Review and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 49. (10/7/1915)

Review and Herald

Oct 7, 1915

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 7, 1915

“Abide in Me, and I in You”

By Amos R. Wells

My heart lies open to Thy sun As roses to the day; Thy flooding graces overrun Along the shining way. I yield my weary life to thee, With passive lowliness, As empty channels to the sea Where eager surges press. As waiting wires are strangely filled By swift electric force; As wintry, barren fields are thrilled From life's triumphant source; As air, and light, and heat rush in Where doors are open wide, O Saviour, to my soul of sin Come, enter, and abide.

And now with strengthening mercy fed, O Thou creative Christ, Not all Thy meat nor all Thy bread Has happily sufficed. Transported by Thy graciousness, That Thou wilt dwell in me, My weakened powers boldly press Henceforth to dwell in Thee; For Thou art more than I can know Within my narrow bound, And I to Thy far heights would go, Thy deepest depths would sound. With kindling eye and fervent heart I leave my little home, In all Thy deeds to have a part, On all Thy ways to roam. Out on the largeness of Thy mind My daring thoughts expand; In Thy wide reaches unconfined I compass sea and land. I do not faint, I do not fear, On tireless wings I glide, And height is home, and far is near, When I with Thee abide!

— Amos R. Wells, in Sunday School Times.

Special Mention

By I. H. Evans

The Coming Autumn Council

WHEN the North American Division Conference was organized, at the time of the last General Conference, it was understood that its first session would be held in 1915. But, in reviewing this plan, some of our leading men have felt that this would mean a very large expense, which should be avoided if possible. The question was considered in a joint meeting of the General and North American Division Committees, and it was advised that the North American Division Conference hold its first session in conjunction with the next General Conference.

In organizing the continental division conferences the General Conference has transferred the administrative work in each territory to its division conference. While this enables the General Conference officers to devote more time and attention to the mission fields, it greatly reduces the details of administrative work. For this reason, and also because many of the delegates to the Division Conference would be delegates to the General Conference, it is thought there would be a large saving of expense to hold the sessions of both conferences at the same time and place.

One year ago the attendance at the meeting of the General and North American Division Committees was limited almost exclusively to the members. Last spring no general committee meeting was called for either conference, it being understood that there would be a full meeting of the committees at the time of the fall council, when Elder Daniells would be back from the Far East, Elder Spicer would be in from Africa, and it was hoped that Elder Conradi would be able to come from Europe. It was also expected, at the time of the last General Conference, that a general council of the General Conference Committee would be held either in Europe or America, midway between the sessions of the General Conference. Conditions in Europe prevented the holding of this council there during the past summer. Owing to the growth of the work and the pressing needs in many parts of the field, it has been thought advisable to call a meeting of the General and Division Committees, together with other leading workers, in California, November 5-27.

It was left for the brethren of the Pacific Union Conference to decide where this meeting should be held, and they selected Loma Linda as the place best adapted to it. One reason for holding the council in California is the cheap rates which can be obtained, because of the expositions there. Our ministers generally travel on half rates, but the fare to California and return at this time is so much lower than clergy rates that it was thought there would be considerable saving in having the meeting in California rather than in the Central West.

The committees have invited the presidents of local conferences and some heads of departments to join them in this important council. It would be a very great pleasure to both committees to have all our leading men in attendance, but this would prevent holding a real committee meeting, and compel us to conduct our work as a conference. Local conference presidents are the men who must foster every interest of the work, supply men for foreign mission fields, and superintend the raising of money; therefore, it was felt that they should come in close touch with the plans laid at the council, in order to cooperate more intelligently in carrying them out.

We cannot say too much concerning the importance of the coming fall council. We surely are living in thrilling times. Since the last session of the General Conference, the European war has broken out, and a situation has developed such as has not been since the beginning of this cause. Some of our leading brethren should come together to consider what can be done to prosecute the work with greater activity, and to secure better results for the labor and means expended.

Our mission fields are calling for recruits, and it is imperative that we secure reenforcements for them. There must be increased appropriations to some of these heathen lands, to enable the workers there to hold the fields we already have entered, and to meet the calls coming from many sections yet unentered.

The work is taking on new phases in the homeland; our conferences and institutions are struggling to wipe out the curse of indebtedness, and the winning of souls is becoming more and more the watchword of our working forces.

We should be glad for many holding very responsible positions who have not been invited, and many others doing invaluable work in field and office, to attend the council, if it were best for so many to leave their work at this time, and if it were possible for our brethren in California to accommodate them. Our California brethren thought they could accommodate from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five persons. This number has been filled already, and they will find it difficult to care for too large a number of visiting brethren, especially in a rural community like Loma Linda.

We solicit the prayers of our people everywhere in behalf of the council, that it may bring to the cause of God and the workers engaged in it, strength and courage for the finishing of the work.

I. H. Evans, President North American Division Conference.

Present Truth Series

The Present Truth Series is successfully accomplishing the work it was designed to do; namely, searching out those susceptible to the truth, and creating an interest for other papers and books. While these papers are excellent in contents, they are so cheap our people can afford literally to sow them, and have results in thousands of places similar to the following instance: “I came in possession of your REVIEW Extras, and I am very glad I did. I am a salesman. I met a woman interested in your work, and we entered into conversation about religion. She showed me one of your Extras, and I have managed to get the first seven from her since. I am pleased with them, and I will heartily tell everybody about your paper, and encourage families to get them regularly. Send me the remaining eight editions of the Extras, or if I am late for these editions, send anything that will benefit me in reading. I was never so intensely interested in religion before. Inclosed you will find stamps for the papers. I feel it my duty to do all I can to circulate this worthy paper, and I surely will. I visit fifty homes daily, and I can do something.” — Ira E. Albright.

Transformations Beyond the Zambesi

By W. A. S.

“Where did you get these boys?” asked a European ranchman who saw our Pemba Mission school at work.

“They came from the kraals” (villages), replied Brother W. H. Anderson.

“Not from the kraals about here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, no; you don’t mean that! I know the Bataka boys; and these surely are not kraal boys from this part.”

But they were; they were gathered out of these very villages about, and came with all the dull and unintelligent look upon their faces that the visitor had always associated with kraal boys. But they are not the same people now. Bright-faced, keen-eyed, ambitious to learn, singing the songs of Zion, and climbing upward every day, they look absolutely of a different tribe from their own villagers who are still in the darkness and degradation of pretty nearly the lowest type of heathenism.

“How different they look?” I exclaimed again and again.

“Yes,” said Sister Anderson; “we can see the change coming over their faces often when they have been here but two or three months.”

Six tribes were represented in this school, away beyond the Zambesi, nearest of all our South African missions to the untamed wilds. One or two boys were in from regions where their tribesmen chased them with spears, intent on killing them, to keep them from coming to the school. Now in that same region these people are begging for teachers; and one splendid teacher, who five years ago imperiled his life to get to school, is planning to go back and start work for his people.

Brother and Sister Anderson had been down to the union conference, taking a short furlough after long battles with the fever. Brother S. M. Konigmacher was in charge of the school, and Brother Victor Wilson of the industrial work.

Now the first plea this mission makes is for the permission and the funds necessary to start work in the Lusaka district, a hundred miles north, beyond the Kafue River. At the close of the school Brother Victor Wilson went up there with twenty or twenty-five schoolboys who had come down from that region. He says:—

At one kraal I found the whole village keeping the Sabbath, and nearly all the married men asked for books. I feel as Joshua did after coming back from spying the land of Canaan. I have never met such a class of natives. I beg more than ever to be allowed to start work among them. I could have found places for at least twenty native teachers, but, oh, where are they?

Brother Wilson is so anxious to get work started there at once that he has proposed to make a start at getting established with five hundred dollars, if no more be available. But experience teaches that we must do better than that in these unhealthful regions in order to start with an equipment that will save the lives of the workers and make for strong, efficient service.

That northern station is really essential to round out the territory of the Barotseland Mission. And the people up there are waiting for us.

W. A. S.

Our Responsibility

By C. M. S.

UPON every individual who accepts Christ there is laid a certain measure of responsibility for the success of the gospel work in the earth. As sentinels, as message bearers, as monuments of what God’s grace can do, we stand before the world. The profession we have made makes us responsible for a share in the great work God has for his servants to do in this generation.

If this mad world had its way, it would rush on to its doom unwarned. It is not looking for God’s warnings. It is engrossed in its own plans and pleasures, and the preachers who love to preach smooth things are tickling the ears of their hearers for the salary it brings. Multitudes are forging on to their ruin, while blind “sentinels” are on the walls. Lips that should be sounding God’s warning are dumb. Hearts that should be thrilled with the approaching culmination of the work of God are willing captives in the toils of this world’s allurements.

Away from these things and out from these conditions God calls his messengers, calls them to be minutemen in these terribly important times. It means something to be a watchman for God—it means something to be a watchman just now when all the forces and purposes of the age are focusing to a climax. And let it not be supposed that the ordained ministry alone must bear the responsibility of carrying out God’s charge to the watchman. Upon every person who has accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour rests a responsibility for the giving of the last warning message to the people of this generation. We will not—

“Be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease. Whilst others fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas.”

The command, “Go work today in my vineyard,” does not mean to go and rest in the shade and watch the splendid progress of those who are bearing the burden and heat of the day. To those who work is the reward promised; and it is only to those faithful sentinels who give the warning they are charged to give that the “Well done, good and faithful servant,” will be spoken. It is a sacred trust; it is a blessed service; and God’s rich reward will be given every soul who faithfully performs the duties which it involves.

The sentry who in time of war sleeps at his post forfeits his life. He is the watchman for the camp. On his watchfulness and fidelity depends the safety of hundreds or thousands of lives. He holds their lives in his hands.

God has made his servants his watchmen, and holds them responsible for the faithful discharge of the duty to which he has called them. This is his charge: “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.” Eze. 3: 17, 18.

Just so certainly as God had his messages of warning for the people of bygone ages, he has his warnings and messages for the people of this age. As he

held his servants responsible for the giving of his message in those days, and as he is the same yesterday and today and forever, we may know to a certainty that he will hold his servants responsible for the giving of the message committed to them for these days—the days in which his work for man will culminate. The penalty for unfaithfulness in giving the warning then will be the penalty for unfaithfulness in giving the warning message now. That meant the loss of a soul there, and it can mean no less here.

That message-giving watchman must himself watch for the development of God’s work, for the opening doors of his providence, and for the approaching calamities that are surely coming upon the world. He says: “If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” Eze. 33:6. It is not enough that the watchman give the warning message given him; he must be awake to every interest of the kingdom he serves, watching every move, and always ready to warn of every advance of the enemy and of every impending judgment of God. If we are servants of the King of kings, then we are watchmen for God, and charged with a responsibility which we cannot evade and be guiltless.

Christ’s personal instruction to his servants is: “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.” “Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the Lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cockcrowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” Mark 13: 33, 35-37. That is Christ’s command; and that makes a watchman of every Christian, for the Christian obeys Christ.

This duty of the Christian as a watchman is further emphasized in the last divine admonition to the church: “Be thou watchful. . . . If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Rev. 3: 2, 3. The unfaithful watchman then comes under the condemnation of his Lord, and is punished for unfaithfulness. The reward of the righteous is not his. On the other hand, Christ declares through his prophet, “Blessed is he that watcheth.” Rev. 16: 15. God’s obeyed commands are always laden with blessings. It is the obedient who are to “have right to the tree of life,” and “enter in through the gates into the city.” Rev. 22: 14.

The command to watch is one of his commandments. The Christian will obey it, and at the same time will be giving to the world God’s warnings for this time. In that work there is power and blessing and eternal reward.

C. M. S.

The Joy of Christian Service

By F. M. W.

THE whole church at work! There is inspiration in the contemplation of such activity. There is blessing and power to every one who will take part in such united action. This, indeed, is God's design for his children. He declares: “For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work.” Heaven has assigned some part of the work to every man. God designs that there shall be no idlers in his vineyard.

The call of heaven at this time and to this people, is to every member of the church to take an active part in garnering the harvest. The one who from selfish interest or from love of ease refuses, does so at his peril. God gave man in the beginning physical work as a panacea for human ills. Spiritual work for the Master will prove a panacea for spiritual ills.

If the entire membership of the church were engaged in active missionary labor, if each one were reaching out to see how he could help his brother or his neighbor or the stranger afar off, what a transformation it would work in many lives! The grumblers and the growlers would cease out of Israel. Murmuring and faultfinding and complaining would give place to prayer and praise and rejoicing. The dull routine of Christian experience would be quickened into living, pulsating activity. There would enter into many lives joy never known before, for there is no joy so great as the joy of devoted Christian service. The miser may rejoice in his hoarded wealth, the man of the world in his position and power, the woman of society in her social triumphs; but these are joys tarnished with envies and jealousies, and clouded with heartaches and regrets.

The joy of soul saving, of Christian service for God, knows no regret. If we can feel at the close of the day that we have encouraged some soul, that we have helped some one who is struggling toward the light, that we have been the means in the hands of God of creating in some heart truer and loftier ideals, that we have been enabled to lead some wanderer to Christ, to drink at the fountain of his love and forgiveness, oh, this is a satisfaction which eclipses all the joys which earth can bring! If we can retire to our rest at the close of a weary day with this reflection, our rest will indeed be sweet, and our dreams pleasant.

Such service may bring with it wearing labor, weariness, and even pain. It may be carried on with tears and with strong crying to God for help; but the joy of Christian service, working for One we love, working for the souls of lost men and lost women for whom God has given us a love, brings a joy and a satisfaction which crowns our tears with smiles, and makes of pain a pleasure.

How greatly we wish that some in our church who are hesitating and doubting in their experience, who stand in a critical attitude toward their brethren, who are led to criticize the plans and methods which others follow, while they attempt to do nothing themselves, who see more in technicalities and forms than they do in heartfelt service, could experience in their lives the joy of unselfish soul-saving work. How it would enlarge their sympathies and broaden their conceptions. It is for this experience that we must seek.

Every Seventh-day Adventist who goes through to the kingdom of God will be a soul saver. He may never see a foreign mission field, he may never have a license to preach, he may never even occupy a position in the church or Sabbath school. His field of operation may be in his own neighborhood and his own home; but in the place where God has put him, there he will represent Christ to his fellows. He will realize that he is a coworker with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let every one who reads these words ask himself, Am I a worker for God? In my place, wherever it may be, at home or abroad, in the busy city or in some rural district, am I to the extent of my ability and opportunities witnessing for Christ? May God help us to appreciate our great privilege in becoming coworkers with our Lord and Master.

F. M. W.

The Prophecy of Daniel 7

By w. a. s.

Part 5. The Work of the “Little Horn”

The prophetic picture of the rise and work of the “little horn” finds its exact counterpart in the history of the Roman Papacy.

1. The place. The little horn was seen by the prophet rising in the field of the Roman Empire. That was the very place where the great kingdom of the Papacy appeared, taking the name of Roman.

2. The time. The rise of the ecclesiastical kingdom of the little-horn power in the prophecy followed the break-up of the Roman Empire into the ten kingdoms. Just so the ecclesiastical kingdom of the Roman Papacy rises to view in history immediately following the division of the empire.

3. The period of supremacy. The prophecy allotted 1260 years to the full

supremacy of this power. History responds that from the setting up of the special papal supremacy, in the days of Justinian, a period of 1260 years brings us into the stirring events of the last decade of the eighteenth century, that gave to the Papacy a deadly wound.

One further set of specifications remains for study:—

4. The work. Of the nature and work of the power represented by the little horn, the prophecy declares:—

“And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” Dan. 7: 25.

Do we find in the record that the Church of Rome has fulfilled these specifications also? The Scripture prophecy is absolutely a word-photograph of the workings of the papal church. Look at the main features:—

1. Speaking great words against the Most High. 2. Wearing out the saints of the Most High. 3. Thinking to change the times and the laws of the Most High.

Every count in the indictment may be clearly proved, and that by testimony from Roman Catholic sources.

1. He Shall Speak Great Words Against the Most High

As Daniel observed the little-horn power, he heard it speaking “very great things.” The angel declared that these great swelling words were really against the Most High. And what could be more against the honor of the Most High than that to mortal man should be ascribed the titles and attributes of divinity? Here are some of the “great words:”—

All the names which are attributed to Christ in Scripture, implying his supremacy over the church, are also attributed to the Pope.—Bellarmine’s “On the Authority of Councils,” book 2, chap. 17.

This ruling has been actually applied through the ages. Says Elliott:—

Look at the Sicilian ambassadors prostrated before him [Pope Martin IV] with the cry, “Lamb of God! that takest away the sins of the world!”—“Horæ Apocalypticæ,” part 4, chap. 5, sec. 2.

The Pope is of so great dignity and excellence, that he is not merely man, but as if God, and the vicar of God (non simplex homo, sed quasi Deus, et Dei vicarius). The Pope alone is called most holy, . . . divine monarch, and supreme emperor, and king of kings. . . . The Pope is of so great dignity and power that he constitutes one and the same tribunal with Christ (faciat unum et idem tribunal cum Christo), so that whatsoever the Pope does seems to proceed from the mouth of God (ab ore Dei). . . . The Pope is as God on earth (papa est quasi Deus in terra).—Pope Boniface VIII, quoted in Guinness’s “Romanism and the Reformation,” page 16.

These are no merely extravagant adulations of the Dark Ages, to be repudiated by the moderns; these terms express the unchanging doctrinal claims of the Roman Church, that put man in the place of God. The modern Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical letter dated June 20, 1894, repeated the claim:—

We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.—“The Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII,” New York, Benziger Brothers, page 304.

Thus does the Papacy “speak great words against the Most High.”

2. “And Shall Wear Out the Saints of the Most High?”

All through the Dark Ages we catch glimpses of the ruthless hand of Rome laid upon simple believers in God’s Holy Word; but plans for wholesale wearing out of the saints of God were devised as the Waldenses and others rose to a widespread work of witnessing, heralds of the dawn of the coming Reformation,—

“These who gave earliest notice, As the lark Springs from the ground the morn to gratulate; Who, rather, rose the day to antedate, By striking out a solitary spark, When all the world with midnight gloom was dark— The harbingers of good whom bitter hate In vain endeavored to exterminate.” —Wordsworth.

Pope Innocent III gave orders concerning them as follows:—

Therefore by this present apostolical writing, we give you a strict command that, by whatever means you can, you destroy all these heresies and expel from your diocese all who are polluted by them. You shall exercise the rigor of the ecclesiastical power against them, and all those who have made themselves suspected by associating with them. They may not appeal from your judgments, and, if necessary, you may cause the princes and people to suppress them with the sword.—Quoted from Migne, 214, col. 71, in Thatcher and McNeal’s “Source Book for Medieval History,” page 209.

As the truth spread, so also the papal church redoubled its efforts by sword and flame. The historian Lecky says:—

That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty, that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.—“History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,” Vol. II, page 32.

Motley, in his “Rise of the Dutch Republic,” tells how Philip II, of Spain—who declared “he would never consent to be the sovereign of heretics”—sent the Duke of Alva to take over the Netherlands:—

Early in the year the most sublime sentence of death was promulgated which has ever been pronounced since the creation of the world. The Roman tyrant [Nero] wished that his enemies’ heads were all upon a single neck, that he might strike them off at a blow; the Inquisition assisted Philip to place the heads of all his Netherlands subjects upon a single neck for the same fell purpose. Upon the sixteenth February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.—Part 3, chap. 2.

Roman Catholic writers admit that the papal church has sought to exterminate what it calls heresy by the power of the sword.

The Western Watchman (St. Louis) Dec. 24, 1908, says:—

The church has persecuted. . . . Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots and the Spanish Inquisition. Wherever and whenever there is honest Catholicity, there will be a clear distinction drawn between truth and error, and Catholicity and all forms of error. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it.

Prof. Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris, says:—

The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of liberty. . . . She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a “horror of blood.” Nevertheless, when confronted by heresy, she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of the state to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war and all her “horror of blood” practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious—for it is less frank—than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henry II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided, the religious wars.—“The Catholic Church, the Renaissance and Protestantism,” London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1908, pages 182, 183.

She has done it—the Church of Rome has worn out the saints of the Most High. The prophet in vision saw an ecclesiastical kingly power rise among the kingdoms of the divided Roman Empire. Its look was “more stout than its fellows,” and the prophet heard it speaking “very great things,” and saw it wearing out the saints of the Most High through the long centuries.

“Guilty!” is the clear verdict of history, against the Church of Rome on these two counts of the prophetic indictment.

w. a. s.

(To be concluded)

Disillusionment of the World

By F. M. W.

THE beginning, during the summer of last year, of the great war now going on was a severe shock to thousands of people throughout the world. Many had been taught, and fondly believed, that we had come to a time when civilization had reached such a high state among the leading nationalities of earth that war was impossible. But those who thought this way, and many others, for that matter, are wiser today than they were fifteen months ago. They have awakened to realize that human nature in the twentieth century is the same, after all, as in all the ages of the past; that pent-up human passions, envy, and animosity will find vent in this age as in the so-called barbaric ages; that the much-vaunted civilization of the present day is largely a gilded mockery, an outward empty emblem, a flaunted insignia of national pride and human righteousness.

It has been charged that in this terrible war which is going forward, Christianity has broken down, and demonstrated its weakness. Such indeed is not the case. Professed Christianity has not stood the test; civilization has failed. These have not had in them the power which keeps and holds in the storm and stress of the hour of darkness. Christianity—the type professed and practiced by the Lord Jesus Christ—has not failed, and its loyal, sterling advocates and representatives may be found in every land.

An editorial in the Evening Transcript (Boston), July 28, speaks of the shock which the world has received in the rude shattering of its hopes and ideals caused by the present conflict. The editor says:—

The world has suffered disillusionment. That has been, perhaps, the most striking and significant feature of the first year of “the great war,” which began a year ago today (July 28), with Austria’s declaration of war against Serbia. Belligerents and neutrals alike have been surprised and disappointed. On every hand the unexpected has occurred, or the confidently expected has failed to occur. Almost every surprise has been unwelcome. And of such surprises, “the end is not yet.”

The whole world has been surprised and disappointed in that there was a great war at all. It had largely been persuaded to accept as convincing three primary reasons why there should and would be none. Armaments had become so gigantic that the nations would not dare to use them; but while they have in fact proved to be greater and more destructive than any one imagined, the nations have not hesitated to set them loose in all their lethal and devastating fury. The money kings of the world would prevent a war by withholding the needed pecuniary means; but they have in fact promoted and encouraged the war, and have made haste to provide its fiscal sinews on a scale never dreamed of before. The great industrial and mercantile nations, Great Britain and Germany, would not engage in nor permit a war which would destroy their commerce; but they are in fact the chief belligerents.

Other illusions also have been cherished and dispelled in the same way. Many have believed that the great powers would never permit any small question of state or differences over some smaller government to affect the balance of Europe. The present outbreak started over a comparatively trivial question. The belief has been cherished that if war did occur it would necessarily be a very brief one; but it has continued now for fifteen months, and apparently is settling down for a long and tedious future. And not only has the world at large been disillusioned over this conflict and over its results, but the belligerents themselves have been surprised and at times confounded over the unexpected failure of their plans and purposes.

And many surprises as well have been occasioned to the noncombatants in the neutral nations, which we cannot discuss in detail. Speaking of new alignments, new codes of ethics which have been followed, etc., the Telegraph notes the awakening which has come to the United States:—

The United States has had its own special and peculiar awakening from dreams of peace. It had expected that its remote situation and its benevolent neutrality would assure it exemption from the pains and penalties of whatever war the European powers might wage. But it has discovered that it enjoys no such immunity, but that it cannot escape grave concern, even to the menace of actual embroilment, in the war.

With the desires of the peace societies of the world we are in hearty sympathy. We would, indeed, that their fondest expectations, so far as disarmament is concerned and the settlement of all national differences by courts of arbitration, could be met. Connected with these movements are many earnest, devoted men and women. Many of these are now hoping that the lessons from this war will be so potent and effective in teaching the evil of warfare that the nations of men will be forever deterred from engaging in bloody and sanguinary combat. These enthusiasts, we feel assured, are destined to further disillusionment in days to come.

The Telegraph adds that “the world may never again imagine that man has ceased to become a fighting animal, and that wars have therefore become impossible,” and urges that the United States should “abandon the foolish notion that weakness is a source of security,” and that, by developing a suitable degree of preparedness, it become an active agent in the preservation of peace. This, after all, is the old-time cry. It has been advocated for many years that the world’s peace would be best preserved by the nations being prepared for war; that respect for each other’s navies would hold the nations back from entering into mortal conflict. But the present war has long since exploded this theory. The prophet’s word indicates that the nations will continue to arm, and that their preparedness, instead of making for peace, will result in the great universal battle of Armageddon of the last day. Joel 3:9-16.

The recent words of King Alfonso of Spain, in talking to a journalist in Paris, express this sentiment:—

Countries, big and little, realize that to exist it is indispensable to work in time of peace and surround themselves with the most positive guaranties.

To these words of the king the editor of the Washington Times sagely remarks:—

Nothing more illogical could be imagined than the notion, in some minds, that this war explosion will be the last of its kind. Rather, it will likely be the beginning of a series of wars. New alignments may be effected. But will the Allies, defeated, lie supine under German rule? Or will Germany, defeated, stripped of trade and shipping and colonies, accept her position as inevitable and permanent? It is unthinkable in either case. To make a peace after this war capable of lasting twenty years would be a statesmanly achievement whose equal has not yet been seen in this world. There will be more wars. This war may be a good deal bigger before it ends. There is no nation, no people, that dare regard itself as safe; none that dare go unarmed and unprepared.

What the outcome of the present conflict will be no living man can tell. Some have predicted that this war would be the beginning of the last great conflict, and that there will be no cessation of human strife until the kingdom of peace is ushered in. Others have argued that this war would be followed by an interval of peace preceding the last great conflict.Any prediction as to the future must be at best only idle speculation. The Word of God affords us no data by which we may determine just what lies before us in the future. It has told us that certain things will take place, that certain great movements would be carried forward, of the great work which will be done by the beast and his image, and of the warning message that would go to the world to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord. But there is much which has not been revealed; and wherein the Word of God is silent, it is wise for us to be modest in our statements. Leave idle speculation to those who have naught to do but to dream and to build air castles. Let us unto whom has been committed a solemn message for this time, give that message in its great, clear outlines. Where we cannot understand the outcome, let us wait patiently for God’s revelation; and where it is dark, let us walk by faith. In this course will be our safety.

F. M. W.

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