DECAY OF TURKEY by William Penniman

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 17, 1881

"DECAY OF TURKEY."

By William Penniman

MR. ROSENBERG writes from Adrianople, in Turkey: "This country and its people have been fearfully desolated by the war of 1877-8. Widows and orphans, the aged and the young, are running about the streets begging for a piece of bread. But since the late war the Christians have taken the reigns into their own hands, and are making wonderful progress in every department, whereas the Turks are gradually degenerating, so that in a few years they will quite disappear as a power and a nation from Europe. Christian preachers, Scripture readers, and colporters are working very hard among Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, and doubtless much good will in due time result through God's blessing. In this lies our hope."

This quotation from the Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times of Dec. 16, 1880, seems to indicate a fulfillment (or at least a partial fulfillment) of Rev. 16:12, which refers to the drying up of the river Euphrates. (See Thoughts on Revelation, pp. 255-257)

WM. PENNIMAN.