p. 23 | NOTES FROM FRANCE by H. P. Holser

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 13, 1893

NOTES FROM FRANCE.

By H. P. Holser

BY PASTOR H. P. HOLSER.

LAST night was almost a sleepless one for Nîmes, a city of Southern France, with a population of 65,000. The streets resounded with shouting, singing, laughing, and clatter of wooden soles of the constantly passing and half-drunken crowds. At intervals, hundreds of bombs were exploded, and fireworks displayed. The city is gay with Russian and French flags.

The occasion of all this was the Franco-Russian fête. What took place in this city doubtless occurred all over France. The nation seemed to be almost wild over the event. The celebration of the Fourth of July in America is a tame event compared with this.

The climax of these festivities will be reached in Paris, where the Russian guests will be given a banquet. At the close of the banquet 15,000 rockets will ascend and 320 heavy bombs explode. A building 250 feet long, planked by two pyramids 80 feet high, composed entirely of fireworks, will be consumed. In the center is a triumphal arch, surrounded by a colossus, holding commingled the French and Russian colors.

The displays on this occasion are to exceed anything of the kind that has taken place for twenty years. Souvenirs of the event will be struck, and the Russian guests loaded with presents, while a movement is on foot to make the czar a present of an Eifel Tower made of diamonds, costing half a million francs. It is doubtful, however, that the latter will succeed. At Toulon, also, the war harbor of France, where the Russian fleet of gunboats will maneuver, great festivities take place.

But why such a wonderful display, and such a lavish waste of means, when the masses are in misery and struggling for an existence? It is to strengthen the alliance between France and Russia, and to make uncomfortable and to scare the nations composing the Triple Alliance, especially Germany. France can never get over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. As a Frenchman remarked the other day, "If Germany had asked a few millions more, and not taken this territory, we would soon have forgotten it, but her act in taking a part of our country, always remains in our hearts." Instead of dying out, the desire to regain the lost territory is rather increasing, especially since the alliance with Russia. There is little doubt that France will improve the first opportunity to gain her end.

The great powers of Europe are now arrayed on two sides, and the relations are such that all might be easily embroiled in difficulty. The conditions exist, everything seems ready, and the constant wonder is how peace is still maintained. It is not so much the strained relation between the nations that makes the situation dangerous, but it is the critical internal state of nearly every nation of Europe.

If the nations do not soon have war with one another, they surely will at home, for the present state of the masses is unbearable, and, instead of growing better, becomes worse every year. And should war come, at home or abroad, it will not improve but only deepen the misery.

Thus, even from the human standpoint, there seems to be nothing but destruction in the future. And this is just what prophecy indicates. For years we have been expecting what we now see,—the nations ripening for the battle of the great day; the signs indicated by the prophecy, showing the great event to be at our very doors, are before our eyes. The moment that God's work in the earth is finished, the winds of war will be held by unseen hands no longer, and the closing struggle will be precipitated. Our only safety is in being constantly in a state of preparation to cross probation's line, "for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."

Nîmes, France, October 15, 1893.