The Hand of God in History
By W. A. S.
Notes on Important Eras of Fulfilling Prophecy
Increase of Knowledge in the "Time of the End"
"MANY shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12:4. Ask any one what age of the world is best described by these words, and he will be constrained to say that they exactly fit this age of ours. It is doubtful if the characteristic features of the nineteenth century and onward could be expressed by eleven words any more clearly.
And 2,500 years ago the angel used these words to describe the "time of the end." Following the long reign of papal supremacy, the light of clearer knowledge was to spread to and fro through the earth.
Students tell us that the thought in the Hebrew phrase is not primarily of a running or traveling about, so much as of a "searching" to and fro; the time of the end was to be a time of searching for light and truth, of the opening up of the Word of God, with increasing knowledge and enlightenment. This certainly includes also the idea of the literal running to and fro through all the earth in the latter days; for, as many scriptures show, this increasing knowledge was to be spread through all nations, and "all the ends of the earth" were to see the salvation of our God.
The true meaning of the developments of the last "wonderful century" which have made for general enlightenment and the opening up of the world, can be read only in the light of prophecy. We can see events from afar shaping to this time.
The Reformation of the sixteenth century had begun to "shorten" the days of papal persecution. The Word of God was given anew to European peoples. One error after another by which the Papacy had made void the Word was seen and discarded. Step by step, in successive reform movements, the way of truth was being retraced toward the primitive faith of New Testament times.
It was surely no accident that the dawn of the Reformation era in Europe was also the dawn of the era of geographical discovery. The time had come when not only the truth of God was to be revealed again to men, but the way into all the world was to be prepared for the final work of spreading the knowledge of truth among all peoples.
The progress of geographical discovery fits in closely with the progress of the missionary idea. Down to the end of the fifteenth century Europe knew little more of the world than was known in the early centuries. In fact, by the Moslem invasion, adjacent parts of Africa and Asia, formerly better known, had been largely obscured to European vision. But at the very time when Reformation truth was preparing to spread its wings of light in Europe, an impelling force in providence moved the hearts of navigators to undertake the discovery of the world. The following is a brief schedule of the early voyages:—
1492—Columbus discovers the New World.
1493—Columbus's second voyage, discovering Jamaica.
1497—Vasco da Gama rounds the southern cape of Africa.
1497-98—The Cabots, from England, find the coast of North America.
1499—Vespucci discovers South America.
1502—Columbus on his fourth voyage reaches the mainland, in Central America.
1519—Cortez conquers Mexico.
1519—Magellan sails, to pass through the Magellan Strait and into the South Pacific, being slain in 1521 in the Philippine Islands.
1577-79—Sir Francis Drake circumnavigates the globe, touching the Pacific Coast of America from San Francisco to the Columbia River. Columbus felt upon him the pressure of a divine commission. Irving says in his life of the discoverer:— He looked upon himself as standing in the hand of heaven, chosen from among men for the accomplishment of its high purpose; he read, as he supposed, his contemplated discovery foretold in Holy Writ, and shadowed forth darkly in the mystic revelations of the prophet.—Book 1, chap. 5. A poet has represented his feeling and conviction in the lines:—
"I seek not wealth, I only seek to know
I urged the gold of India as the bait
For those who find no profit but in gold.
Mayhap my wrist shall feel the bite of chains,
And on my head the curse of fools may break
For that I prove them fools;—yet what to me?
Mine are rewards that they can never give:
And in my soul a peace they can not know,
I saw the hand of God blaze through the sky;
I heard the voice of God in all the winds;
The hand wrote, Follow! and the voice rang, Go!
And I obeyed the vision and the dream." After having discovered the New World—though he never knew that it was not the Indies—Columbus said:— In the execution of my enterprise to the Indies, human reason, mathematics, and maps of the world have served me nothing. It has accomplished simply that which the prophet Isaiah had predicted; that before the end of the world all the prophecies should have their accomplishment.—Humboldt's "Examen Critique," Vol. I, pages 15-19. However blameworthy for the misfortunes that came upon him, Columbus at any rate found comfort amid his reverses in the conviction that he had been an agent of Providence, helping to prepare the way for the end of the age.
Many minds in those days were evidently turned toward Daniel's prophecy of the time of increasing knowledge. The learned Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626) saw hope of the coming era in the awakening influences of that age of world-discovery. The "Cambridge Modern History" sums up his view:—
There was confirmation for such hopes in Holy Scripture. The anticipation of the Chaldean seer that in the latest times many should run to and fro, and knowledge be increased, he interpreted9as foreshadowing the opening of five sixths of the globe, hitherto closed, to man's travel, study, and reinvigorated powers of reasoning.—Vol. I, chap. 2.
Certain it is that the expansion of the world was used of Providence as an agency in expanding and awakening the minds of men, preparatory to the new era that was to follow.
(To be concluded)