Attacked from the Air

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 8, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 23.

Attacked from the Air

A HEADING to a recent news dispatch reads, “Skipper Tells of Air Attack on Ship.” Following this heading, the news note goes on to tell of bombs aimed at the ship, from the air, one of which struck the rail of the vessel.

While there has been equipment dating back for a very few years that might do such a thing as this, yet it has been reserved for the developments of the last twelve months to give such actual experiences upon the high seas.

The airship has been talked of a great deal for passenger service and other useful purposes of that character; but in actual practice it has been almost wholly confined to war, and its developments in that direction are awe-inspiring.

One of the latest things devised is the dropping of bombs containing poisonous gases. The ordinary bomb that may be thrown from the air to explode in a city may destroy a part of a building and possibly kill a few people, but bombs that contain poisonous gases thrown in large numbers into cities would be fiendishly destructive.

The conditions in this time may show more “refinement” in some directions than in former periods, but they never showed more diabolical barbarism. God’s word says that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?” Jer. 17: 9, A. R. V. The King James rendering of the text is, “desperately wicked.” In other words, God’s estimate of the average man is that he is a desperado; and conditions that are breaking out all over the world show that we do not need to apologize for the estimate God has placed upon humanity. On the other hand, the Book shows that God knows and speaks the truth concerning humanity.

The only thing that can save men from these desperate deeds is the renewing grace of Christ. A mere profession of that name is not sufficient. The heart must be really transformed from above, and thus placed in tune with the Creator. Otherwise the man develops into a desperado, his desperate character being molded by his natural temperament, and influenced greatly by his surroundings.