p. 125 | Armageddon at Hand

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 25, 1875

Armageddon at Hand.

A CAREFUL survey of the existing European situation seems almost sufficient to justify a belief in the prediction of the enthusiasts who declare that the true interpretation of John's Apocalyptic vision shows that "the battle of the great day of God Almighty at Armageddon" is actually at hand. All Europe is at present like one vast camp. The nations are arming from the British Channel to the Ural Mountains; from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, as if with a prophetic understanding that a terrible and portentous crisis is at hand. According to the Paris République Française a German "camp of manœuvres for 150,000 men is about to be formed near Treves, under the immediate command of the Emperor. According to the Kölnische Zeitung (Cologne Journal) the French are about establishing a similar great camp for drill and military manœuvres near the German frontiers. The nations are becoming armies; the general masses of the people are being turned into soldiers. Russia has a greedy eye on India and the Sick Man. Austria has long coveted a portion of the territory of Turkey. France is said to be still cherishing feelings of bitterness, and revolving schemes of revenge. There are also those who predict a great Ultramontane combination for the restoration of Rome and the temporal power to the Supreme Pontiff. Rumors of schemes of conquest, of plots, conspiracies, and new alliances fill the circumambient air, as motes people a sunbeam. The arsenals are busy shaping more deadly implements of destruction than were ever before known. The foundries are casting colossal cannon, compared with which those heretofore used in warfare are but children's toys. The powder with which these mighty engines were to be charged was not thought to have sufficient power, and the world is now given to understand by the Baltic Gazette that the German Government has discovered or secured the secret of a new "prismatic powder" for its heavy guns, which is immensely superior to any used or known elsewhere in Europe. When we contemplate the present attitude of the Continental Powers; when we estimate the vast numbers of their standing armies; when we consider the amount of interruption to the arts of peace, and the crushing burdens upon the people, which they entail; when we see Germany and France arming to the teeth, and by their vast preparations compelling their neighbors to strain every nerve and tax every resource for the same purpose, in order to be ready for the fearful crisis which all seem to anticipate—when we see these things we may well feel thankful that our happy position, with no powerful nations upon our border, exempts us from such necessities; that with a feeble navy, and a standing army inferior to that of any fourth-rate Power of the old world, we still draw peaceful breath, and sleep untroubled by dreams of danger from any external foe.

—S. F. Chronicle, Jan. 30.