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TOWARD THE UNKNOWN

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 5, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 18.

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“TOWARD THE UNKNOWN.”

The opinions of great men, especially those of long experience and wide observation, are eagerly sought in times of great crises. The World’s Rome correspondent cables the following interview with the great Italian statesman, Ex-premier Crispi. It is a terse, graphic presentation of the worldly view:—
Ex-premier Crispi, who was asked to-day what he thought would be the result of the Spanish-American war, said emphatically, “It is the end of Spain.”
“You are severe on valiant Spain.”
“Valiant and chivalrous, yes. But Spain, in our nineteenth century, needs a practical spirit, in which Spaniards are absolutely wanting. I do not say Americans have any right to interfere in the affairs of Cuba, but certainly the Spaniards have shown themselves cruel, barbarous, and incapable of governing the Pearl of the Antilles. The first cause of it all is the general condition of ignorance in the upper as well as the lower classes.”
“What result do you anticipate the war will have?”
“Grave results. Cuba, after the war, will be a small republic, and will be constantly in revolution or bankruptcy; and it is feared the Americans, intoxicated by easy success, will throw haphazard all their energy against the European colonies which are in the neighborhood of their republic.”
“Do you think Europe ought to have intervened in this war to save Spain?”
“Alas! Europe resembles Spain from a certain point of view. Anarchy is everywhere dominant. The European concert is only a sinister joke.”
“We are then marching direct to ruination and decadence?”
“No, toward the unknown.”
Passing by the references to “the end of Spain,” her internal condition, the future of Cuba, and what the United States may do—all of which are worthy of consideration—we wish briefly to notice two points:—
1. The condition of Europe. Certainly Mr. Crispi, so long prime minister of Italy, has a right to know the internal conditions of European governments. He has the secrets of her international councils which have never been given to the world. He knows that all the outward calm is but the lie of skilled diplomats, endeavoring to put far off the coming conflict. He knows that in every country of Europe there are hot-beds of anarchy, sown, watered, cultivated, fertilized by the expense of great standing armies, numerous and extravagant royal families, and government officials, burdensome taxation, and crushing competition for the very necessities of existence. “Anarchy is everywhere dominant. The European concert is only a sinister joke.”
Thus things were in France before the breaking out of the revolution in the latter part of the last century. God symbolized the revolution that followed by a beast coming up out of the abyss, or chaos. Rev. 11:7. That condition of France, that revolution which followed, that government which succeeded the revolution, the goddess of which was the apotheosis of the fulness of the lowest natural lusts, are all but faintly typical of the very condition of things which now exists in ever-increasing intensity throughout Europe; of the coming bottomless pit, or abyss, of anarchy; and of the ten-divisioned confederacy to arise out of it, symbolized in Rev. 17:8, 12, 13, upon which will be superimposed a restored Papacy. Just how all this may come about we do not know. This we do see and know, it may come soon. The nations are ready, the tempests of strife are ready to charge upon the world; God holds the winds till His work is finished. Rev. 7:1-3. The confederacies of earth are bound together but by a rope of the sand of selfishness.
2. “Toward the unknown” the world is indeed marching. It might be the known. Did they know the end, they would call a halt, about face, and march the other way. They are ignorant, willingly ignorant of the knowledge that would save them. God has given it in His prophetic Word. That is God’s lamp to light all His children through this darkened world to the eternal world of light and beauty.
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.” That Word reveals to us that the kingdoms of this world are about to “become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ” (Rev. 11:15); that the time is near when “the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.”
To the child of God the future is not “unknown.” He knows what lies before. “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” O soul in darkness, come to the light of God’s Word, to the Light of the world, even Jesus Christ!