A TREMENDOUS TIME

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 28, 1900

“A TREMENDOUS TIME.”

A LATE number of the daily Mexican Herald refers to the troubles in China, in the following intelligent and forcible words:—

The internal troubles of China have precipitated the war with Russia before the latter country was ready for the conflict. The Siberian railway is uncompleted, and the dispatch of sufficient troops to Manchuria will be hindered by lack of railway communication. But at last the aroused and angry Chinese, their country threatened on every side, have grappled with the Russian Bear.

A war, the consequences of which every competent observer feels to be momentous, has begun, threatening to draw into it all the civilized Powers keenly outraged by the barbaric slaughter of their subjects and citizens resident in the Celestial Empire. France will sustain Russia actively, and with large hopes of further acquisitions in the south of China.

Germany has new interests to defend, and a horrible indignity to avenge.

England, already at war in South Africa, must make new sacrifices to preserve her ancient prestige in China, and to conserve, if it be possible, her sphere of influence in the Yang-tse-kiang Valley.

The United States, transformed, before our eyes, from a domestic and peaceful republic, into an aggressive Power, tending toward imperialistic methods, is almost unwillingly dragged into the mêlée. The American Republic is already trying to subjugate the Filipinos, and now finds herself fighting on the Asiatic mainland; and Seward’s memorable prediction, uttered in the United States Senate, in 1854, comes true.—“The Americans and the Russians will confront one another on the mainland of Asia” before the close of this century!

Japan, alert, armed to the teeth; with a new navy, and a well-disciplined and numerous army; hot with ambition and spurred by necessity, direfully felt, for expansion, takes a leading part, her secret desire being to dominate in China, to become the tutor of the bigger yellow nation, and to keep white men from conquering the Orient.

Here are all the elements of a colossal conflict. It is a tremendous time, and the vials of wrath are being opened on the nations. It is difficult now to see any assurance of peace; certainly there is no hope save in the utter collapse of China, and this is hardly to be looked for. And even then, would not the jealous Powers fall to fighting over the spoils?

It is indeed a tremendous time, and will be only more tremendous. “The day of trouble is near, and not the echo of the mountains.” “Get ready, get ready, get ready.”