"THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM."
ThUS is the present state of Europe denominated by an able English writer, who takes the position that the end of this dispensation is at hand. When referring to the movements of the year now closed, and the apparent delay in the execution of the vast programme, he says: "The outbreak that has so long been contemplated is of so enormous a magnitude, both in violence and extent, that as the time approached, the very conspirators themselves stood aghast at their own work. Hence as he says, 'more preparation' was the word. All must be made sure—nothing left to chance—the plan fully digested—every agent in his place—every implement of war wrought to perfection—the subtle inventions of the most destructive brain carried out into form, before the great conspiracy unfolds. After forty years of peace—after a deluge of CANT—the whole extent of christendom is converted into a theater of war. One half of mankind preparing to defend—the other to destroy. One half preparing to defend the venerable hypocrisies and villainies of the past, the other half to set up the blooming hypocrisies and villainies of the present. . . . On both sides, preparations for war that are absolutely without a parallel. The ancient armies of Rome and Macedon were like 'two little flocks of kids,' compared with the armies of that christendom which takes its name from the Prince of Peace. The whole ingenuity of Christian nations is exhausted upon implements, not of use, but of destruction—in devising, not how to save, but how to kill. . . . Such is the state of things. A calm before a storm—and the longer the calm, the more dreadful the storm. The winds are gathering up their sullen strength, and folding their dark wings, until the appointed hour shall come; and they will cover the whole heavens with one instantaneous gloom. "Yet all these things are in the hand of God. One man seems to hold all the cords that now move the world; but that man himself is held by the hand of God. . . . For this extraordinary crisis the Devil is now preparing with proportionate activity. He has long ago undermined the foundations of divine truth by the introduction of 'spiritualizing interpretation.' The nominal church glories in spiritualizing interpretation. . . . From whence but the father of lies has it come that the kingdom of heaven, which means the reign of Christ over the earth, is now understood to mean nothing more than the rude, imperfect, feeble Christianity, which we find scattered here and there over the world? . . . By the practice of 'spiritualizing,' the edge of the sword has been thoroughly blunted, so that it is now no longer capable of dealing with extraordinary antagonists, or with any but the ordinary difficulties of human life. . . . He has blunted the spirit by means of 'Spiritualism.' He has employed the false metal to shatter the edge of the true metal. Be assured of this—that when the hour of peril comes, the ministers of the gospel will be found bewildered and unarmed. . . . The mischief is now irreparable, and the penalty of 'spiritualizing' must be paid. . . . "As the enemy has invented 'spiritualizing,' so he has also invented Spiritualism, another preparation for the approaching future. . . . The world has rejected altogether the supernaturalism of the Devil. . . . The Devil, has, therefore, two distinct agencies by which he is preparing the world for his immediate, and, perhaps, visible presence,—'spiritualizing,' and 'Spiritualism.' By 'spiritualizing' he has destroyed the power and beauty of Scripture as far as they can be destroyed."