The World's Unrest by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 27, 1902

The World's Unrest

By L. A. S.

It is a remarkable and significant picture which is drawn from day to day by the press telegrams setting forth the condition of affairs in the various countries and governments of the earth. Strife and commotion prevail over a large portion of the civilized world. Year by year events have been leading up to this condition of things, until we have become so accustomed to the daily account of political and social disturbances, war, riot, and revolution, pestilence and famine, earthquakes, and disasters by land and sea, that we fail to think of these occurrences as anything out of the natural order of events. It may be profitable to note briefly just how far our world is to-day from that condition of peace and safety bordering on a coming millennium, the reality of which is so often assumed by religious teachers.

Beginning with the situation in Europe, we note that the largest country there — Russia — appears to be in a state of general upheaval. A revolutionary propaganda has attained vast proportions among the students in the colleges, and serious outbreaks are frequent, followed by wholesale arrests by the police. In central Russia and in the Baltic provinces the peasants have been driven by famine to throw aside all legal restraints, and vast districts are in a state of anarchy. The reports which reach the world outside of Russia are believed to suppress rather than exaggerate the truth.

In Sweden all trade and industry were at last reports paralyzed by a general strike, which it was threatened would be kept up until the people in general were granted the right of suffrage.

In Germany there is great industrial depression, and vast numbers of people in the large cities are out of work. In Spain the young boy king has just succeeded in taking his throne, after much anxiety and exertion on the part of his

adherents to prevent a revolution. His assassination on the day of his coronation was prevented only by the fortunate discovery of the plot which had been laid in Madrid by his political enemies.

Passing to Asia, we find the great empire of China still unsettled from the effects of the recent rude awakening it received at the hands of the great world powers. There is revolution and fighting in the south, and in the north the question of Russian occupation of Manchuria disturbs not only China, but Japan and England as well.

In India there is little to be seen but a dark picture. Plague and famine hold deadly sway over vast districts, and thousands of victims perish daily, while the great world goes unheedingly on, too busy with other matters to pay attention to its neighbor lying wounded by the roadside.

In South Africa affairs have not yet righted themselves from the shock of the Boer war. Up to the present time, fighting has been general over a large district, and industry is but just beginning to recover from the paralysis inflicted by the war and by martial law. How much longer the war may continue, there is no reliable means of knowing. Its termination may still be some distance in the future.

In the Western hemisphere the quest for general peace and quiet is equally vain. Here likewise is seen the smoke of war, and the ear is disturbed by the harsh sounds of political and industrial strife. Hayti and Santo Domingo are in the throes of revolution, and there is civil war in Colombia and Venezuela. Not much more stable is the condition of affairs in Ecuador and other South American countries. Argentina and Chile have long stood ready to settle their differences by means of the sword.

In our own country there is just now a great strike which paralyzes the anthracite coal industry, and brings distress upon hundreds of thousands of people. The rapid growth of the trusts, and the contest some of them are now waging with the government to determine whether they or the people are to be supreme, cast a dark shadow upon the outlook for industrial peace.

Nature herself is in a state of strange unrest. Disasters by land and sea follow one another in quick succession, and the hearts of many are failing them for fear. The mysterious forces locked up in nature's arsenal are breaking loose, and scenes are witnessed which suggest the end of the world. These things add greatly to the general confusion and disquiet.

All this is not in the natural order of human events, and this is a fact each of us should realize. We are drifting upon a rapid current, which is taking the world more and more swiftly, though to the final gulf. Where are some of the landmarks that were prominent a few years ago? What has become of the Armenians, the tale of whose woes filled the columns of the papers not long ago? Have the Kurds ceased their work of massacre and pillage? Are the Armenians and the Jews now accorded better treatment by the Turk? At last accounts they were being persecuted as before, but the matter evoked no feeling in other lands, because it was without any particular political or monetary significance. The Russianizing of Finland is filling that land with bitter oppression and suffering, but scarce a mention of it appears, because it is not a matter that affects the price of stocks. The shocking murders which once required a column or more each in the daily press for adequate mention, are now too common and insignificant in comparison with other things to occupy more than a few lines in fine print in the columns of the large dailies. These are omens significant of rapid changes and the swift approach of some great event.

Because of the wickedness of men, the Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of peace, is being more and more withdrawn from the world, and with the loss of its restraining influence, the spirit of strife takes possession of the people. This state of affairs must continue and grow worse and worse, until, having driven the divine Spirit wholly away, men are wholly given over to the possession of evil passions. Then the judgments of heaven will fall upon a world confirmed in impenitence, and the Prince of peace will come to cleanse the earth of its iniquity and prepare it for the inauguration of his eternal reign.

L. A. S.