WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1879

WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

Aside from the light shed upon the pathway of human history by the lamp of prophecy, there is not much in the outlook of to-day to cheer one who is disposed to take a calm and considerate view of the situation. “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,” are the plain words of prophecy; and the only thing plainer is the testimony from papers, both secular and religious, that the prophecy is now passing into history, an unconscious testimony to the truth of the prediction.

The Scientific American of March 22, 1879, has an article entitled “The Menace to Europe,” treating upon the danger anticipated from the plague which has broken out there. After stating that in the epidemic five hundred years ago, when Europe was not so densely populated as now, the plague swept off not less than 25,000,000 people, it refers to circumstances which are now especially favorable to the development of an irresistible scourge; such as the greater facilities for rapid communication, by which means a victim of the disease might traverse the entire breadth of the continent between the time of his exposure and the development of the disease, thus scattering its seeds all along his path; the impossibility of circumscribing it; the scarcity of medicines and physicians; and the state of desperation and despair upon the verge of which such multitudes stand to-day; and says that under these circumstances the plague “may diminish the population of Europe by one-half within the next five years.”

Of the state of affairs in Eastern Europe we quote its own words:—

Consider the situation of affairs in Eastern Europe. Turkey is a chaos, and the military power which keeps a semblance of order there would soon break down with the plague in its camps. The local governments have neither the power nor the intelligence required to successfully combat an epidemic. The spread of the plague is little hindered by climatic conditions. Russia seems to be unable to stay its progress. The Russian people are already upon the brink of desperation and revolt through poverty and military oppression. Let the controlling arm of the government, the army, be paralyzed, as it is liable to be by the plague, and Russia will present scenes of disorder and death appalling to think of. On such food the plague fattens. The government would be blamed for every disaster, and mobs, crazed by fear, and revenge, and hunger, and blood, would do their fatal work in every city. All who could command means of flight would fly, and carry the infection into adjoining lands in spite of the strictest sanitary regulations. Germany is almost ripe for revolution. Add to existing hard times and financial disorders the business derangements which precautions against contagion must entail, and a general lack of food and remunerative labor would necessarily ensue. Under such conditions, socialistic outbreaks would be inevitable. The experience of Russia would be repeated, and the steady advance of the plague over Western Europe would certainly follow. Once under way, the wave of death would sweep over Europe as surely and as destructively as it did in the fourteenth century.

Do we, therefore, predict a repetition of those terrible times? By no means. We have only shown that they are possible; that Europe presents conditions which, with plague upon its border, must be considered, to say the least, as decidedly menacing to the entire continent, if not to the entire civilized world. If reports are true, and the plague is steadily approaching the heart of Russia, the promptest, most rigorous, and most thorough-going measures to stay its advances are imperatively needed. Indifference and inaction now will entail the most fearful consequences.

Of the distress in Berlin, the capital of the German empire, which ought to be the most prosperous nation in Europe, another paper says:—

NEW YORK, MARCH 12.—The Times says: Probably in no city in Europe is there so much financial and social distress to-day as there is in Berlin. The milliards which Germany exacted from France after the war, would, it was thought, greatly benefit the city; but just the contrary has happened. Things seem, in the last eight years, steadily to have gone from bad to worse. Apart from the number of unemployed persons there, estimated at 40,000, hundreds of men have been ruined by speculation, and there is more or less suffering among all classes. Well-educated citizens who before the war had an income of 80,000 to 90,000 marks, who fared sumptuously and were among the envied of society, are now impoverished, and compelled to earn a pittance as legal copyists. The condition of things, judging from private letters, is very painful and is deteriorating rather than improving, and the political troubles add materially to the prevalent distress.

In our own country the prospect is by no means encouraging. Strong fears are expressed that the terrible scourge of last year but waits the coming of a little higher temperature to break forth in all its former malignity. Another presidential contest is approaching, which all thoughtful men regard with serious forebodings, as they consider the trouble and revolution which may attend it, from which we so narrowly escaped three years ago.

Meanwhile the utterly unprincipled, selfish, and reckless course pursued by many State legislators and members of Congress, is unsettling the confidence of the whole country, and begetting in many hearts a willingness to exchange Republicanism for some other form of government. The Presbyterian is said to express “the sentiments of the best citizens,” when it gives utterance to the following vehement words:—

It is the behavior of our rulers that oppresses the nation. They bury hope in the breasts of those in whom the fires of patriotism are kept alive. But for the Christian sentiment of the nation it would be only an uncaged menagerie. And now, when hopefulness is so necessary to our relief in our deplorable financial condition, and also that the hopefulness should first come from the best classes, in order to the sense of security in the ventures of enterprise, we hear them say, “We have no confidence in our rulers. We cannot trust money in legitimate trade under the rule of such a Congress. They are more harmful than the wildest caprices of trade, and have no regard for God or the best interests of the nation.” Every man who fears God or believes in his providence is afraid. The “hearts of men fail them” through fear of such rule. What motives have men to go into, or continue in business? It is a fact that the cold sweat comes over the faces of the best business men when either Congress or State Legislatures meet, and they accordingly determine to stop all progress until they see the end. So for half the year business stops, waiting until the intolerable National and State Legislative nuisances are over. We could put up with them if they would only squander the money; but they do nothing but convince the nation of their disregard of all that is sacred, and initiate scenes leading to moral and financial despair, until the prayer of the nation in the morning is, “Would God that Congress and the State Legislatures were adjourned,” and at night, “Would God that Congress and the State Legislatures were over,” and in the daytime, “Would God that they never could meet again.”

In these experiments of human government and misrule, all of which have proved such conspicuous failures, the child of God cannot take much interest. But we can rest with increasing satisfaction upon the assurance of the prophecy, “The morning cometh.” “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” The “One whose right it is” is soon to reign; and his government shall be righteousness, and shall fill all the earth.