Forebodings for the Future

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 13, 1916

Forebodings for the Future

No human mind fully comprehends the terribleness of the great conflict which is now raging in the Eastern Hemisphere. For nearly eighteen months death and desolation, sorrow and sickness, famine and pestilence, have followed in the wake of a continually deepening conflict. Eleven nations, including five of the great powers of Europe, are engaged. Great regions of country have been desolated: homes have been broken up and destroyed; family ties have been severed, never again in this world to be united. Millions of men have been sent home as invalids, crippled and maimed for life. Millions of others have been buried like dogs in trenches and unmarked graves. And millions still along the line of battle face each other in a spirit of deadly antagonism.

Conservative estimates place the number of killed at four million. Fully as many more have been maimed for life or seriously wounded. Other millions are held in detention camps as prisoners of war. Altogether it is claimed that from twelve to fifteen millions of men have been put out of service since the

beginning of the conflict. Add to this number the twenty million more who are drawn up in battle array, the millions of others engaged in the manufacture of war munitions, and some conception is given of the large number of men withdrawn from peaceful pursuits to engage in the science of warfare.

The states of Europe have increased their national indebtedness to figures absolutely unprecedented in the history of the world. What will be the outcome? What does the future hold in store for the nations of men? After the education of long months of warfare, will the soldiers of Europe be content to settle down to peaceful pursuits, to lives of domestic tranquillity? Will they be content to go back to farm and workshop and labor for long years to come to pay off, by great burdens of taxation, the debts which have been incurred? Perhaps! But the future possibilities are ominous. Many times in the past, human nature, goaded to desperation under similar conditions, has been led to do dreadful things. The French Revolution was the outgrowth in part of similar conditions. Does revolution in the future wait on the terrible scenes which are being enacted today? After the war has spent its fury, and the nations of Europe have become utterly exhausted, and the terms of peace are finally arranged, will the nations of the Old World settle down to their old-time conservatism and soberness? or will every government then have to face conditions within its own borders even more threatening to its stability than the present international conflict?

These are considerations even now engaging the minds of thoughtful statesmen. The Los Angeles Times for November 9 represents Earl Loreburn as saying in the House of Lords that “he had been told two months ago that fifteen million men had been killed or disabled for life, and that multitudes had been added to this number since, and that if the conflict continued indefinitely, revolution or anarchy might follow in Europe.” This fear has been similarly expressed by others.

The resources of the future are being sacrificed for the needs of the present, and the future will demand compensation. The Independent of September 20 speaks of some of the possibilities of the future in these words:—

Perhaps

The great war is over; the peace pact signed. The grimed and wearied veterans are coming home.

The flags fly. The bands play. The monarch stands bareheaded on the palace balcony. Below the crowds cheer. They weep for joy. Glory to the fatherland! God save the king!