p. 16 | Strange Deeds

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 12, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 36.

Strange Deeds

THE dispatches are continuously telling us of the atrocious cruelties that are perpetrated on the battle fields of Europe. And not only do the dispatches announce these things, but signed articles by leading men of the world from time to time describe the barbarous deeds that are committed by soldiers who, in this "enlightened twentieth century," are engaged in "civilized warfare."

These stories of cruelties and barbarities are told by each side against the other; and it is quite possible that if an impartial commission has an opportunity to investigate the situation calmly after the war is over, it will find, as did the commission that investigated the Balkan wars which immediately preceded this European war, that not only have savage cruelties been manifested, but the laws of decency and virtue have been most violently disregarded.

In the view that John had of the days when the Judgment was pending, he said "the nations were angry." The Revised Version says they were "wroth." The Twentieth Century translation says "the nations were enraged." Thus do we see that the prophetic forecast is most literally fulfilled. The ideas that men have had concerning our twentieth century civilization have been shattered to fragments. "The brotherhood of man" that would make us all so gently humane, has not been realized. God knows the future better than men can even know the present; and when God speaks of the conditions that will prevail, it is well for men to listen to the voice of omniscience.