The Forthcoming Significant Consistory
CARDINAL VON HARTMANN, archbishop of Cologne, according to an Associated Press dispatch which claims to be official from the Vatican, will attend the consistory in Rome in December. Cardinal Hartmann is said to enjoy the confidence not only of the pope but of Emperor William. Cardinals Gasquet and Billot are on their way to Rome to represent Great Britain and France; and it is stated that Cardinal Begin, also archbishop of Quebec, will attend the consistory. The dispatch announcing the attendance of these prelates at the consistory concludes with the statement: “The fact that ecclesiastics representing several of the warring nations will be at the Vatican at the same time has given rise to the belief that steps toward peace may be discussed.” The warring nations are rapidly exhausting themselves. It is only natural that they should be turning in every direction possible to find some way out of the dilemma. The papal power, being international, and wielding such an influence among the nations, will naturally be regarded as the one great influence that can bring peace to the earth. The hour for supreme papal triumph cannot be far away. The possibility of the papacy’s restoring peace will doubtless be one of the great stepping stones toward the final supremacy of that power. One of the last great events recorded in Bible prophecy, as shown in the seventeenth of Revelation and elsewhere, is for the papal power again to assume supreme rule, and to say she sits a queen, and shall see no more sorrow. Every living soul should watch with intense interest the developments of the papacy in this time, for clearly something “great and decisive” is soon to occur.