PEACE AND SAFETY | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 30, 1860

"PEACE AND SAFETY."

We read in the prophetic word that a time shall come when men shall cry Peace and Safety: and the singular characteristic of this period is that they are deluded into the expectation of exactly the opposite of what they are to receive. They cry Peace; and war cometh; they cry Safety; and sudden destruction bursts upon them. 1 Thess. v, 3.

We are reminded of this prediction, by the sayings and doings in relation to the friendly visit of the Prince of Wales, the eldest son of the Queen of England, to this country, with which almost every paper in the land is just now alive. The event is everywhere hailed as a token of a great era of coming PEACE! Hear the N. Y. Independent. Speaking of the relation which England bears to America, it says:—

"In token of PEACE she sends to us her chiefest son; her future monarch! Then let the earth ring and re-echo, and let the very skies be shaken, by the spontaneous jubilee of our welcome!"

Again, "But it was greeting, and not defiance, that the voice of the cannon carried forth. It was a smile that broke before him along those lines of polished muskets, brilliant and still, with every ball extracted from them. The bugle and drum tuned to festival strains, the cannon led in procession before him as if they had been yielded to his bidding and were henceforth to do battle with his enemies—his own uniform, so hated by our fathers, the very red-coat which they with such exultation and triumph saw departing forever from this city on the 25th of November, '83, but which now shone conspicuous again in every foremost place of honor—all these were signs of amity fixed, and not presages of anticipated strife."

"It was not the Prince only, it was a great coming era of Peace, represented or at least foreshadowed by his visit, which called forth the almost unexampled enthusiasm."

Speaking of the visit of the Prince to our national capital, and to the tomb of Washington, the Washington correspondent of the same paper says:—

"Instead of horrid war, gentle Peace. A few years ago and our national capital was ablaze, set on fire by British torches, and Washington was full of hostile British troops. All this is changed. The new order of things is more consonant with Christianity. England and America will never again war with each other."

Another paragraph from the same article says:—

"It is the moral character of the extraordinary event which I would notice—an event which will take its place on the page of history, solitary and alone, for there is none other like it. When Kings visit Presidents, when royal princes visit the graves of rebel democrats, may not the millennium be dawning?"

That there is significance in this event, we doubt not; and no more do we doubt that men are inclined to carry its significance one step too far. They look upon it as an omen of actual and enduring peace; whereas we can but regard it as an omen of the time, not when there shall really be peace, but only when men shall cry Peace. They regard it as a token of a time when safety shall actually reign over the earth: we are compelled to regard it as only a token of that time when men shall falsely think themselves secure, as a thirsting man may dream that he drinks, or a hungry man that he is full, but when sudden destruction from which they shall not escape, is even hanging over their heads.

It is no spider disposition, which extracts poison where the bee finds honey, which leads us thus to speak. But the Lord forbid that we should see visions of peace when there is no peace, or help swell the cry of safety and security, when the sword is coming.

With a watchful eye, brethren, let us behold the signs of these times, not being like the Jews at the first advent, who were wiser in temporal than in spiritual things, who could discern the face of the sky, but could not read the plainer signs which appeared in the moral heavens, to denote the time of their visitation. Let us take heed to the sure word of prophecy, by which word we learn that the world's great cry of Peace and Safety will only be another token of its speedy and sure destruction.