“The Colossus of the North”
By W. A. S.
ABOUT a century and a half ago Lord Bolingbroke, statesman and historical writer, spoke of the history of the obscure Muscovite people “as having no relation to the knowledge which a practical English statesman ought to acquire.” The scene has changed since then. A Hebrew prophet, twenty-five hundred years ago, had foretold the coming forth of a great power, out of the north parts, in the gathering of the nations to the last conflict. He designated the power in his address to the prince of Rosh (Russia), Meshech (Muscovy), and Tubal (Tobolsk). And in the last century, as though consciously hastening onto the stage to act its part in the closing drama, this power has been gathering its forces. Hutchinson’s “History of the World” says:— One of the chief notes of political history in the nineteenth century is the great advance of the Russian empire in European and Asiatic influence.
Notice the parallel between the graphic description by the ancient prophet and the report of the modern war correspondent, as here quoted:— Gomer, and all his hordes [the people of Gomer being the ancient Scythian tribes, who filled central and northern Asia]. . . . Thou shalt come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy hordes, and many peoples with thee. . . . Thou shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north, thou, and many peoples with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army.
Mr. A. G. Hales, correspondent of the London Daily News, describes the mixed peoples of many tribes gathered now under the Muscovite standard:— Possibly no nation has drawn such a mixed lot of men to the colors for centuries as Russia is doing now. I saw grim Tartars from the Crimea; Turcomans from Merv were bound for the same destination; they had their orders to be at Verchneudinsk within a given time, and they went as swiftly as men could go; Circassians from the Caucasus bivouacked on the shores of Lake Baikal with Buriat seal-hunters; thick-set, sturdy fellows from Archangel; Samoyedes, who had flocked from the far frozen valley of the Yenesei, Buriats, men of almost ox-like strength, but of small intelligence; Mongols, from the Trans-Baikal—a mixed and motley crowd. They spoke many tongues, dressed in many garbs, and carried weapons peculiar to their particular provinces.
All were types of tribes and nations to whom the czar is lord and ruler. They had come singly, as rain-drops come pattering down the hillsides, and they had come in little scraps of half-dozens and dozens, like tiny rivulets meandering through ravines and other wide-spread plains. They had come in droves, like rivers that could not be impeded in their course, because the czar had called, and his voice reaches to the utmost bounds of his vast empire. Many details in Ezekiel’s later chapters evidently have reference only to things that might have been had Israel fulfilled the Lord’s conditions, and allowed him to establish them in truth in their land. But it is evident that the general outline of Ezekiel 38 and 39 deals with the gathering for Armageddon. While we see tribes and tongues and peoples lining up for the final conflict in fulfilment of prophecy, how can we fail to be stirred day by day by the knowledge that we also are to fulfil prophecy, and carry to these same tribes and tongues the message God has given us to deliver before the storm actually breaks? We have an Eastern question of our own to settle. W. A. S.