AT the beginning of the present frightful war, a poet expressed the situation in verse as given above. The situation is much worse now. The slaughter and the suffering and the ruin are beyond description. More than thirty millions are now called to the colors, according to what are considered accurate reports. Many of these are quite young — so young that one writer says "infantry" has a new meaning. If this awful contest goes on much longer, it would seem that there would be but mere wrecks of former great nations, who have stood as the embodiment of light and civilization.
Mr. Bertrand Russell, a leading writer of England, says that an early peace is desirable, as the future civilization of Europe is "obscured amid the clash of national ambition."
Writing in the Open Court, Mr. Russell says:
"This war, to begin with, is worse than any previous war in the direct effect upon those who fight. The armies are far larger than they have ever been before, and the loss by death or permanent disablement immensely exceeds what has occurred in the past. The losses are enhanced by the deadlock, which renders a purely strategical recision of the war almost impossible. We are told to regard it as a war of attrition, which means presumably that victory is hoped from the gradual extermination of the German armies.
"Our military authorities, apparently, contemplate with equanimity a three years' war, ending only by our excess of population. When practically all Germans of military age have been killed or maimed, it is thought that there will still remain a good many English, Russians, and Italians, and perhaps a sprinkling of Frenchmen. But in the course of such destruction, almost all that makes the allied nations worth defending will have been lost. The enfeebled, impoverished remnants will lack the energy to resume the national life which existed before the war, and the new generation will grow up listless under the shadow of a great despair. I hope that the men in authority are wiser than their words; but everything that has been said points to this result as what is intended by those who control our fate."
The dreadful loss in human life is not all told in the tally of dead and wounded at the front. The nerve-shattering effect of shell fire must be reckoned with. Speaking further, Mr. Russell says:
"In all the armies, a number of men go mad, a much larger number suffer from nervous collapse, becoming temporarily blind or dumb or incapable of any effort of will, and almost all suffer considerable nervous injury, causing loss of vitality, energy, and power of decision. In great part, no doubt, this effect is temporary; but there is reason to think that in most men something of it will be permanent, and in not a few the nervous collapse will remain very serious. I fear it must be assumed that almost all who have seen much fighting will have grown incapable of great effort, and will only be able, at best, to slip unobtrusively through the remaining years of life. Since the fighting will, if the war lasts much longer, absorb the bulk of the male population of Europe between eighteen and forty-370five, this cause alone will make it all but impossible to maintain and hand on the tradition of civilization which has been slowly acquired by the efforts of our ancestors."
And the dreadful carnage goes on without any visible signs of abatement. No one can forecast, with any assurance of correctness, when the bloody contest will end. Approaching two years now, civilization has been engaged in a death grapple, and stands bleeding to death. The hoary fable of a world's millennium, when nations will learn war no more, has received a severe shock. But few now have the courage to argue for this unscriptural position.
A Bloody Herald of the End
THIS tremendous struggle, costing so much in suffering and sorrow, has a meaning. Our Saviour gave as a sign of the consummation of all things, "distress of nations, with perplexity." Luke 21:25. If such a time as this is not a fulfillment of the words of Jesus, will some one rise up and explain what would be? Are not the nations distressed? What nation is not perplexed? Even our own nation, though at peace, was never so perplexed since the Civil War. Our chief executive, himself a man of peace, recently made a tour through the country, when he took the people into his confidence, and reminded them that the world was on fire, and our own house was not fireproof. These are ominous words, and serve to emphasize the fulfillment of the words of Jesus, that nations are distressed and perplexed.
This war is a bloody herald of the end of the history of nations and the coming of the Prince of peace. While nations are talking of preparedness, it is time for the people to prepare, that they may be able to stand in the great day of God.
"Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel." Amos 4:12.
