PRACTICALLY all of the Old World is gripped in the bloodiest and most barbarous struggle that has ever cursed this sin-burdened earth. Such wholesale slaughter has never been seen before, for the reason that men in past generations have not been equipped with such machinery of destruction.
The United States, the one great western nation, is struggling, in the face of strong odds, to keep itself at peace. The spirit of war seems to have surcharged the very atmosphere of the whole of our planet. Thousands of men are looking in every direction for some human expedient that will bring this war to a close, and make impossible the occurrence of such again.
Everything goes to show that when the war is over, men will turn almost unanimously to the church power. It is affirmed that because the church has not had its rightful opportunity in the world, therefore we have had this indescribably destructive and “demoniacal war.”
In the Old World, the dominating power is Catholic, and hence that power will dominate in this new order of things which will be developed. In the New World, Protestantism is the dominating religion. The United States has been regarded as one of the greatest if not the greatest Protestant power of the world; but Protestantism in the United States is honeycombed with the “higher criticism” which practically rejects God’s word and leans to the human arm instead of divine power. In consequence of this condition among the Protestant churches, we find them federating and combining so that they may use their great force of numbers as a political machine. And a Protestant church in politics works in the same way exactly that the Catholic Church does when it is in politics.
Protestantism turning away from the Bible and from the strong arm of God’s power, according to the prophecy of the sacred Book, will make an image to the papal beast. This Protestant image, as the prophet declares, will exercise “all the power of the first beast before him,” or as translated by some, “in his presence.” Rev. 13:12. Then the prophecy goes on to tell the story of the despotic character of this “image” to the papal power; and since an “image” is made to the papacy, it will be closely united in league with it.
But this ecclesiastical empire, with apostate Protestantism in the New World in the lead, and with the papacy taking the lead in the Old World, will speedily ripen the harvest of earth. In that great climax, men will show that they have turned away from God and from His word, and are seeking the human arm of force represented in the civil state. The turbulent conditions in society cannot be controlled by any such program. Nevertheless, men will certainly believe that it can be done, and they will plunge into the effort with a despotic intensity.
It would not be possible, within the space of these paragraphs, to give the Bible arguments in support of these statements; but they have been given over and over again in our columns, and we desire to keep these facts prominently before our readers. They represent the great issue that is now before the world—the greatest that has ever confronted humanity in all its history.
