THE UNSEEN DANGER

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1879

THE UNSEEN DANGER.

The Berlin correspondent of the Christian Union gives in the issue of that paper dated Jan. 1, 1879, a significant article entitled, “Berlin in Joy and in Fear.” It is a description of the celebration in honor of the recovery of the Emperor from the wounds inflicted by a would-be assassin some months ago, and of his return to resume the duties of his office as the head of the nation.

But just as this season of joy was at its height, Berlin was startled by the proclamation that the city was in a state of siege, a martial measure to guard against impending danger. Under this measure all persons not included in certain specified classes are forbidden to carry arms, and any person deemed dangerous to the public safety may be summarily ejected from the district thus put under control, or fined and imprisoned. The gay capital is thus put at the mercy of the demon of suspicion; for if the police for any cause suspect any one, it dooms him to imprisonment or exile without redress.

The reason for this is that the government has found traces of secret societies which are conspiring against the State. This writer says: “There is in Europe a widespread secret conspiracy, and all governments and peoples are alike interested in putting it down. Here, in Germany, every day witnesses the suppression of journals, pamphlets, meetings for the advancement of socialism, and the arrest of individuals obnoxious to the penalties of the new laws.”

The efficacy of this method of suppression is doubted by many. It is having one effect at least,—that of scattering some of these firebrands over our own country; and they will be no better here than there; for it is the opinion of this careful observer of socialism in its native haunts, that “no measure of liberty satisfies these wretches, and no measure of repression can restrain them.” “It is now believed,” he adds, “that secret clubs like those of the Nihilists of Russia are spreading like a network over the whole country.”

Thus with all the people of the world there lurks danger in every shadow, intangible, undefined, and hence all the more fear-inspiring. Men look for the assassin’s dagger, the torch of midnight arson, the upheaval of the social fabric by communism, they know not when, nor how, nor where.

The people of God have occasion to pray that these threatening winds of strife may be restrained, that peace and quiet may continue, till they have finished the work which is given them to do.