PERHAPS the most striking paradox of the age is furnished us in the well-nigh universal "peace and safety" cry in "cloister, camp, and court," in contrast with the gigantic preparations for war upon every hand. The 59th Congress, recently terminated by constitutional limitation, is called "The Two Billion Dollar Congress," simply because almost, if not quite, the entire sum of $2,000,000,000 was the amount of the expenditures of the two sessions of the Congress, and of this vast sum, at least one-sixth was for army and navy purposes and military schools. To be exact, the totals for the last session of Congress are as follows: Army, $78,535,282.75; Fortifications, $6,898,011; Military Academy, $1,929,703.42; Navy, $98,958,007.50. Enormous as are these appropriations for the next fiscal year, there should be added to them $25,000,000 on account of contracts authorized in the naval bill for additional war-ships and for which no sums whatever are yet appropriated. The greatest increase of expenditures was that of the navy, which demanded and received an extra $21,800,000. Two new battle-ships of the Dreadnought type are provided for, and it was Representative Livingston who sententiously remarked: "If this military spirit and extravagance is to continue, the Ways and Means Committee had better get busy and provide a large increase in the revenues." These enormous appropriations have been made as the result of a demand for a larger navy. Whether such a naval expenditure is wise or not, the fact remains, THE NATION IS PREPARING FOR WAR! Nor does the prospect of an immediate Peace Congress at The Hague seem to interfere in the least with the preparations.
THE BRITISH "DREADNOUGHT," THE LARGEST BATTLE-SHIP IN COMMISSION.
Nor is this condition any different across the sea. Lord Tweedmouth, in his annual report to Parliament on the naval estimate, refers to the excellent fighting condition of His Majesty's naval force, asks for three more additional large armored vessels of the Dreadnought type, and comments upon the striking improvement of the gunnery of the fleet the past year. The total of the naval estimates is $152,212,045. Thus the two so-called Christian, English-speaking nations of the world must expend a sum total of $253,000,000 in one year, TO BE IN READINESS FOR WAR UPON THE HIGH SEAS!
In her "Prince Satsuma" Japan has let loose upon the ocean wave one of the most dreaded and formidable fighting machines now known to civilization! And the nation that has so long wrapped herself in the silken robes of the mysteries of the East, has come forth, at last, to compete with the Western civilization, even IN THE ARTS OF WAR! It might well be said that she is "the Rising Sun" of the navies of the world, both feared and respected by the nations of earth. Who can or will foretell the future of this intrepid oriental giant?
To the south of us, Brazil is afflicted with the popular war spirit, and has entered upon the work of building vessels of the Dreadnought type. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, and all nations, vie with one another in the rapid preparation of immense fighting machines of the sea. To illustrate this spirit of each nation desiring to outdo his neighbor in THE PREPARATIONS FOR WAR, Justice Harlan, of the U. S. Supreme Court, at the Navy League dinner given at Washington on Washington's birthday, said:
"The United States must look out for its own interests, and so far from having ship for ship, man for man, with any other nation on the earth, I would like to see the United States have two ships for one for any other nation."
The comment of Lord Tweedmouth upon the improvement in gunnery of war-ships finds a ready comparison in our own nation. One hundred eighty pounds was the maximum weight of a cannon-ball used in the Civil War of 1861-5, and it required but a few pounds of powder to fire it; to-day a shot weighing a ton, fired with half a ton of ammunition from a twenty-ton gun will travel a distance of ten miles and pierce a solid target forty-four feet in thickness.
It has been with feelings of mingled astonishment and apprehension that the Western nations have noted the awakening of the yellow races from the centuries-old state of lethargy in which they have been. The "yellow peril" long considered only a nightmare with which we need not be disturbed, is, after all, assuming tangible and disturbing proportions. Japan, China, and Korea are awake at last, and they, like the civilized nations, ARE ARMING THEMSELVES. The discontent and unrest of the Occident has at last invaded the vast camps of the yellow men, and transformed them, with a rapidity that is startling, from peaceful tillers of the soil to "warriors bold and true." What we may expect from the 400,000,000 of the far East is well indicated by a prominent foreign writer, Mohammed Barakatullah, who, in writing on "The Awakening of China," in a recent American magazine, puts these significant words into the mouth of a Chinese government official:
"Yes, it is we who do not accept it that practise the Gospel of Peace; it is you who accept it that trample it under foot, and—irony of ironies!—it is the nations of Christendom who have come to us to teach us by sword and fire that the right in this world is powerless unless it is supported by might."
"O, do not doubt that we shall learn the lesson. And wo to Europe when we have acquired it. You are arming a nation of 400,000,000—a nation which, until you came, had no better wish than to live at peace with itself and all the world.
"In the name of Christ you have sounded the call to arms; in the name of Confucius we respond.
"In not many years a power will arise in China that will make the entire world listen."—N. Y. World.
At the very time of these gigantic preparations for war and carnage on the sea, come the great gatherings in New York, to be followed in June by the conference at The Hague. The one in New York is the first of its kind in America, of which much more will be said in our reports of that great meeting next week. At the Hague Conference will convene for THE FIRST TIME IN EARTH'S HISTORY, DELEGATES FROM ALL THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD. For many years numerous local movements have been leading up to this denouement—this great WORLD'S PEACE COUNCIL AT THE HAGUE! The nations and the creeds are as one in this vast movement for the world's peace.
Jeremiah, the prophet, centuries and centuries ago, saw this great latter-day preparation for a universal war and the wreck of a world, and the fallacy of the "peace-and-safety" movement. Noting the former, he said: "I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I can not hold11my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled. Concerning the latter, he writes: "They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, PEACE, PEACE, WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE." Apropos of this latter question—of the securing of peace in any other way than by the Gospel to the individual—I quote from an editorial recently appearing in a leading journal of New York City:
"Those guileless men who assembled in convention the other day and fired off their transcendental views of universal peace and permanent arbitration, utterly disregarded the practical exigencies of human nature and the artificial relations of nations. The resolutions, it is conceded, breathed the spirit of Christianity and made excellent showing of splendid advantages of peace over war. But they took no notice whatever of the conditions precedent, and absolutely disregarded the methods of Christianity. 'The peace which passes understanding' is not, and never has been, a matter of legislation or international treaty. It depends upon the transformation of the individual man, and its best advocates, . . . instead of holding conventions and seeking the aid of the secular arm, have addressed themselves to the character and conscience of man, satisfied that the era of peace was conditioned upon the conversion of the world. Our arbitrators have reversed the method. They want the lion and the lamb to lie down together first, and then they will establish statutory provisions that will prevent the lion from eating the lamb. But the carnivorous appetite of the lion will remain. The proposition to eradicate war by agreement is about as impracticable and futile an abstraction as ever occupied the attention of well-meaning men. You might as well undertake to abolish burglary by opening a correspondence with the law-breakers. To banish war from the world you must first banish selfishness, greed, revenge, lust of power and dominion, and all the ignoble passions that still lurk in the human heart and manifest themselves in human government. To do that is the work of Christianity along the lines of education and morals and spiritual development among the people themselves. Universal peace is the highest dream of mankind, but it must be realized thru mankind, not thru the abstract principles to unprepared conditions."
In support of this well-declined contention that to bring about universal peace by arbitration, and disarmament, is a futile and abstract problem, recent cablegrams from Paris and The Hague state that France doubts the sincerity of the nations in the proposal of a limited armament, and that prominent officials expect nothing from the forth-coming Peace Conference at The Hague to further the cause OF LASTING PEACE, in which view Professor Maartens fully coincides. SO REAL PEACE IS NOT EXPECTED AS AN OUTCOME OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONVENTION FOR PEACE! Well did Jeremiah write, saying, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace."
If this truly great movement is to accomplish nothing good, or to secure the least12mitigation of the evils it seeks to correct, then what IS its true meaning and significance?
IT IS A STUPENDOUS AND SIGNIFICANT SIGN THAT CHRIST IS COMING IN THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN "IN THIS GENERATION," AND THAT THE END OF THE WORLD MUST COME!
Isaiah, long, long ago saw this very peace movement in the last days, when MANY PEOPLE shall go and say:
"Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
Note carefully that divine record has it that it IS MANY PEOPLE that shall say in THE LAST DAYS, "NO MORE WAR." The modern Peace Congress is a perfect fulfilment of the ancient prophecy. Divine Inspiration again lifts the curtain, and gives us a certain view of what the condition of THE LAST DAYS will be like:
"Proclaim ye this among the nations, prepare war; stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Haste ye, and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together: thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah. Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, tread ye; for the wine-press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision." Joel 3:9-14. A.R.V.
Abundant concurrent testimony of universal war, strife, and carnage may be found elsewhere in the Scriptures. John the Revelator writes that the nations are angry, that devils have gone forth "unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty;" and the armies of the kings of the earth go forth "to make war against Him that sat on the horse." Daniel foresaw it to be "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation," and the apostle Paul fairly epitomizes the "peace and safety" cry of our time in the few terse sentences of 1 Thess. 5:2, 3:
"For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape."
Reader, do not be deceived. The universal "peace and safety" cry is a sign—stupendous and significant—of the coming of the Lord. Ah, do not allow its soft and siren voice to lull you to unconsciousness in carnal security, and a complacent acceptance of a "peace" that is not that "that passeth all understanding." Christ is coming—coming soon! Coming to claim His own! Like a vast, overtowering pyramid, high above all others, the "PEACE AND SAFETY" CRY is attesting to the truth of prophecy, and in its own way declaring that JESUS IS COMING AGAIN! Have you made your peace with God? Are your calling and election sure? Has the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed you from all impurity and unrighteousness? May you pass thru the future holocaust of war and earthly wo unscathed? Are you still in the valley of decision? These are solemn thoughts to ponder.
Remember the portentous prophecy of the great apostle:
"For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape."
