The Old World by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 22.

The Old World

By Editor

SINNER, do you wish deliverance from sin? Read the article "Look and Live," in another column. "There is life in a look" at the Lamb of God. "Behold the Lamb of God."

ELDER BALLENGER informs us that all the Protestant and Catholic works quoted in the article "Protestantism, True and False" can be secured at a discount for our ministers and others who desire them, by addressing the Religious Liberty Association, room 7, 185 Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.

READ the article entitled "Union of Church and State," in another column, and behold the history of the fourth century repeating itself now. In the "Two Republics" this is so fully set forth that he who desires to know may know. The book ought to be read by every judge, lawyer, teacher, and minister in our land, as well as many others.

The Old World.—A few months ago everyone was predicting that we were likely very soon to have a general European war. The alliance between France and Russia seemed to forebode this. It was accepted generally as a challenge to the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy, leaving it very uncertain as to whether England would remain neutral or join the Triple Alliance. But recently the olive branch of peace is quivering less in the martial breeze. Germany and Russia have formed a commercial treaty. This would seem to indicate peace for a time. It has been considered necessary on the part of the British Government to maintain a naval force sufficient to cope with all the outside powers of Europe; but lately England's naval power has not greatly increased, while that of the other powers has been so much increased that it is questionable whether England has the force sufficient to cope with any two of the great powers. Die Grenzboten, an Austrian paper, seriously questions whether England's power is not waning. The writer says that England will hold her own as long as she is able to convince others of her strength, but this ability appears very doubtful of late; that her fleet is by no means as imposing as it formerly was; that her ships at the best are undermanned, and the men are often of a very low standard; and concludes that England's navy has not kept pace in proportion with the advance of navies in other countries. Her army gives still less cause for satisfaction. It is, as the writer says, mostly on paper, badly led, badly disciplined, and composed of the very worst materials, and in case England should engage in war with the Dual Alliance, she has been so selfish in the past that the Triple Alliance would not come to her support or interfere in her behalf. In India the writer believes that England has but little power, and that no country that ever trusted to mercenaries escaped ruin, so that England's great difficulty would be, in case of such a war as that, that she would not be ready. "That an army must be prepared in time of peace," says the writer, "is a lesson which England has still to learn."

This is but another side of the great European problem, another phase of the international game of chess. An article in another column, "Jottings from Europe," written by one who has exceptional opportunities of observation, and is qualified to improve them, shows how the Sunday question, and questions of Church and State, are coming to the front in the Old World. But in all this turmoil the Christian and student of prophecy may be assured there may be wars and rumors of wars, but God in his mercy holds the winds of strife until his work is done. He is still holding the winds, and, praise be to his name, his last message of mercy is fast going to the world.