AMONG the modern war ships the torpedo-boat is prominent. It is built so as to attain a speed almost equal to a passenger train on land. The design is for this fleet little craft to dash near a big man-of-war, usually under cover of the night, hurl against the big craft a torpedo that will sink it, and by her swiftness avoid destruction from the fire of her big enemy’s guns.
This torpedo-boat was considered so dangerous that a still more powerful vessel, with the same high speed, was devised to destroy the torpedo-boat. This is called the “torpedo-boat destroyer.” But a third vessel of this class is now under consideration by the United States. The reports of it say that it should be called the “destroyer of torpedo-boat destroyers.”
This picture of a succession of torpedo-boat destroyers, each one still more powerful than the one preceding, was prepared by the artist of the “St. Louis Republic” as a kind of burlesque. But still there is a very serious side to it. The cut most graphically—even tho ludicrously—brings before the mind the spirit of this age. A great part of the intellect of the world is expended in devising engines of war that will outstrip everything that has ever been planned or thought of. And as soon as one terrible death-dealing instrument is perfected, and set in motion, renewed efforts are put forth to make still others that will overpower and defeat it. And so the strife goes on. The Satanic host is inciting men to do this awful work, preparatory to the battle of “that great day.”
The government has just authorized the construction of sixteen of these new boats. And while they will be technically called “torpedo-boat destroyers,” yet it is claimed that they will be the most powerful and swift boats of this class that have ever been built, and will therefore be entitled to the name of “destroyers of torpedo-boat destroyers.”
Who that is viewing the wild rush in preparing for war all over the world to-day can fail to see that there is something decidedly unusual in it? The Word plainly tells us that “the spirits of devils, working miracles, . . . go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” Rev. 16:14. Can there be any doubt that the “great day of God Almighty” is near? For surely the “whole world” is now being gathered in battle array. T.
