Where Is the Sign of His Coming?
By Chas. B. Reynolds
During the past year, no part of the earth seems to have escaped a share of the dire calamities that mark 1872 as the year of God’s signs, wonders, and appalling warnings. While in this country, fires and marine disasters (among the most fearful that have visited the earth since man kept record of events, and so terribly calamitous that even the most obdurate and skeptical are filled with wonder and alarm) have destroyed millions on millions of property, rendering thousands homeless, the eastern hemisphere has far exceeded the western in its catalogue of horrors. The molten lava of Vesuvius has scattered devastation and death over Italy, till even the king on his throne has been moved to go forth and personally strive to ameliorate the condition of his suffering and homeless people. While here we have been blessed with plenty, in the old world, three hundred thousand have actually starved to death. The famine in Persia is one of the most disastrous to life that humanity has ever witnessed. It is not alone fire and famine that have visited the earth, but add to these devastating horrors the most disastrous inundation of the river Po and its tributaries, by which upwards of one hundred thousand people are rendered homeless and destitute of the necessaries of life, their harvests destroyed, their cattle drowned, their houses demolished, and swept away by the cruel, angry waters. The miseries of the unfortunate people no language can describe. The most fierce hurricane of fire over the same vast extent of territory could scarcely have proved more terribly ruinous in its effects. In the valley of the Po, all efforts to arrest the flood have failed. Many of the people (where all was not swept away by the angry torrents) have sought refuge on the house roofs and in the tree tops, only saved from the destroying waters to meet a more torturous death by starvation and exposure. Reggio, a town of 20,000 inhabitants, famous for its convents, colleges, museum and library, is submerged, the inundation mocking all human effort to stay its work of desolation, ruin, misery and death. But inundation is not the only form of desolation produced by the angry waters. The latest addition to the dread catalogue of signs and warnings, is the fearful storm which has swept the Baltic, the North Sea, and their contiguous coasts. Stralsund, with the adjacent islands of Rügen, and nearly the whole Pomeranian and Danish sea-board, narrowly escaped being washed away by the roaring waters. In the Baltic, Prasto, a Zeeland town, has been laid in ruins by the fury of the flood and gale. To fire, famine, inundation, and marine disasters almost without parallel, is added pestilence, which now stalks over the earth in its most hideous and ghastly aspect. Cholera is raging in Russia. The official statistics declare that 80,000 have died of this disease during the past year. Small pox, the most loathsome and contagious of diseases, still prevails to an alarming extent in this country; and while the epizootic traverses our land, some still more mysterious malady is destroying alike birds and beasts by thousands in both hemispheres. The drought, yet in its incipient stage, bids fair to play its part in this terrible accumulation of woes. All Europe, politically, is like the slumbering volcano. Already can be discerned the smoke which precedes the terrible eruption; while in this country the doings of the Evangelical Alliance and others, forcing the amendment of the Constitution, inserting the name of God, and rendering compulsory the observance of the first day as the Sabbath, threaten to involve us in the most terrible of civil turmoils, eventuating in the establishment of the “image of the beast” (see Rom. 6:16; Rev. 13:14, 15), the very last and one yet unfulfilled prophecy before the coming of Him who sits upon the white cloud, who shall reap the harvest of the earth. What does all this mean? Why these signs and wonders at this time? Do they not all portend some great change? For what are these warnings given? They abound on every hand. God calls us to repentance, to flee from the wrath to come. Even those who scout and mock at all mention of the coming of our Lord, declare there is some wondrous change impending. To use their own language, “these turbulent times surely foretell the speedy advent of a more glorious era.” Are we truly prepared? Can we pray, “Thy kingdom come?” Is our work being done—well and faithfully done? or shall we, like the antediluvians, mock and scoff at the warnings of impending judgments? Shall love of this present world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, so fill our hearts that we encourage the false lullaby of those who cry, “Peace and safety,” gladly permitting ourselves to be lulled to sleep in their cradle of tradition? Do we half believe? half doubt? Are we halting between two opinions, striving to serve two masters? Oh! let us halt no longer. Time is short, and its golden moments precious. We have the now. Now, this hour, the door of mercy still is open to us. Let us give our whole heart to the Lord, and follow in the way. We shall then love his appearing and look forward with joyful anticipation to the day when our great High Priest and Intercessor shall leave the inner sanctuary, the most holy of holies, and, coming forth to bless his people, shall say, “Gather my saints together unto me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” Oh! let us sacrifice for Christ now, and then shall we share with him the glories of the earth made new, in his eternal kingdom, where fire, flood, famine, pestilence, or death, can never enter.