War Swallowing Up Billions
CAREFULLY compiled figures gathered from the most reliable sources by the Wall Street Journal give the great total of war losses by the various nations during the last year as $15,856,380,000. There were a few figures not available that the Journal says would bring the complete sum to about sixteen billion dollars. Careful estimates indicate that the nations at war are spending $53,000,000 a day; and that means that if they continued the war for another year, they will expend at least $19,345,000,000 in addition to the vast sums already expended. These sums account for nothing more than the actual expense of the armies in the field. It is perfectly safe to say that an equally large sum has been lost through the destruction of property. In the year that the war has been in progress the nations in the conflict have increased their war debts by about seventy per cent, and have destroyed much of their business. Previous to the war, they were groaning under the burden of debt incident to war preparations. What will the burden be like when this war is over? Divine power may give us a little time of peace, so that the gospel message promised by Christ in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, to go to all the world, may have an opportunity to do its work; but outside of divine power, there is absolutely no prospect for peace. As many writers are saying who are looking at the future from the cold standpoint of philosophy, the outlook is hopeless. But no individual should allow himself to be deprived of the blessed hope that God has provided for each and every soul in this time. The outlook is dark, gloomy, and foreboding only when we look at it from the human standpoint and through human eyes. If we see these conditions through the brilliant light of the prophetic page, we will see on beyond this darkness the shining brightness of the coming Christ, and the glories of the New Jerusalem, and the beginnings of everlasting joys, in the which no shade of sadness can possibly come. We will have no fears for the future, for the reason that the prophetic page has made plain what the foreboding conditions of to-day mean.