General Apprehension by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1902

“General Apprehension”

By L. A. S.

The editor of The Independent (New York City) is moved to speak in a recent issue of that journal on the subject of the signs of the times. Chief among these, he says, is “a general feeling of apprehension.”

It is no small sign of the times when men like the editor of this journal, who do not accept the doctrine of the nearness of Christ’s second advent, are forced by the extraordinary character of passing events to confess that we have indeed reached a momentous period of human history. As regards these evidences we need now hardly do more than quote the words of writers and speakers who are not looking for our Lord’s return, yet cannot escape taking note of the things which signify that that event is at hand. The language of others on this subject has now become as emphatic as our own.

Going on to describe in particular this “general feeling of apprehension,” the editor of The Independent says:—

When the world is at peace, when industry is rewarded with abundance, when no great iniquity shocks the moral sense, when skies are serene, and the heart of man is glad, all signs become a contradiction in terms, they cease to signify. If men linger and dream at the crater’s edge, we know that the volcano slumbers. Its steam and sulphurous fumes do not alarm. If while yet the years are fat, none remembers that once upon a time the seven lean years did come, we know that the works of drought and the unseasonable frosts are not portentous. If the name of war awakens only smiles of incredulity, we know that the growing pains of nations are as yet but twinges.

It is when men look anxiously in one another’s faces, and talk about strange rumblings which have been heard, that signs have meaning. We know that the dreamers would not have awakened, and that the light-hearted would not have grown serious, unless a thousand trifling reminders of some possible change in the aspect of nature or in the affairs of man had all at once become the mutterings of a change impending.

There is no denying that such apprehension, a general and deepening feeling of disquiet, a shivering and mysterious dread, is at this moment creeping over mankind.

Outwardly all is peace in international affairs. The convulsions in China have ceased. The troops have retired. Russia does not press her more radical demands. The German emperor is making himself persona grata to those who not long ago regarded him with detestation. Domestic insurrections and civil wars have nearly subsided. The Filipinos are surrendering. The Boers talk of terms. In business such prosperity was never known as that which overwhelms the power of conception to-day.

Is this peace a portentous stillness before the dread rush of the hurricane? Is this prosperity the storing up of titanic and demoniac forces which will presently explode, like steam in the bowels of Pelée? Who knows?

Who knows? But why do we ask the

question? It is the question itself that reveals a fear. Everywhere, in one or another form, men are asking it, and the asking is the sign that mutterings are heard, that the world is unquiet, that ambitious nations are restive, that oppressions are felt, that injustice is creating resentment, that business methods are creating distrust. . . .

Signs like these have been multiplying of late, multiplying rapidly. Can we wonder that the general sign of apprehension is day by day growing more ominous?

There is, indeed, a “general feeling of apprehension,” and the hearts of many are “failing them for fear,” as foretold in the prophecy of our Lord which he gave in answer to the question of his disciples, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Blessed are those who now, by faith in his word, are able to see in these unwonted events the signs of the coming of a brighter day for all who love God, and to lift up their heads, knowing that their redemption draweth nigh.

L. A. S.