The Balkan Situation by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 17, 1913

The Balkan Situation

By Editor

THE political situation in the Near East is anything but satisfactory and reassuring. After gaining their great victory over Turkey the Balkan allies have fallen to fighting among themselves, and there is danger that even at this late date they may be robbed of at least a part of the fruits of their effort. The Greeks and Servians have been pitted against the Bulgarians for the last few weeks, with varying prospects as to the outcome. As we go to press, the combined Greek and Servian forces have proved victorious, the Bulgars suffering severe reverses. Bulgaria has now placed herself unreservedly in the hands of Russia in order to bring about a cessation of hostilities in the Balkans, and in order to prevent further bloodshed. France is uniting with Russia in endeavoring to secure between the combatants terms of peace.

Great loss of life and destruction of property have resulted from this latest embroilment. The encounters have been accompanied by a spirit of great ferocity, and it is claimed that many barbarous massacres of defenseless victims have taken place.

These conditions only serve to show the unsettled state existing in the political world at the present time. The small nations, as well as the greater ones, are intensely jealous of one another, and while for a brief period they may unite against a common foe, they soon fall to fighting among themselves, each jealous lest the other obtain a lion's share in the spoil. It is believed now that, in consequence of the exhausted state of all the combatants, peace will be brought about, and that settled conditions will soon prevail in the territory which has witnessed during the last few months such terrible bloodshed, fighting, and loss of life.

EVERY year witnesses greater extremes in climatic conditions. The death toll from the heat thus far during the summer in some of the large cities of the country has been a large one. Deaths in Chicago during one day numbered more than forty. Other cities reported deaths and prostrations in like proportion. These conditions, with disastrous floods and fire and earthquake and suffering from drought, indicate the unusual conditions which are beginning to prevail, conditions long ago foretold in the prophetic word. The earth is waxing old as doth a garment. Nature is beginning to depart from her accustomed regularity and to indulge in most capricious moods. These conditions will continue till the end of time in still more marked manner than at the present time. Power will be given unto the sun to scorch men with heat. But after the flood and fire and earthquake and pestilence there will come the reign of peace, ushered in by the Lord Jesus Christ, of which these conditions are harbingers. Of the people who live in that glad day the prophet says: "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat."