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THE NEW ERA

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 7, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 52, No. 19.

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THE NEW ERA.

We are still treated to such astonishing talk as this: “The world is ripe for a grand stride in advance, even as a hobbling cripple instantly made whole.” “Right here, and now, all things conspire to indicate that the fullness of time for a better dispensation of nature’s bounties is upon us.” “Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce—fair trinity that shall redeem from destitution and rehabilitate the earth.” “The march of intellect shall also keep pace with temporal improvements, and onward from good to better will be the watchword of the future.”
These, and many more of like import, are the utterances of volume 1, number 1, of a new paper styled the New Era. It is a re-iteration of the long-raised but always-disappointed cry of the “good time coming,” with a frantic effort to attain to a closer approximation of the date of its beginning.
As we look out upon the world, what do we behold as the foundation for such expectations? Only a short time since, destitution, famine, pestilence, death, for millions in India. Later, the most fearful of all known famines, with its ten million victims, in China. With this, the famine with fearful scenes of starvation, in Brazil. The pestilence that walketh at noon-day, brooding over a large area of the South, with its thousands of victims, and injury to material interests amounting to two hundred millions of dollars. This is but just broken, when news comes from Morocco of the breaking out of the cholera there, accompanied by fearful destitution and actual starvation; and people are flying in terror from that region, as they but yesterday fled from the plague-stricken districts of the South.
To offset these, no scenes anywhere greet us of exceptional prosperity. Trade, manufactures, commerce, everywhere to a large degree paralyzed; men idle, growing friction between labor and capital, and communism secretly and openly spreading its spawn over the land.
In nature the outlook is not that of peace and plenty. Convulsions, tempests, tornadoes, are shaking and terrifying the earth. It is as if restraints were taken from all the elements, and they were holding wild revel at the bidding of the prince of the power of the air.
The political world is no less disturbed. The statesmen that sit upon the pinnacle of political renown, the greatest, wisest, best, the nations can produce, meet to adjust difficulties and allay discord. They lay their plans; the world greets them with loud applause, and cries Peace, peace. But as they depart from their conference, black and hydra-headed confusion, born of their wisest counsels, chases them home. The congress of Berlin, instead of forever settling the eastern question, as statesmen declared, simply sowed the wind, and the nations are about to reap therefrom the whirlwind. Turkey is obstinate, imbecile, and helpless. Russia is still aggressive and determined. The provinces are firm and successful in their revolt. England defies and threatens. The rush and roar of preparation goes forward with them all. The combination of explosive elements is wonderful. The fire is already at the magazine. The explosion must come. That it yet delays is still more wonderful.
Where is the world financially? Drifted from all her ancient moorings. The failure of the bank of Scotland, involving the greatest financial loss, and the greatest rascality of any transaction of the kind, threatens far-reaching consequences. Political economists apprehend that failures of English manufacturers must follow, and that this country will then be flooded with their bankrupt stocks, and that this in turn will again break down our own manufactures just beginning to revive. So men’s hearts fail them for fear.
We need not look into the moral world. That presents a darker picture than any other department of the gloomy scene. Yet we are asked to believe that “the good time coming” has just arrived.
“Don’t croak,” says the Advance. And from its standpoint the advice seems most pertinent. If we were under the necessity of proving the coming of a temporal millennium, as the Advance seems to consider itself, however distant we might be allowed to place it, we should not want to hear any one say anything about these things. We should not want to look at them. The prospect would not conduce to our peace of mind.
But we had better follow the only sure light to light us through the closing scenes of time,—the light of God’s word. There is indeed a “good time coming;” there is a new era to dawn. But before it can come, the world’s iniquity must mature, and the earth must vomit out its guilty inhabitants, as the land of Canaan vomited out its polluted nations before the children of Israel, and the fires of the last day must burn to its lowest depths, to purge its stains of sin. Into the vortex of this last convulsion it seems about to plunge. Truth is the only panoply that will shield us during this troublous time, and bring us safely to the peaceful scenes beyond.