p. 374 | Signs of the Times

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 2, 1868

Signs of the Times

This following is an extract from a book with the above title, written and published by H. L. Hastings, Boston, Mass. This we have found to be a very interesting book, replete with plain, stirring facts concerning the present state and future prospects of our fallen world. We purpose giving further extracts on various subjects, and invite for them a careful reading.—Ed.

All times are not alike. The grand and mighty stretch of ages discloses new phases of human character and new developments of human events. All things do not “continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” The various periods of time change their general complexion. Poets understand this, historians record it, observers note it, and none can with truth deny it. Hence, while poets have sung of a departed “golden age,” and historians have written of the “iron age,” and of the “dark ages,” all men now declare that we live in an “age of marvels” and “of progress;” and many are now looking forward to a new era, “a good time coming,” a day of liberty and of peace, of millennial splendor and blessing, yet to dawn upon the earth.

The world is full of babbling voices which proclaim, in tones poetic, oracular, sublime, or ridiculous, the coming splendors of this new day. Discordant, it may be, these voices are; yet still they indicate that many a watcher upon his tower peers with anxious eyes toward the gloom-curtained future, and seeks to penetrate its mists, and to unfold those secrets which are yet hidden in the womb of time. A vague impression of coming good or ill glides or clouds the anticipations of men. All look forward, and stand, awe-struck or hopeful, beneath the shifting shadows forecast by events to come.

I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; yet I am no careless gazer upon the race which this world is thus pursuing. I believe we live in an age that is marked and peculiar. It seems to me that our times are somewhat different from all other times of which I have heard or read; and, amid the tumultuous babble of ten thousand foretelling tongues, I think it well for us to scan for ourselves the times in which our lives and lot are cast, and endeavor to learn what are the coming events foreshadowed by the present aspects of this hurrying, changeful age.

The age in which we live is peculiar in its financial, religious, moral, intellectual, scientific, mechanical, national, physical, and social aspects. To see this, we need not revel in the dreams of the enthusiast, or submerge ourselves amid the sorrows of the croaker; the facts are open and obvious to all men of candor, observation, and common sense.

Let us, then, notice some of the marked peculiarities of the present age; and, as we can discern the face of the sky, let us not be like those hypocrites of old, who could not discern the signs of the times.

The Age of Wealth

As money stands first in very many minds, as the dollar is adored as supreme, and honored as “almighty;” and as, with some, the race seems to be divided into two classes, those who have money, and those who have not, I select and notice this as the first marked trait which characterizes our times. I do not here refer to the love of money, but to the actual wealth of the world; to the possession of material riches and its golden symbols.

The world is wealthier to-day than it ever was before. The grand symbol of wealth is gold; gold is power; men seek it as such. It is the price of ease, of dignity, of pomp, of place, and of luxury. It needs no Solomon now to convince the world that “money is a defense,” or that “money answereth all things.” (Eccl. vii, 12; x, 19.) Money rules kings and kingdoms; it conquers souls and bodies, hands and hearts. Gold is the lever that moves the world; man’s love for it, which is “the root of all evil,” (1 Tim. vi, 10.) is the fulcrum on which it rests. Let us then note

A Few Facts About Gold

Gold has been in esteem from the earliest ages down. The first recorded mention of gold as money, was the “six hundred shekels” with which King David bought the threshing floor of Ornan (B. C. 1056). Croesus (B. C. 560) coined the golden Stater, and Darius, son of Hystaspes, king of Persia (B. C. 538), coined golden Darius. Gold was also early coined by the kings of Sicily; by Gelo (B. C. 491); Hiero (B. C. 478); Dionysius (B. C. 404); by King Philip, of Macedon (B. C. 360), who worked the mines of Thrace, and who gained many of his victories by bribery, acting upon the advice given by the oracle of Delphi: “Make coin thy weapons, and thou’lt conquer all.”

The Romans first coined gold about B. C. 207; gold was first coined in France, by Clovis, A. D. 489; in Spain, by Amalric, the Goth, about the same time; and in England, A. D. 1257.

Solomon gathered large quantities of the gold of Ophir for the building of the house of God at Jerusalem; the Babylonians amassed great sums of it, and filled their idol temples with images and treasures; the great conquerors of antiquity sought the precious metal, and gained it, and hoarded it up; the shrines of all heathendom were enriched by it; but yet the supply was, comparatively speaking, very limited. From the commencement of the Christian era to the discovery of America, the amount of gold obtained from all sources is estimated at thirty-eight hundred millions of dollars ($3,800,000,000). From this time to 1842, an addition of twenty-eight hundred millions was obtained. To the close of 1852, six hundred millions more were produced, and two thousand millions have been added up to the year 1861, making a grand total of ninety-two hundred millions of dollars.

The amount of gold in the possession of man, at the commencement of the Christian era, is estimated to have been equal to about four hundred and twenty-seven millions of dollars ($427,000,000); but at the time of the discovery of America, by Columbus, in 1492, it had probably diminished by wear and loss to about fifty-seven millions ($57,000,000). From that period it gradually increased, mainly through the working of the South American and other gold mines, until, in 1600, it attained to one hundred and five millions of dollars ($105,000,000); in 1700, to three hundred and fifty-one millions ($351,000,000); and in 1800, to eleven hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars ($1,125,000,000).

From this point of time we take our departure and survey the changes that mark this present age and generation. Before this time the world’s progress in this department had been quite gradual, and in a somewhat regular ratio. Since that date, there has been a very marked change, which has brought in

The Age of Gold

In 1819, the Russian gold mines were discovered, extending over about a third of the earth’s surface, upon the parallel of fifty-five degrees north latitude. These mines produced, from their discovery to the year 1860, seven hundred and forty-six millions of dollars ($746,000,000), about two-thirds as much gold as there was in the possession of the race before the beginning of this century.

On the ninth day of February, 1848, the California gold mines were discovered at Sutter’s Mill, by William Marshall. Their product, from their discovery to the close of the year 1860, has amounted to nine hundred and five millions of dollars ($905,000,000), or more than four-fifths as much gold as the whole amount that the world possessed sixty years ago.

On the twelfth of February, 1851, the Australian gold fields, previously known to Count de Strzelecki and others, but kept secret at the request of British officials on account of the condition of the convict population there, were re-discovered and brought to public notice by E. H. Hargraves, who introduced the mode of cradle-washing practised in California;—[*Gold and silver, by De Strzelecki, p. 31.] and the total product of the Australian mines, up to the close of 1860, has amounted to seven hundred and eighty millions of dollars ($780,000,000).

The eleven hundred and twenty-five millions ($1,125,000,000) of gold in existence in 1800 had increased in 1843 to two thousand millions ($2,000,000,000); in 1853, to three thousand millions ($3,000,000,000); and in 1861 the existing amount was estimated at forty-six hundred millions of dollars ($4,600,000,000); some four times as much as was possessed by the race sixty years ago, and $800,000,000 more than the entire amount obtained in the 1492 years from the beginning of the Christian era to the discovery of America. Large as this amount is, it is said that the whole would only make a solid mass twenty-seven feet square. And for this gold, crimes have been committed, wars made, toils endured, lives lost, the innocent slain, the poor oppressed, the needy robbed, kingdoms subverted, virtue bartered, and perdition bought by multitudes of deluded men!

The annual product of gold at the commencement of the Christian era has been estimated at eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000); but previous to the discovery of America it had diminished to about one hundred thousand ($100,000). From that time, it gradually increased, until, in 1600, the annual amount was about two millions of dollars ($2,000,000); in 1700, five millions ($5,000,000); in 1800, fifteen millions ($15,000,000).

From the year 1800, the increase was far more rapid; and in 1843, the gold product amounted to thirty-four millions of dollars ($34,000,000), or about three-fifths as much as the entire amount in the world at the discovery of America. Seven years later, in 1850, the annual product had reached the sum of eighty-eight millions of dollars ($88,000,000), or between twice and three times as much as it was in 1843.

In 1853, the gold yield attained the amazing figure of two hundred and thirty-six millions of dollars ($236,000,000); and, though the yield has since diminished, both from California and Australian gold mines, yet the product of 1861 may be safely estimated at about two hundred and ten millions of dollars ($210,000,000).

It is stated that in each of the years 1852 and 1853, the Australian gold yield probably exceeded twenty million pounds sterling ($100,000,000), and that more than sixteen millions ($80,000,000) were obtained from California. In other regions a marked increase has occurred. In Austria, since 1827, the gold product has increased 75 per cent., the silver 50 per cent., while of other mineral elements of wealth and power, iron has increased 100 per cent., and coal 300.—Banfield’s Statistical Companion for 1854, p. 127.

By weight, the amount of pure gold obtained in America in 1801 is estimated at 46,381 lbs.; and in Europe and Northern Asia, exclusive of China and Japan, at 4,916 lbs., making a total of 51,247 lbs., valued at £2,612,200, or about $13,000,000. In 1846, the gold yield of America was 25,503 lbs.; that of Europe and Northern Asia 89,171 lbs., making a total of 114,674 lbs., about £5,846,772, or $28,000,000. In 1850, the product of America was 261,731 lbs., that of Europe, etc., 104,319 lbs., a total of 366,050 lbs., being more than one thousand pounds weight per day throughout the year, and amounting in value to £18,654,322 sterling, or about ninety millions of dollars.—Banfield’s Statistical Companion for 1854, p. 74.

Says the author of an elaborate article on Gold in the New York World of Dec. 4, 1861,—to which I am indebted for some of the preceding facts,—“The increase in the present production of gold, compared with former periods, is immense; and it would not be surprising if, in view of the explorations which are going on in Africa, Japan, Borneo, and other countries bordering on the equator, the product of the precious metals within the next ten years should be a million of dollars daily. The price of gold has not diminished, although the annual product has increased FIVEFOLD WITHIN EIGHTEEN YEARS.”

The enormous increase in the gold product of the world has naturally resulted in a proportionate increase of

Coinage

From 1603 to 1860, the amount of gold coined by the British mint was £206,000,000. From 1850 to 1861 it was £54,000,000, or more than one-fourth as much in eleven years as had been coined in two hundred

and forty-seven years before. The total gold and silver coinage of the British mint from 1801 to 1836 was £69,197,650, ranging from nothing in 1815, and from only £52 in 1812, to £9,954,444 in 1821.—Porter’s Progress of the Nation, vol. ii, pp. 239, 240. In contrast with the coinage of £52 (or about $250) in 1812, I place the fact that in 1853 the British mint coined 51,308,685 pieces of money, worth £12,663,009, or about sixty-three millions of dollars.

The Russian gold coinage for one hundred and eighty-six years, from 1664 to 1850, has been two hundred and sixty-six millions of rubles [a ruble is worth about 75 cts.] (266,000,000); while the gold coined from 1850 to 1860 amounts to two hundred and twenty millions of rubles (220,000,000)—almost as large in the last ten years as in the one hundred and eighty-six years before. And a large portion of the amount coined before 1850 was taken from the Russian mines, which have yielded since 1819, gold to the value of $746,000,000.

The gold coinage of the French mint for one hundred and twenty-five years, from 1726 to 1850, was thirty-four hundred and fifty millions of francs (3,450,000,000). Since 1850, though France has made no boasts of gold fields like California and Australia, yet from some source, perhaps the interior of Africa, she has received so much gold that, during the last eleven years, forty-two hundred and fifty millions of francs (4,250,000,000) have been issued from her mint.

In the year 1853, the French mint coined 53,364,367 pieces of money, valued at 14,101,120 pounds sterling, or about seventy millions of dollars. From 1793 to 1853, the French mint coined 1,626,190,839 francs of gold, and 4,512,402,206 francs of silver; making a grand total of 6,138,595,045 francs coined during the sixty years ending with 1853.

From 1792 to 1850, the gold coinage of the United States mint amounted to only eighty-five millions of dollars ($85,000,000), an average of less than one and a half millions per year; but, since the year 1850, the gold coinage has amounted to five hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars ($525,000,000), or nearly fifty millions each year! In the year 1853, the United States coinage amounted to sixty-nine million (69,775,469) pieces of money, valued at 11,961,702 pounds sterling, or about fifty-nine millions of dollars ($59,000,000).

The entire gold, silver, and copper coinage at the United States mint, exclusive of the considerable amounts coined by private individuals, from 1783 to June 30, 1860, is stated at seven hundred and forty-five millions three hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and fifty-six cents ($745,369,512.56).

In the single year 1853, the mints of three nations, Great Britain, France, and the United States, added to the world’s currency nearly forty million pieces of gold (39,694,211), valued at more than thirty-five million pounds sterling (£35,548,703), and eighty-six million pieces of silver, &c. (86,000,000), worth three million pounds sterling (£3,075,646) making the enormous aggregate of nearly one hundred and twenty-four millions (123,993,107) of pieces of money, worth more than thirty-eight millions of pounds sterling (£38,824,349), or about ninety millions of dollars.—The Statistical Companion for 1854, by T. C. Banfield, p. 107.

Mr. William Jacobs, in an able treatise on the subject, published in England in 1831, estimates that the amount of money in Europe at the discovery of America, in 1492, was thirty-four millions sterling; in 1599 he estimates it at one hundred and thirty millions; in 1699, at two hundred and ninety-seven millions; in 1809, it was three hundred and eighty millions: and in 1829, it was more than three hundred million (£318,388,560).—Banfield, p. 72. In this estimate he makes large allowances for gold and silver shipped to India and China, and only undertakes to show the gold and silver on hand in Europe at the dates named.

The coinage of the world in 1849 was, of gold, sixty-seven and a half million dollars ($67,663,140); silver, over seventy-five million dollars ($75,727,103); making a total of one hundred and forty-three million dollars ($143,390,695) coined in that year. But in 1859 the world’s coinage was, of gold, two hundred

and eleven millions of dollars ($211,745,316); silver, nearly ninety millions ($89,721,103); total, three hundred millions ($301,466,419); an increase of one hundred and fifty-eight millions ($158,075,724) in the yield of 1859 above that of 1849, or, the annual coinage of the world more than doubled in the space of ten years.—Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine, for June, 1860, vol. xiii, p. 713.

The total amount of gold and silver money in the world in 1860 has been estimated at nine thousand millions of dollars ($9,000,000,000), five thousand millions being of silver, and four thousand millions of gold.—Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine, for June, 1860, vol. xiii, p. 588. Estimates vary slightly, as may be noticed, but all agree as to the immense and unprecedented increase of the precious metals.

Mr. Ezra C. Seamans, in his “Essays on the Progress of Nations,” published in 1846, after giving the estimates of Baron Humboldt, Mr. Jacobs, and others, concludes that there was in Europe and America, in 1840, an amount of gold and silver coin and bullion equal to £345,000,000, or nearly seventeen hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars ($1,725,000,000). His figures were probably not far from correct.

At the same time, he estimated that in the year 1900 there would probably be, in these countries, £350,000,000, or nearly seventeen hundred and fifty millions of dollars ($1,750,000,000). What would have been his surprise had he been informed that within fifteen years from the time he wrote the amount of gold in the world would be twice as large as his entire estimate, and that instead of seventeen hundred millions of dollars in fifty-five years, the world have some nine thousand millions within fifteen years!

Bearing in mind the fact that the average loss of gold coin by wear and tear is only about one mill upon a dollar yearly, and that the annual loss of gold by shipwreck, consumption in manufactures, &c., is only from one to three millions per annum, it is evident that gold is being amassed by the world at an unexampled rate. It is estimated by some that only about three thousand millions of gold ($3,000,000,000) are in coin or bullion, and that sixteen hundred millions ($1,600,000,000) are in plate, jewelry, watches, &c. All calculations fail of absolute precision, and yet all may help us form some faint idea of

The World’s Wealth

The preceding brief survey of the financial condition of the world has reference, it will be seen, only to gold as the symbol of material wealth. And this is but a small portion of the world’s circulating currency. In the United States alone there were, on the first of January, 1860, 1,509 banks, with a total capital of more than one hundred and fifty-one millions ($151,976,516), and a bank note circulation of one hundred and fifty-two millions ($152,000,000). The bank note circulation of Great Britain and the United Kingdom of Ireland, as given October 1, 1855, was more than forty millions of pounds sterling (£40,626,768), or about two hundred millions of dollars. Other nations have their circulating representatives of value, which increase the tide of business, and facilitate the exchange of property.

This vast amount of currency but faintly expresses the immense wealth of the world to-day. The circulating medium affords but a slight idea of the valuables the exchange of which it is used to facilitate. By the census of 1850, the entire valuation of the real and personal property in the United States alone was over seven billions of dollars ($7,135,880,228), but in 1860 it had risen to more than sixteen billions ($16,161,261,239), an increase of over eight billions ($8,025,418,011), or 125 per cent. advance in ten years.

To attempt to carry out the survey into all the wealth of the world, would be taking an inventory of the whole creation. Gold is but a small portion of a nation’s property. And all other wealth in the directions of arts, manufactures, commerce, and mines, has probably increased at least in an equal ratio with gold.

And with the possession of money, the love of it increases. Nations and men aim to gain gold, for in it is the hiding of their power. Men gain it at whatever cost, whether of health, morality, principle, or conscience. Men become rich speedily. Millionaires are numerous. Men grow rich in multitudes; whether through the horrors of the slave trade, the abominations of the opium trade, the iniquities of the liquor trade, the sweat of the American bondmen, the kidnapping of Chinese coolies, or the oppression of the natives of India; whether by secret craft, or damnable fraud, or open war; whether amid the rattle of machinery, where thousands toil for scanty food and early graves, that one or two capitalists may become wealthy and luxurious; whether it be in swindling companies and fraudulent associations, or in open, honest, and energetic toil, the world grows rich apace. Men heap up treasure, and acquire wealth as they never did before. The age of gold has come upon us. And is not this

Sign of the Times

a marked feature, in which they differ from all other times, from all other ages, since the world began! And is this sign a hopeful one? What is its significance? Does it speak of good or of evil? Is the treasure gained worth its price of oppression, crime, and blood? Is the world better or worse for it all? Are men purer, holier, and more like the Holy One, who had not “where to lay his head,” than they were in other and poorer days? Is the prevailing love of money a positive good, or is it “a root of all evil”? Does it ever “draw men in destruction and perdition”? Is it “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of Heaven?” Did Jesus mean anything when he said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on the earth”? What answers can be given to these queries?

Do the Scriptures of truth allude to these things? What meaneth that message of the Apostle James: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your GOLD AND SILVER is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a WITNESS AGAINST YOU, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. YE HAVE HEAPED TREASURE TOGETHER FOR THE LAST DAYS. Behold, the hire of the LABORERS who have reaped down your fields, which is of you KEPT BACK BY FRAUD, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the EARS OF THE LORD OF SABAOTH. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. “BE PATIENT, therefore, brethren, UNTO THE COMING OF THE LORD. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH.” James v, 1–8.

What means the language of the prophet Isaiah, who, while describing what “shall come to pass in the last days,” says: “Their land also is FULL OF SILVER AND GOLD, neither is there any end to their TREASURES. Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to SHAKE TERRIBLY THE EARTH. For the DAY OF THE LORD OF HOSTS shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty; and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.” Isaiah ii.

Such are the inspired words which have predicted the present age of gold. No other age can fill the picture like the present. In its boasting of its riches, it stands self-convicted and self-condemned. And, in the wealth and money-getting that mark this generation, we see the traces of the world’s covetous old age, which heaps up wealth when on the borders of the tomb. Alas, for the rich in the coming day! Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath. Though they say they are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; they know not that they are poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. They have much goods laid up for many years, and may take their ease, eat, drink, and be merry; little thinking that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and that soon the Judge, who standeth before the door, will enter in and call them to account. Woe to the rich in that day! Sad will be the condition of the oppressors, and of the proud; while blessed and happy shall they be who have heeded the words of the divine Teacher, who said:

“And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather SEEK YE THE KINGDOM OF GOD; and ALL THESE THINGS shall be ADDED unto you. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. SELL THAT YE HAVE, AND GIVE ALMS; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a TREASURE IN THE HEAVENS that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your TREASURE is, there will your HEART be also. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that WAIT FOR THEIR LORD, when he will return from the wedding; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh SHALL FIND WATCHING.” Luke xii, 29–37.