolored flag, crying, “Down with the pope! Down with the pope!” The soldiers taking up the cry, it passed swiftly up and down the lines, gaining strength as it went, until connected with it was the cry, “and down with the king!” In a few hours all Paris was a scene of wild confusion. The soldiers, with guns in hand, accompanied by a mob, were rushing for the king’s palace. He, on being informed of the turmoil, hastened to escape under disguise. The commotion and unrest of France spread rapidly to other countries, and within three months all Europe was astir, and over thirty empires and kingdoms were in the greatest disorder. Thrones were burned in the streets, kings and emperors were fleeing and6hiding for fear of losing their lives. Politicians predicted that there would be a general revolution of the governments of the world. Nobody could account for the sudden breaking out of the revolutionary spirit at that time, nor for its equally sudden subsidence. On this point Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, wrote: “It was a great wonder to us all what started so suddenly that confusion among the nations; but it is a greater still what stopped it.” Senator Choate, in a speech in Congress, referring to this time, used these words:— It has seemed to me as if the prerogatives of crowns and the rights of men, and the hoarded-up resentments of a thousand years, were about to unsheath the sword for a conflict in which blood shall flow, as in apocalyptic vision, “to the bridles of the horses,” and in which a whole race of men shall pass away; in which the great bell of time shall sound out another hour; in which society itself shall be tried by fire and steel, whether it be of nature and of nature’s God or not.
Only in the light of an understanding of the special work of God preparatory to Christ’s coming, can the causes of this extraordinary movement be understood. The “four winds” of confusion and strife were being loosened upon the earth, but the sealing work of the Sabbath and advent message had not been done. On this subject the following statement is made in “Experience and Views:”— I saw four angels who had a work to do on the earth, and were on their way to accomplish it. Jesus was clothed with priestly garments. He gazed in pity on the remnant, then raised his hands upward, and with a voice of deep pity cried, “My blood, Father, my blood, my blood, my blood.” Then I saw an exceeding-bright light come from God, who sat upon the great white throne, and was shed all about Jesus. Then I saw an angel with a commission from Jesus, swiftly flying to the four angels who had a work to do on the earth, and waving something up and down in his hand, and crying with a loud voice, “Hold! Hold! Hold! Hold! until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads.”
I asked my accompanying angel the meaning of what I heard, and what the four angels were about to do. He said to me that it was God that restrained the powers, and that he gave his angels charge over things on the earth; that the four angels had power from God to hold the four winds, and that they were about to let them go. But while their hands were loosening, and the four winds were about to blow, the merciful eye of Jesus gazed on the remnant that were not sealed, and he raised his hands to the Father and pleaded with him that he had spilled his blood for them. Then another angel was commissioned to fly swiftly to the four angels, and bid them hold, until the servants of God were sealed with the seal of the living God in their foreheads.
Now the sealing work is about to be finished, and again the spirit of revolution, of confusion and strife, is rising up in the Old World, and rulers are filled with apprehension. There is a breaking up of long-established alliances among the nations, and an unsettled condition which betokens an impending upheaval. The four winds which have so long been held are about to be loosed, to blow upon the earth. We are admonished now to make sure that we have upon us the seal of the living God. L. A. S.