Shadows of Coming Events.
The New York Herald of Sept. 23, 1874, gives the following review of the condition and prospects of Europe at the present moment. It strikes us that we see in this something of that “looking after those things that are coming on the earth,” mentioned in Luke 21:26. The Herald says:— There is a constant rumbling in the Continent of Europe, and even the wisest men cannot read the signs. Peaceful as Europe seems, it is not a wholesome peace. We cannot accept the summer day as truly summer, when clouds, rent and torn with lightning, disturb the sky. We may have the harvest moon, or we may have the thunder storm, when the sun goes down. Question after question comes tumbling, one upon another, even as we read in the poet that “from peak to peak, the rattling crags among, leaps the live thunder.” Never did old Europe seem in so phenomenal a condition. England gathers her skirts about her, and, content with the guardianship of her embosoming seas, sulkily awaits the storm. France sharpens her saber and pike, watching and praying for the tocsin to summon the combat for Alsace and Lorraine. Austria, bothered with her finance and her artillery, prays that the shock may not fall until her currency is ready money and she has changed her cannon of bronze to steel. Russia, half civilized, half barbarian, looks with earnestness upon the Slavic dominions bordering her kingdom, and with barbaric passion upon the ungarnered possessions of Asia. Spain is beaten from shore to shore, at the mercy of every tempest. The smaller nations, rejoicing in the weakness which has at last become strength, huddle into the corners away from the storm, only hoping for the safety that comes with forgetfulness. Turkey feels that her doom is a question of time, and patiently awaits her execution. Germany pursues her destiny with eager, brutal resolution. The duel which is impending is not between France and Germany—which nations we are glad to hear are sisters (the writer means the people of the two nations) but between two principles, republic and empire. And there must be an encounter between these two principles, a terrible duel. There can be little doubt, we fear, that in Europe at this moment everything tips toward universal gloom. Mr. Disraeli spoke recently of the great crisis about to appear in the world’s history, and he explained his course upon certain ecclesiastical questions by saying that when this crisis came he wished to have the Church of England protected against the storm. We do not attempt to fathom the meaning of the English Prime Minister, but we presume he referred to the struggle between liberalism, as represented by Prince Bismarck, and the ultramontanism of the Roman Church. Whether we look upon this struggle, from an ecclesiastical point of view, as that of the nineteenth century against the Middle Ages, or of the Gothic Empire against the United States of Europe, the forces on either side are gigantic, and the contest must in time assume proportions that history does not parallel. It may be that we are coming to the time spoken of in sacred writings, when the great battle of Armageddon will be fought and we shall enter upon the millennial period.