Talking Peace-Preparing War by John S. Wightman

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 1, 1907

Talking Peace—Preparing War

By John S. Wightman

(Concluded)

JOHN S. WIGHTMAN

The reason of the hesitancy of Europe in taking up the question of disarmament seems to be merely that “the time is not ripe,” is the report of Professor De Maartens, who has been sounding the powers in behalf of the Russian government. From the plea for more time, the Boston Transcript draws the conclusion that “each opposing power doubtless hopes to increase its relative strength before the time for a final adjustment of the equation arrives.” What a foolish and ruinous rivalry it is! England builds a “Dreadnaught,” and we provide for two, whereupon our kin beyond the sea—with whom war is unthinkable—respond by ordering three more great battle-ships; while Japan, Germany, and even Brazil, are not a whit behind in the mighty preparations for war. Collier’s Weekly, in its issue of March 30, said: “The fact that eight great powers of the world are squandering fourteen million dollars a year—enough to build thirty thousand miles of railroad every twelve months—on preparations for war finds great difficulty in impressing itself upon the minds of practical statesmen as a thing to be reformed. There is no other way in which five hundred million dollars a year could be so easily saved as by an agreement to limit armaments all around; yet this simple process, which could be practically worked out in a day, is treated by most members of the ruling classes of Europe as a feat beyond the capacity of the human mind.” Alas, there can be no hope for the abolition of war! Rather, as the Paris Temps says: “This continual talk of peace will eventually lead to the complete embroilment of Europe.” The Scientific American notes: “Among the maritime nations of Europe there is a feverish anxiety to equip the respective navies with a large force of submarine vessels.” And when we consider what a hundred of these little demons of the sea, costing ten million dollars in all, would have accomplished for the Russian government at Port Arthur and Vladivostok, how they could have annihilated the Japanese fleet, we can perhaps better understand M. De Bloch, and his “War of the Future,” a work, in fact, that awakened the czar’s keenest apprehension as to the dread possibilities of a future international world strife on sea

and land. According to Mr. H. H. Wilson’s views of the naval situation, published in the Nineteenth Century, there “is no immediate prospect of anything like naval disarmament on the part of the great powers, or even a cessation of activity. It grows clearer and clearer from the signs that far from naval disarmament being at hand, the competition is growing fiercer and fiercer.”

When the “time for a final adjustment of the equation arrives,” it will be found to be, as Daniel declares, “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation,” a time of which the apostle John writes, when “the nations are angry;” “the last days,” Paul writes, when “perilous times shall come.” It must be clearly seen that a court of arbitration, which now seems to be the special aim of the peace advocates at The Hague, recourse to which is purely optional, and which has no armies at its back to enforce its decisions, is a mere castle in the air.

In our realm of the political, there is no peace anywhere except that secured by force, and force is not and can not be a proper synonym for the peace that satisfies and is beyond natural understanding. And with the armies and the navies ready and equipped for service, the power which Mr. Andrew Carnegie declares must prevail, and, if necessary, force the recalcitrant nation into line—an international police power that will brook no defiance—the federated sovereignties of the world will be no more immune from the possibilities of war than were the Federation of American States in 1861-65.

With the setting up, permanently, of the world legislature and the world court, the installing of a world executive,—the legislative, the judicial, the executive,—a universal world government, armies and navies will be absolutely as necessary to enforce the decisions of the tribunal and secure the application of the laws as at any other time in the history of world-empires. The prophet Joel, with clearest prophetic vision, saw it all—saw it in “the last days”—saw it in the revealing light of heaven’s own lamp: “Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.”

Reader, the great day of the Lord—the day of “his appearing”—is near. The disciples of Christ asked the Master a simple, plain, direct question: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Matthew and Luke and Mark relate his reply—a reply as direct and specific as the question. There were to be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress and perplexity of the nations. We can see it. The nations, weak and strong,—distressed and perplexed,—are making gigantic preparations for war. China, Japan, the great powers of Europe, the South American republics, Mexico, the United States, and even islands of the sea, are steadily, unceasingly getting ready for war upon a scale never before attempted. They are coming up to the great battle of Armageddon, even while the prophetic peace and safety “cry” reverberates through the earth. Be not deceived; all this means the coming of Christ and the end of the world. War, desolation, carnage and ruin—“a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation”—“then cometh the end.”

Reno, Nev.