War Preparations and the Prince of Peace
Queen Victoria has bequeathed a kingdom to her son, but she has not, along with the kingdom, bequeathed him peace. One of the first acts of his reign is to sanction a program for the building of thirty-three new warships, and also largely to increase his army. This shows that the conditions are such in the world that he sees wars ahead, and desires to be prepared for them. Men, urged on by the powers of darkness, will soon have this world in a terrible condition. Wars and rumors of wars will absorb the mind until finally the rush for the battle-field of Armageddon is made. But these things should not disturb us. The Lord Jesus Christ is soon coming, and He is the Prince of Peace. He will bring these evils to an everlasting end. The thing for each one of us now is to know that we stand on the right side. For in standing with Christ now we will be prepared to stand with Him in that great and terrible day when He comes to destroy every wicked person along with every sinful thing that may be found in all the world. An influential Eastern contemporary says: “While the governments of the world are certainly growing more extravagant, especially in their annual outlay for war and war preparations, it seems fairly probable that for the mass of the people in all civilized countries, this is the thriftiest age the world has ever seen.” The idea of the existence of this thrift is based upon the fact that the savings banks of the world contain $7,000,000,000 deposited there by small depositors. These figures indicate that there are a large number of people who are laying up some money and thus trying to improve their circumstances, but they do not tell of the misery and degradation that is filling our large cities because of abject poverty. If the facts were known, it is altogether probable that there are quite as many who have no savings at all as there are who have something ahead. The fact should not be overlooked that if some of those who have nothing were willing to put forth the effort, and get right down and work for it, they might be in better circumstances. There are some who are destitute because of misfortunes that they can not control, but there are also a great many more who are destitute because of the misfortune that they are too lazy to work, neither will they deny self to economize when they do get any means. Christianity teaches the grand doctrine of lending a helping hand to our fellow-men who are in need, but the same Gospel teaches that it is a sin for man not to put forth every reasonable effort to gather means, not merely that he may help himself, but that he may have wherewith to help others who may meet with unforeseen reverses and misfortunes.