Signs of the Times

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 26, 1871

Signs of the Times.

SISTER S. E. White, of Sonoma Co., Cal., sending us the following article, says:

“I find the enclosed article in our county paper, and its statements are so significant that I send it for the REVIEW. How can people think a millennium is coming, when they look at such facts as these? I rejoice that my eyes have been opened to these signs of the times; and that we, as a people, can read in them the evidence that our redemption draweth nigh. How careful ought we to live! How near to God we should be at all times, so that he can deliver us from sin and temptation. I feel like living nearer to God than ever before, and to be getting ready for his appearing; for he will soon come and not tarry.”

“THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.

“At no period of the present century has there been so many disasters as have occurred during the past twelve months. The world seems to be turned upside down. The year opened with the terrible war between Prussia and France. This was succeeded by the revolution at Paris. Since then famine has visited Persia with all its attendant horrors; the cholera, Turkey and Russia; great and most destructive fires, in our own country; devastating earthquakes in South America; terrible floods in China; immense tidal waves on the Atlantic Coast; drought in California; the destruction of the whaling fleet in the northern seas; the unprecedented ravages of small-pox in Buenos Ayres, South America, by which many tens of thousands of people lost their lives.

“The political world also seems but little less disturbed. All Europe seems to rest upon the crust of a volcano, and scarcely a crowned head rests easily upon its pillow. Poor France, still bleeding and torn by the terrible ordeal of fire and iron hail through which she has passed, and impoverished by the mighty debt left her as a legacy by the unfortunate conflict with Germany, lies prostrate and struggling amidst great difficulties to assume an upright attitude. She has only a temporary government, which is liable to be overthrown at any moment. Revolution threatens her on every side. Spain has accepted a foreign king, but the discontent is great, and the government by no means on a permanent footing. Poor old Austria is tottering to her grave as an empire. The process of dismemberment steadily advances, and it is rumored that the Emperor, Francis Joseph, seriously contemplates abdicating, because he feels himself unequal to the emergency. There is great popular discontent in England. The Republicans are gaining ground rapidly, and a revolution cannot be postponed long. Prussia, having emerged triumphantly from an armed encounter with France, is consolidating her power, and is, perhaps, the strongest empire in Europe to-day; but there are elements of discord there also, which are matters of serious concern to the government. The same may be said of Italy.

“Underneath the surface in all these countries there are elements at work which will sooner or later result in revolution and the overthrow of kingly government. The people, the great masses who have heretofore been ignored by the governing classes, and treated purely as hewers of wood and drawers of water, are beginning to assert their manhood. And although their first efforts at self-assertion are crude, and many of their ideas wild and visionary, they will doubtless persevere until they revolutionize the existing governments, and eventually, when intelligence becomes more generally diffused, succeed in establishing governments based upon the rights of man and administered for the common benefit.

“But we set out to call attention to the remarkable occurrences of the past year. Disaster after disaster has followed in such rapid succession that it is difficult to keep pace with them. Is the world approaching a crisis involving a new order of things? Are there to be further physical phenomena, climatic changes, etc.? Are we upon the threshold of an era of revolution and wars to result in the establishment of republics throughout the civilized world? People laugh at what they consider the visionary ideas of the International Society, but it cannot be denied that they are becoming a power and are destined to control the destinies of the world to some extent, unless some means are devised to crush them. This the European governments are combining to do, but the result is by no means certain. We trust that the misfortunes of the past twelve months will not be repeated in the next. We have had horrors and troubles enough, but our destinies lie in the hands of Him whose ways are past finding out, and whose displeasure should teach mankind that there is safety alone in obedience to his commands.”