Population and the Bread of Life

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 11, 1891

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 17, No. 19.

Population and the Bread of Life

The rapid increase of the population is generally regarded as a matter of pride, but it has also a very serious aspect. It is one of the things which cause "distress of nations, with perplexity," predicted by the Prophet of Nazareth, in Luke 21:25. Great Britain is just finishing her census. In 1801 the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland numbered 11,000,000; in 1881 it had increased to 35,250,000, and in 1891 it is estimated to reach something over 40,000,000. India in 1881 numbered 255,000,000; now it numbers 285,000,000, having increased in ten years what is equal to one-half the population of the United States. How is this vast, constantly-augmenting mass to be supported in the near future? How are they to be given the "bread of life"?