Retrospect and Prospect
By Editor
WHAT a year has been 1910! Not so much noted for great things as for indexes of great things—unmistakable manifestations of developed trends in the great political, social, and religious worlds, straws in plenty which show the way the winds are blowing. The merest mention of some of these tendencies will refresh the minds of our readers. While many sincere souls have been working and pleading for peace and the disarmament of the nations, the preparations for war have gone on apace. There are no indications that the earth hunger and commercial greed of the nations have slackened. Mightier explosives, bigger and more powerful guns, mines, and mortars, still greater and more effective types of battle-ships and various war vessels, are the order of the day; and now the weaker nations are ordering the greater battle-ships. Well said the prophet as he portrayed the war spirit of to-day, "Let the weak say, I am strong." See Joel 3:9-14. From all the world comes the news of the preparation and training for Armageddon. Rev. 16:16. Feverish unrest and anxiety pervade the military departments of all the great and would-be great nations of the earth. Religiously, the world has not been at peace. The Roman Catholics have had their troubles in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy. They have not been scoring any marked triumphs in these fields. In the Iberian Peninsula they have come out of the conflict at the present writing decidedly second best. Many in both of these countries have grown weary of the intolerable burden of the church, the bearing of which brings no life, and but little hope or gladness; and their resentment has not been shown in Christian ways. But Rome knows how to abide her time; and all who have turned against her will return sooner or later, unless they become truly Christian and learn to know Christ as individuals. The only way to meet effectually Roman Catholicism is to meet it by the Word of God in the heart and life. The Papacy is finding its strongest support in Protestant lands. The German Kaiser seems almost to go out of his way to express his sentiments in favor of Rome. His antipathy to Socialism drives him to seek the support of Catholics. Rome has scored a seeming triumph, at least, in the great Eucharistic Congress at Montreal, with its magnificent, medieval, ornate display, calculated to impress the beholder who does not study eternal principles, with her power and strength. Many Protestants contributed to the success of the great gathering, and the whole thing assumed somewhat of a civil-ecclesiastical function. The great meeting of federated Catholic societies in New Orleans, with its great display of military trappings, of high-sounding titles, of tremendous enthusiasm, and official welcome by civil officers, will have its effect. The influence which that body has over the press of the country, and purposes to exercise in still greater measure, is a menace to liberty. Such influences may be behind the appointment of Justice White of Louisiana, a Catholic, as Chief Justice of the Federal Supreme Court. On the whole Catholicism has seemed to be the gainer, while abating not one jot or tittle from her medieval principles or tenets. In Protestant bodies Higher Criticism goes on in its destructive course. Having been accredited by the larger part of Protestant teachers in their acceptance of modern theories of evolution and geology, all the rest has logically followed. The books of Moses, inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the vicarious atonement, the virgin birth, the Deity of Jesus Christ, the resurrection, the second coming, miracles, the re-creation of true Scriptural conversion—all went with the rejection of the story of the creation and fall of Genesis 1-3. Now within the circles dominated by Higher Critics, or rational criticism, we practically have no Bible but that approved by the imperfect human consciousness, subject to constant change, and which assumes to sit upon the personal beliefs and teaching of the Lord Jesus Himself. Thank God, there are still left a few stalwarts who are willing and zealous to defend or proclaim the Old Book. The three numbers—pamphlets—already issued by the Testimony Publishing Company, 808 La Salle Ave., Chicago, filled with testimonies from preachers, teachers, scholars, in favor of the Bible and its teaching, are tokens of encouragement to the Bible lover. There are thousands yet who have not bowed the knee to the Baal of rational criticism. But there is another sign, indescribably sad, and that is to see so many in the Protestant churches, many of whom profess strongest belief in Jesus as the Christ of God, turning from the standard of the Word, from the power of the Spirit, from the principles which gave Protestantism its life, and turning to the civil power for help, clamoring at legislative halls for laws to enforce religious tenets and church institutions, forgetting that God can care for His own, tho His own be crucified; forgetting that every plant which God has not planted shall be rooted up; forgetting that any custom or tenet or observance of religious bodies which has not enough of Christ in it is worthy to die. Seeking the world and its help, men forget God. Going to the Egypt of infidelity or the Babylon of tradition, is the forsaking of the covenant Jehovah of Israel. Yet our church federations and our recent World's Christian Citizenship Conference in Philadelphia are working for Sunday laws and union of Church and State, the very things which evolved the Dark Ages. Eastern philosophies and pagan beliefs come to us under the fair names of "Christian," and "Spiritualism," and "Theosophy," and number their converts by the thousands. A strong, vigorous, loyal Protestantism would have saved much of this. The greatest disturbers in the political world are concentration of wealth and its control of government and industries, and Socialism. The latter is feared in all the countries of Europe, where it is growing, feeding upon the unrest of the people, and the growing distress of the poor. Millions are well-nigh crushed under the burden of war preparations and extravagant government. America, too, is feeling its influence. The last election showed tremendous growth of the Socialist party. Socialism is a strong protest against the power of concentrated and dominating wealth in the control of a few men who are as selfish as are the rest of humanity, and no wiser for the general good. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, When wealth accumulates and men decay. Wealth has formed a new aristocracy, the credentials of which bear the emblem of the dollar. God gives power to get wealth, as He has assured us; but it is His design that it should be used for the amelioration of human needs and woes, and not to oppress, not to arouse class hatred, not to foment revolution. Socialism promises to be the panacea of all earth's ills; but however benevolent its purposes, like all other human remedies it will fall short, because it can not re-create man, and it is not based on faith in Him who only can save, regenerate, redeem. We thank God, however, for the good in the hearts of men, mistaken tho they may be. They are salt in the earth which is staying its utter corruption. They are rebukes to those who do wickedly, selfishly. We thank God for the time of outward peace, for the leashing of the dogs of war. God is using this time to send forth His last threefold message of His "everlasting Gospel." The closed national doors are all swinging open, and soon every people will have heard the message. Thirty years ago the first foreign missionary bearing the great message was sent out; now it has entered forty-three different countries. No other religious denomination maintains missions in more than ten. It must go to all the earth. Soon every land will have had the light. God's great reform message will have done its work. "The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" will find living witnesses in every land of earth. God's servants will be sealed. The Gospel of the kingdom will then have ceased to witness, and Christ will come. For all these tokens we thank God. Our retrospect confirms our way. Our prospect looks close to the everlasting kingdom, and sees the gray east breaking with the light of the coming of the Sun of Righteousness.