Distress of Nations by William Warren Prescott

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 19, 1910

“Distress of Nations”

By William Warren Prescott

In his description of the conditions which would prevail in the last days, and which would clearly indicate that the coming of the Son of man was near, Christ mentioned “distress of nations.” This brief expression would properly indicate something out of the ordinary. Since the dawn of history, the nations of the earth have been involved in more or less difficulty, but according to the Saviour’s prediction there would be a period of such general perplexity in the last generation as would warrant the broadest interpretation of the expression “distress of nations.”

That such a condition now exists is the testimony, not of a professed apostle of the second advent movement, but of one whose breadth of view and Christian candor lead to this conclusion. We quote a short article from the May number of the Missionary Review of the World, which appears under the title, as “World-Wide Unrest:” —

One of the signs of the times, and very conspicuous, is the world-wide unrest. Never has this been more general if not universal. If we begin at the Sunrise Kingdom and go westward, we shall find almost, if not quite, every nation in the sun’s daily course in a state of agitation bordering on revolution. In Korea there is a desperate struggle for independence, and freedom from Japanese domination. In Japan itself there is a condition of practical bankruptcy, the nation consumed with political ambition, and anxiety to assert and maintain supremacy on land and sea, and yet too poor to risk further indebtedness and outlay. China and Manchuria are restive under the threatened aggression of Russia, and the spirit of reform that is like a liquid at boiling-point. India has not been so impatient and on the point of outbreak since the battle of Plassey. Turkey is only just starting upon its new career, and uncertain what new development to-morrow may bring; it is like a volcano between two eruptions. Persia is in the very throes of revolution, with a change of dynasty and an entire upturning of government. And as in Asia, so in Europe. Italy is far from being at rest; France is in much the same condition as before the tremendous civil and religious disturbances of 1793. Russia, for the time quiet, seethes under the surface with antagonisms between the czar and his people, and the church and the lesser sects. When was ever England and Great Britain generally more perplexed? a desperate struggle going on between democracy and aristocracy, socialism and imperialism. In the United States the conflict between labor and capital is keener than ever, and harder to bridge over by any mediation or compromise. And so it is all round the circle.

It would be difficult to compress into a briefer space a more just interpretation of the present political situation. There is, therefore, in current history a remarkable emphasis upon one of the predictions declaring that the course of this world is nearly run, and that the time is near at hand when the kingdom will be given to the Son of man. To the voices in heaven which at the commencement of the sounding of the seventh trumpet were heard saying, “The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ: and he shall reign forever and ever,” many voices on earth are responding, and are proclaiming in events and conditions of a most striking character that this long-looked-for consummation is just at hand.

W. W. P.