World Empire by M. C. W.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 26, 1915

World Empire

By M. C. W.

The Dreams of the Past, and the Menace of the Present

World empire was the dream of the ambitious ruler of the olden days—a world empire ruled by one man. Nimrod possessed it. The great Nebuchadnezzar cherished it. The mighty Alexander was absorbed by the desire for world dominion. Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and others, not excepting some moderns, held the same overmastering desire to rule their fellow men. But from the time that the Roman Empire was weakened by its own corruptions, and shattered into its parts by the northern barbarians, God has said that this shall not be. There will never again be a world autocracy, a united empire of earth. Its discordant elements will not amalgamate, or blend in one. In the language of divine prophecy, “They shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.” Dan. 2:43.

Autocracy and Peace

Men have thought, with Louis Napoleon, that “the empire means peace,” that one man could control the elements of unrest, dissatisfaction, revolution, revolt; but all history has given the dream the lie, and demonstrated it to be false. To rule the world and hold it in the bonds of peace, takes the overwhelmingly great; and the men of this caliber are too rare.

World Federation

The dream of the latter days is world federation. Its first lispings, after the experiment of the united British colonies of America and their subsequent independence and remarkable growth, was “the United States of Europe,” used first, so far as we know, in a speech by Victor Hugo at the International Peace Congress in Paris, August 22, 1849. But since time and space have been almost annihilated by modern means and methods of communication and transportation, the vision has enlarged, and the dream of world federation has been voiced in louder, clearer tones. Tennyson sang of “the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm”—

“Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled In the parliament of man, the federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.”

Socialism has helped along the sentiment. Religious teachers have dreamed it and preached it. Earnest men have advocated it, and are advocating it still.

This War and Peace

This monstrous, inexcusable war, with its frightful and indescribable ravage and carnage, does not discourage the pleaders for peace. In the words of Shakespeare, they hope—

“To reap the harvest of perpetual peace, By this one bloody trial of sharp war.”

And this sentiment is remarkably widespread. Many are thinking that this war has been so fearful, its cost so great, its destruction and devastation so monstrous, its awful slaughter of humanity in mind and body so cruel, so abhorrent, that it will never be repeated. When it is said that war has always been of this character, always cruel, always monstrous, the reply is made that this war is so much greater than any other war, the world must revolt against all war; in the words of Sumner, the very bugles must “sound the truce of God to the whole world forever.”

Various Plans and Pleas

Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt, under a characteristic heading, “Utopia or Hell,” presents in the Independent magazine of January 4, 1915, an elaborate theory for world peace. In substance it is that there shall be a League of Peace of the great civilized first-class powers of earth; that these shall mutually agree to respect and guarantee the territorial integrity, vital interests, and national honor of each other; that an International Court shall arbitrate all other questions; and that the nations of the League of Peace shall enforce the decisions of the Court. No civilized nation unable to act as one of the squad of international police in enforcing the decrees of the League and the decisions of the International Court shall be a member of the League, but they may have the right to appeal to the International Court of the League. The uncivilized, half civilized, and barbarous nations will be treated as criminals by the League and the Court. It is the advocacy of a peace not slumbering in the lap of “universal law,” but cowering within an international ring of glittering bayonets. This is Mr. Roosevelt’s alternative to the “hell” of war.

Others, like Mr. Bryan, are working for arbitration treaties among each and all the nations, and these Mr. Roosevelt considers puerile. He feels that the only peace is the peace of force, within the direct supervision of a self-constituted and strong world police. It would work for a while. It is not ideal. The big policemen may form into groups and quarrel.

Religion and Peace

The papacy has for a long time discountenanced all peace plans which leave outside of the principal actors the ruler of the Vatican. That power has declared that the religious break in the Reformation is responsible for present unsatisfactory conditions in the world, and that these will continue till the primacy of the pope as the Apostle of Peace and Arbiter of Nations is recognized. Then, we are told, peace will come.

Dr. Frank Crane, Methodist, Congregationalist, journalist, is editorial writer for various journals and magazines, latest the Christian Herald, of New York. His article in that paper of December 23, 1914, is entitled, “An Appeal to the President from the Christian Churches of the United States.” After pointing out the fearful horrors of war and the awful sufferings and plagues which follow in its wake, and which the last five months have continually kept before us, he pleads that this government shall “take such steps as will eliminate the possibility of future wars.” “It is not necessary to change human nature. All that is needed is to substitute law for violence.” He calls upon the president to make definite proposition to the nations, and “proclaim the United States of the world.”

In the issue of December 30, his editorial is entitled, “The Federation of the World—Now.”

“There must be a world federation that shall adjudicate all international disputes.” There must be “the one army and navy of earth,” “placed under the direction of the International Court. Except this be done, the federation will be a rope of sand. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY POSSIBLE by which the fearful folly of war can be avoided.” He pleads that the churches should petition the president and Congress. And the editorial management joins him, furnishing petitions free. “We know that a world federation will stop war. Nobody desires it. All say it will come—sometime.” And he pleads for one and all to work; for the United States to begin it.

In the same paper of January 6, under the heading, “The United States of the World,” he pleads that this country, in response to the millions of petitioners, shall issue another document, “The Declaration of Interdependence.” He quotes from noted men favoring his contention and plea, such as Andrew Carnegie, Oscar S. Straus, Josiah Strong, David Starr Jordan, and others in influential positions, with and without religious affiliations. Dr. Crane makes a mighty plea for peace and for world federation.

January 5 Senator Owen presented a joint resolution proposing “an international army and navy to preserve the peace of the world, and a universal peace conference to be called at The Hague by the president of the United States at the end of the war in Europe.” The first part of this is what Dr. Crane voices.

The Vatican, the papacy, makes the same plea with a united constituency world-wide. Her paramount position is acknowledged. The Rev. R. J. Campbell, pastor of the City Temple of London, editor of the Christian Commonwealth, suggests a “general council of the Christian churches of the world” to discuss the war and peace situation. He says:

“Rome holds the key of the situation. Let her try, and the Protestants will think better of her than has been the case for almost four hundred years; and there is precedent for it, as it is generally known that the Protestants were summoned to the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. They did not go, but they were invited. Had they gone, who knows but what the scandal of a divided Christendom might have been averted?”

There are many such utterances as this among Protestant ministers.

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Will It Come?

Yes, the United States of Europe will come in the restoration of papal power over European governments which constitutes the beast of prophecy. For there are yet to arise, coming probably out of this war, ten new powers, “which have received no kingdom as yet,” but which shall “have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Rev. 17:12, 13. And this Old-World coalition will so affiliate with other world powers as to form a world confederation; for all the world shall wonder after and worship the beast whose “deadly wound was healed.” Rev. 13:3, 4.

Will It Bring Peace?

Yes, for a little time the world federation will bring peace. “And many nations shall come and say:

“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord; And to the house of the God of Jacob; And He will teach us of His ways, And we will walk in His paths: For the law shall go forth of Zion, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, And rebuke strong nations afar off; And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war any more.”

See Micah 4:2-5, from which the above passage is taken. Remember that it is the nations of this federation which proclaim the peace cry.

Moreover, the great apostasy which shall then be exalted as the religious head, the “mistress of the nations,” shall then say: “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” Rev. 18:7.

And those who are conjoined with apostasy in this world peace without God will then not predict a peace coming, but shall declare “peace and safety” now and here. I Thess. 5:3.

Why will it not last?—Because God is not in it. Dr. Crane says that it is “not necessary to change human nature”; that men by law will keep the peace. But the prophet of Jehovah declares: “I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it can not rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Isa. 57:19-21.

And therefore when this federation shall cry, “Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them; . . . and they shall not escape.” I Thess. 5:3. And when enthroned and self-exalted apostasy shall say, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow,” then and “therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine.” Rev. 18:7, 8. And then will soon follow the great world-wide war of Armageddon, through the influence of the spirits of demons on the unchanged natures of men. See Rev. 16:13-16 and chapters 18 and 19.

Will There Never Come Peace?

Yes; there is peace now for all in Christ Jesus, “our Peace”; and to every one “justified by faith.” Rom. 5:1. Out of the wreck of this sin-burdened and war-devastated world, God will gather those in whom Christ dwells to an eternal kingdom. All sin and all identified with sin will perish in the wreck of earth. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Matt. 13:43. “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.” Isa. 32:17. That righteousness and assurance await in Christ the faith of every soul. Without that righteousness permanent peace is an “iridescent dream.” “The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?” Jer. 23:28. M. C. W.