HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.
By Editor
The Union Signal of February 13 has the following:— “From one of the foremost Quakers of this country comes this prophetic declaration: ‘There has lately come to me quite an “opening,” as we Friends sometimes say, on the sort of agency the Lord intended our W. C. T. U. to be, and the reason he chose the women for this work. I cannot just say that the Lord anointed the women to be his prophets to this government, but I believe it as truly as that Elijah was sent to reprove Ahab, or Jeremiah to rebuke and warn the king of Judah. God did not take office holders in that day, or persons in any way dependent upon government favor, to use as a “voice.” He took those who had, practically, nothing to lose, and I really believe that the Christian women of this land were the only element of our population that God could trust to deliver his reproofs and warnings faithfully.’” All that is necessary to say of the above is that if the W. C. T. U. are prophets to this government, they are prophets of evil, prophesying out of their own heart, saying, The Lord saith, when the Lord hath not spoken. See Jer. 23:16-29; Eze. 13:3-13. The kingdom of Christ will not come through the gate-way of politics, as Miss Willard and others have declared; the good time is not coming which they predict. But perhaps this Friend’s prophecy may be, in a sense, from the Lord. History sometimes repeats itself. “And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.” 1 Kings 22:20-23.