Holding the Winds by Clarence Santee

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 30, 1916

Holding the Winds

By Clarence Santee

CLARENCE SANTEE

In Rev. 7:1-3 the angels are commanded to restrain the winds of strife until the servants of God are sealed. When that is accomplished, probation will close. The obedience of the angels to this command is perhaps more evident now than ever before. While a part of the world is at war, and the remaining nations have been tried almost to the breaking point in one way and another, they have been restrained from actual warfare. This country, from which all the world is to be lightened with present truth, has been mercifully delivered thus far, but by the narrowest margin. It was thought more than once that the breaking point with Mexico had come, and that war must follow. Many believed that it would be the beginning of a trouble that would bring into the war one after another of the nations not now engaged in it. But a guiding hand has prevented this final step.

It seemed that a great railroad strike was unavoidable. The Chief Executive

of the nation used every means at his command to avoid a strike of such magnitude and consequences, which, if it had taken place, would indeed have been a national disaster. There are few who realize what that strike would have meant. Its greatest severity would have fallen upon the cities, a large per cent of whose inhabitants habitually live from hand to mouth. The long lines of trains carrying foodstuffs from day to day, meet the demands of these hundreds of thousands of city dwellers who are affected by a day's shortage. Let the trains be stopped for a few weeks, and wreck and ruin must result. This would have been the experience of many of our larger cities had the railroad strike been called. This large class would have been without food before the end of the first week. Men would not have seen their families starve without making an effort to secure food; and the food which might have been stored up by the rich, they would have seized to sustain life. No officials could have checked them. Other unions were waiting this move to declare strikes along other lines.

In James 5:1-6 is given a description of the contest between capital and labor, and the distress that will come upon the “rich men.” This would have been seen in terrible reality had the strike been called. “Every nation is living upon a magazine that, if the match were applied, would bring destruction,” declared a prominent man recently; and another has said, “The trade-unions will be the cause of the most terrible violence that has ever been seen among human beings.”

When a current has been set in motion among the great tides of humanity, there are times when the leaders are powerless to control it. Such tides are now being stirred, their volume is increasing, and the final results are sure.

But there is a work to be done. The gospel of the kingdom must be carried to every nation. Then the end will come. Matt. 24:14. Then the winds will blow, and strife and bloodshed will fill the world.

There seems no possible middle ground in the conflict between capital and labor. If the laborer should recede from his present demands, his position would soon be worse than now. If the capitalist should yield to present demands, other demands would quickly follow, and soon the accumulation of years would be gone. There is no limit to the demands of the selfish human heart. It is never satisfied.

Every sign the Lord has given of the nearness of his coming, both in the heavens and in the earth, has been fulfilled or is fulfilling. The work of God's messengers is to tell the people the meaning of these things that are shaking the world, and of the promised rest that awaits those who will put their trust in him.

Lodi, Cal.