"DISTRESS OF NATIONS WITH PERPLEXITY."
In an exhaustive article in the Forum for January, Mr. David A. Wells, a well-known student of economics, reviews the situation in the United States during the year 1893. He says that between January 1 and October 31 "five hundred and eighty-five bank institutions suspended payment, with liabilities of $169,000,000. Of these banks the suspension of only one hundred and seventy-one was temporary. During the same period over one billion two hundred million dollars' worth of the railroad property of the country was placed in the hands of receivers." The total number of failures is estimated at 16,000, the liabilities probably exceeding $460,000,000. The entire loss to the country is said to be a thousand millions of dollars or more, and these losses fall most heavily upon those the least able to bear them, namely, the laborers. But the most remarkable thing connected with it all is his statement that the causes of all these disturbances and disastrous experiences were purely local. In Canada there has been no panic, no demand for money, no stoppage of industries, no restriction upon trade, no increased rate of interest. In Mexico the credit of the country was never better than during the last year. Even in the Argentine Republic trade has revived during the last twelve-month. He further says that not only was the cause a purely local one, but one which was mainly artificial and wholly unnecessary and unnatural. And yet politicians have assigned the cause of the disturbances to various and many things. Here is a country abundant in its resources, wealthy beyond any other in the world, with a year of bountiful crops and products, and yet suffering calamities in business unknown before in its history; and there is no real cause for these things. But all this is what was foretold nearly two thousand years ago by the Man of Nazareth. Looking down the centuries to this time, and giving some of the signs which should herald his second coming, he said: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; . . . men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth." Luke 21: 25, 26. Are not these things before us in our own land? All these are precursors of the event mentioned in the next verse, "the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."