The Wasting of Turkey

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 6, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 18.

The Wasting of Turkey.

The Lord in prophecy represents countries and governments by the great rivers which flow through them. Thus Assyria is represented by the Euphrates when Assyria ruled that country, and Egypt by the Nile. When the drying up of the Euphrates in the last days is predicted, as in Rev. 16:12, it must refer to the government which now rules there, namely, the Turkish power. This utter destruction of the government will not take place till the sixth plague is poured out; but the process begins long before. It has, in fact, been going on for years. This is the way the great powers of Europe have preserved "the integrity of the Ottoman Empire" since 1857, in its European territory:—

In 1857, after the treaty of Paris, it possessed an area of 193,600 square miles and a population of 17,400,000. In 1878, after the treaty of Berlin, the area was 120,000 square miles, and the population 9,600,000. In 1897 its area is but 81,200 square miles, and its population 6,300,000. If Bosnia and Herzegovina, under Austrian rule, be excluded, the area is but 57,000 square miles, and the population 4,700,000. Turkey has not quite one-third the area she had forty years ago, and but one-fourth the population. The powers which are "preserving her integrity" have thus devoured her.