The Alarm | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1871

The Alarm.

Christ tells us that on the eve of his approaching there will be “distress of nations, with perplexity.” Do I attach too deep significance to the phenomena and facts of the age, if I express my belief that never were these words more applicable than they are to the nations of the earth at this very moment? There is a lull, indeed; but it is only the bivouac of hostile forces; they have not yet beaten their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and their cannon into iron rails. The Saviour tells us that there shall be war, nation rising up against nation; disasters, civil convulsions of all kinds. It may be that these signs, appearing in rapid succession, and with an intensity unprecedented in former years, shall be the alarm. Certainly we cannot look back to the ten years, from 1854 to the close of 1864, without recognizing a decade which nothing matches in the history of the world before. The Crimean war was followed by the Indian mutiny and the Italian war, and these by that most frightful war that lately ravaged the homes and the hearths of our children in America. I know no decade more terrible, or more true to the prophetic picture of the signs which are to precede the personal return of Him who comes to put all things right. In the words of the prophet, it seems to be the law now, “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; . . . until He come whose right it is.” Recently the son of the Autocrat of all the Russians was smitten by the pestilence from which he fled, and so the hope of a mighty empire sleeps in the dust. The news that came so recently from America were the most shocking and most painful of its many painful scenes—an amiable and gentle chief, who spoke only words of kindness to those that revolted against what he believed to be their duty, was murdered by an assassin, one would hope a lunatic, and not a man sane and in his right mind. It was cruel and revolting in the mind of every brave soldier as of every good citizen.

It has been sometimes argued, “This age is not so bad as some previous age. The 19th century is not more remarkable, nor its phenomena more startling, than those of the close of the 18th, or those of some previous great period when Europe was devastated with war.” Let us hear on this the following remarkable judgments. The late Sir Robert Peel, the distinguished statesman of our country, said, “Every aspect of the present time, viewed in the light of the past, warrants the belief that we are on the verge of a universal change.” Dr. Arnold, the most accomplished and enlightened spirit of his day, whose memoir is well worth the perusal of every one that desires to estimate and admire a great character, says, “Modern history appears to me not only a step in advance of ancient history, but the last one. It appears to me to bear the marks of the fullness of the time, as if there were to be no future history beyond.” Professor Robinson, the eminent American, who has written so fully and ably upon Palestine, says, “Before another half century shall have rolled away”—speaking some five-and-twenty years ago—“there will be seen revolutions in the Eastern mind, and in the world, of which one has now no conception.” The Quarterly Review, published in this country, said in a recent number, “The long pent-up winds are beginning to break loose, and the sudden bursts of tempests that have swept over Europe these few years past are precursors of the world’s last desolating storm.” Bishop Chase says, “Are not these signs and prognostics of the speedy coming of our Lord to Judgment?” Dr. Seiss, a very eminent American clergyman, says, “For my part, I will believe and preach that the day of the Lord is at hand. I would rather encounter the sneers and vulgar taunts of all mankind, and be found ready when my Saviour comes, than to be accounted the most sober of theologians, and to enjoy the fame of the most revered favorite of popular laudation. I have been unable to fix any precise time; some profess to know it; I do not. Christ may come in three, seven, or ten years, or not so soon; but his coming is just at hand.” Dr. Krummacher, author of “Elijah the Tishbite,” that beautiful biography, says, “Never did the church witness such a constellation of signs of the near coming of Christ as now.” Elliot, the author of Horæ Apocalypticæ, says, “We are come so near to the day of the Son of Man that the generation now living shall very possibly not have passed away before its fulfillment.” Cunningham, of Lainshaw, says, “All the events of our times, the growing disorders of the body politic, the fears and expectations of men—every sign, every promise, unite in announcing the approach of Christ.” Habershon says, “The time undoubtedly is near at hand when the redemption of the body shall be experienced.”

Stanley Faber, the eminent canon of Salisbury, writes that “the time is not very far distant when the personal Word shall begin to tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God.” Brooks says, “The signs of the second advent in the state of the world at large are such as to impress my mind with the deep persuasion that we are on the eve of events of imminent importance.” Dr. Duff, the eminent Free Church missionary, lately returned from India, says, “Surely, the present crisis is constraining us to arise, and that with our whole heart. It looks as if, in response to the sighing of the whole creation, groaning in uneasiness and pain through long bygone ages, for the times of the restitution of all things—surely, in answer to the plaintive cry of the myriad martyrs from under the altar, who, age after age, have been uttering their longing cry, ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ He who is seated on the throne on high is now indicating by no ordinary signs that he is to arise, and assert his great power, and manifest himself as King and Governor among the nations. Surely, in the language of one of old, the great Messiah is about to come forth from his royal chamber, about to put on the visible robes of his imperial majesty, and to take up the unlimited sceptre which the Father has bequeathed to him. Even now, in the ear of faith, and almost in the ear of sense, we may hear the distant noise of the chariot-wheels of the Saviour King, coming forth conquering and to conquer amid the shaking of the nations, from pole to pole. Every nation has of late been upheaving from its ancient, settled foundations, and there will be mightier upheavings still, and that right speedily, all preparing the way for the new heaven and the new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness.” Such are the words of Dr. Duff. A historian of vast intellectual powers, but with no great sympathy with prophetic researches—Lord Macaulay—writes in one of his celebrated essays, speaking as a mere secular historian, looking at what is transpiring outside: “Many Christians believe that the Messiah will shortly establish a kingdom on the earth and reign visibly over its inhabitants. Whether this doctrine be orthodox or not we shall not inquire; the number of people who hold it is very much greater than the number of Jews residing in England. Many of those who hold this doctrine are distinguished by rank, by wealth, by ability. It is preached from the pulpits both of the Scottish and of the English church; noblemen and members of parliament have written in defense of it; who expect that before this generation shall pass away, all the kingdoms of the earth will be swallowed up in one divine empire.” Such is the opinion of Macaulay.

Dr. Hitchcock, the eminent Christian geologist, says, “In a very short time, far shorter than we imagine, all the scenes of futurity will be to us a thrilling reality.” Dr. Cheever, of America, writes, “It is impossible to look upon a more sublime spectacle than that which rises to the mind of a spiritual observer at the present crisis. The convergence of all things to this point becomes more and more rapid. Meaning begins to appear in events before clouded in mystery. An omnipotent plan is in operation, and the trains laid with divine wisdom are fast completing.” And strange to say, the Jewish mind is brought to a similar conviction. One of their most eminent Rabbis says, “There is every reason to believe that the latter days are not far off; let us, therefore, be on the watch and in continual prayer.”

The Jews, who never thought of a Messiah, begin to say, “These are the days of travail which precede his arrival.” And Herschel, a chief Rabbi in the synagogue of the Jews in London, is represented as saying, and thinking with his people, that the Messiah’s advent cannot be long delayed beyond the year 1863. I have conversed with Jews, one especially, a Jewess, whose name is the representative of the wealth of this world. I asked her if she expected the Messiah soon; and her reply was that all the Jews had been long expecting him, and seemed disappointed that he is not come, and to feel that if he did not come soon they must give up the hope of Israel. This feeling, it appears, prevails very widely in the Jewish mind; for the advent of Jesus as the Messiah is one of those bright and blessed hopes which they have retained unextinguished. Lord Shaftesbury, the eminent Christian philanthropist, says, “The signs of the times are really unparalleled and most wonderful; and I think it does not proceed from any spirit of criticism if we say that we believe they are leading to some final consummation.”

These voices, coming from different sources, from men of different tones of mind and temperaments of nature, are, when blended into one, something like the echoes of the voice heard at midnight, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.”

Meanwhile, are our lamps burning? Have we trimmed them? Have we not only the oil of grace in our hearts, but do we know where the fountain of reserve is, from which we may fill those hearts with grace, and finally with glory? Do we look for this glorious era? Or are we, like thousands, settling down into the belief that this world is good enough, that we don’t want a better? Like the prodigal, who settled down into the belief that husks were the only food for men, and that men were meant to live on husks, forgetting for a season the bread which was in his father’s house? This world in its best and brightest spots is not a source of perpetual happiness and peace; it is given us in which to make ready for a brighter and a better.

That he will come in the clouds of heaven is as certain as that when the apostles on his ascent from the Mount of Olives, stood gazing up into the heavens, a voice came from the skies, “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” How did he go? The cloud, the glory cloud, the shechinah, became his chariot, and conducted him to the Father’s right hand. That glory cloud, that shechinah, will again conduct him down to this world. Blessed are they that are now found in him; for at that day they will reign with him, and that forever and forever.

“The day is coming—yea, is now at hand— When wars shall struggle on the Syrian plains,— Wars such as ne’er before have been on earth, Nor the sun seen in all his ancient reigns.” —Cumming.