STUDY V

BABYLON BEFORE THE GREAT COURT
HER CONFUSION--NATIONAL

The Civil Powers in Trouble, Seeing the Judgment is Going Against Them--In Fear and Distress They Seek Alliance One with Another, and Look in Vain to the Church for Her Old-Time Power--They Increase Their Armies and Navies--Present War Preparations--The Fighting Forces on Land and Sea--Improved Implements of War, New Discoveries, Inventions, Explosives, Etc.--Wake Up the Mighty Men; Let the Weak Say, I am Strong; Beat Plowshares into Swords and Pruning Hooks into Spears, Etc.--The United States of America Unique in her Position, Yet Threatened With Even Greater Evils than the Old World--The Cry of Peace! Peace! When There is no Peace.

"FOR these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled....Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."

If such was the outlook as seen in the very beginning of the judgment, how much more ominous are the signs of the times today!

From an article in the London Spectator, entitled "The Disquiet of Europe," we quote the following:

The following from another issue of the same journal is also to the point:

"Our own century, commencing with the thunder of Napoleon's cannon on the plains of Marengo, and drawing to its close with similar reverberations from both the Orient and Occident, has not known a single year of peace. Since 1800 England has had fifty-four wars, France forty-two, Russia twenty-three, Austria fourteen, Prussia nine--one hundred and forty-two wars by five nations, with at least four of whom the gospel of Christ is a state religion.

"At the dawn of the Christian era, the standing army of the Roman Empire, according to Gibbon, numbered about four hundred thousand men, and was scattered over a vast extent of territory, from the Euphrates to the Thames. Today the standing armies of Europe exceed four millions, while the reserves, who have served two or more years in the barracks, and are trained soldiers, exceed sixteen millions, a number whose dimensions the mind can neither appreciate nor imagine. With one-tenth of the able-bodied men on the Continent in arms in time of peace, and one-fifth of its women doing the laborious, and at times loathsome, work of man in the shop and field, one can sadly say with Burke, 'The age of chivalry has gone....The glory of Europe has departed.' In the last twenty years these armies have been nearly doubled, and the national debt of the European nations, mainly incurred for war purposes, and wrung from the sweat of the people, has reached the inconceivable total of twenty-three thousand millions of dollars. If one is to measure the interests of man by his expenditures, then assuredly the supreme passion of civilized Europe in this evening of the nineteenth century is war, for one-third of all the revenues that are drained from labor and capital is devoted to paying merely the interest on the cost of past wars, one-third for preparations for future wars, and the remaining third to all other objects whatsoever.

"To deny that such is the evident tendency of these unprecedented preparations is to believe that we can sow thistles and reap figs, or expect perennial sunshine where we have sown the whirlwind. The war between China and Japan, fought only in part with modern weapons, and with men who but imperfectly understood their use, in no way illustrates the possibilities of the future conflict. The greatest of all war correspondents, Archibald Forbes, has recently said, 'It is virtually impossible for any one to have accurately pictured to himself the scene in its fullness which the next great battle will present to a bewildered and shuddering world; we know the elements that will constitute its horrors, but we know them only as it were academically. Men have yet to be thrilled by the weirdness of wholesale death, inflicted by missiles poured from weapons, the whereabouts of which cannot be ascertained because of the absence of powder smoke.' He concludes, 'Death incalculable may rain down as from the very heavens themselves.' When we recall that in one of the battles around Metz the use of the mitrailleuse struck down 6,000 Germans in ten minutes, and that at Plevna, in 1877, Skobelleff lost in a short rush of a few hundred yards 3,000 men, and remember that the mitrailleuse and needle gun have since quintupled in their capacity for destruction, the prospect is one at which the mind stands aghast and the heart sickens. Suffice it to say that the great strategists of Europe believe that the future mortality of battles will be so great that it will be impossible to care for the wounded or bury the dead, and many of them will carry as a necessary part of military equipment a moving crematorium to burn those who have fallen in battle.

"No fact can be more clear than that humanity is at the parting of the ways. The maximum of preparation has been reached. In Europe men can arm no further. Italy has already fallen under the burden of bankruptcy thereby occasioned, and may be at any day plunged into the vortex of revolution. Many thoughtful publicists believe that the European nations must therefore either fight or disarm. Well did the Master predict: 'Upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity....Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.'"

The following from The New York Tribune of May 5, 1895, showed how some of the reigning sovereigns of Europe regarded the situation:

"King Oscar is also talking of resigning his crown to his eldest son. In his case there is not one but there are two Parliaments with which to contend; and as that at Stockholm is always in direct opposition to that at Christiania, he cannot content the one without offending the other, the result being that Norway and Sweden are now according to his own assertions, on the point of civil war. He is convinced that the conflict between the two countries is bound to culminate in an armed struggle, rather than countenance which he has determined to abdicate. He declares that he has done his best, like King George of Greece, to live up to the terms of the Constitution by virtue of which he holds his scepter, but that it is absolutely impossible to do so any longer, and that it is a question with him either of violating his coronation oath or of stepping down and making way for his son.

"To these three kings must be added the name of King Humbert of Italy, who is forced to submit to a Prime Minister personally abhorrent both to himself and to the Queen, and to lend his name to a policy of which he disapproves at heart, but which accords with the views of the Legislature. It is no secret that the whole of his private fortune is already invested abroad, in anticipation of his abandonment of the Italian throne, and that he finds more intolerable than ever a situation which compels him to surround himself with people uncongenial to him and to his consort, and to remain in a position toward the Church which is not only diametrically opposed to the sincere religious feelings of the Queen and of himself, but likewise places the reigning house of Italy in a very awkward and embarrassing position with regard to all the other courts of the Old World. King Humbert is a very sensitive man and keenly alive to the many slights to which he has been subjected by all those foreign royalties who, on coming to Rome, have pointedly abstained from calling at the Quirinal for fear of offending the Vatican.

"Had it not been for Queen Marie Amelie of Portugal, a strong-minded woman like her mother, the Countess of Paris, King Carlos would have long since relinquished his throne to his son, with his younger brother as Regent, while King Charles of Roumania and the Prince Regent of Bavaria are each credited with being on the eve of making way for their next of kin. Finally there is Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who has been strongly urged by his Russophile friends to abdicate, they undertaking to have him re-elected under Muscovite protection. But he has thus far refrained from yielding to their solicitations, realizing that there is many a slip between the cup and the lip, and that, if he were once voluntarily to surrender his crown, many things might interfere to prevent his recovering possession thereof.

Noisy demonstrations of Socialism in the German Reichstag, the Belgian Parliament and the French Chamber of Deputies were by no means calculated to allay the fears of those in authority. The German Socialist members refused to join in a cheer for the Emperor at the instance of the President, or even to rise from their seats; Belgian socialists in reply to a proposal of cheers for the king, whose sympathies were understood to be on the side of aristocracy and capital, cried, "Long live the people! Down with the capitalists!" and French members of the Chamber of Deputies, disappointed in a measure tending to favor the Socialist cause, declared that revolution would yet accomplish what was peaceably asked, but refused.

It is significant, too, that a bill tending to check the growth of Socialism in Germany, which was introduced in the Reichstag, failed to become a law; the reasons for the rejection of the bill being as follows, as reported by the press:

"The recent rejection by the Reichstag of the 'anti-revolution bill,' the latest measure elaborated by the German government to combat Socialism, makes an interesting chapter in the history of a nation with which, despite differences of language and institutions, we ourselves have much in common.

"It is now many years since attention began to be attracted to the remarkable increase of the Socialistic party in Germany. But it was not until 1878, in which two attempts were made upon the life of the Emperor, that the government determined upon repressive measures. The first law against the socialists was passed in 1878 for a period of two years, and was renewed in 1880, 1882, 1884, 1886.

"It was now hoped in some quarters that the occasion for further repressive legislation would pass away. But the continued growth of the Socialistic party, the increased boldness of its propaganda, together with the occurrence of anarchistic outrages in Germany and other parts of Europe, impelled the government to further intervention. In December, 1894, the emperor intimated that it had been decided to meet with fresh legislation the acts of those who were endeavoring to stir up internal disorder.

"Before the end of that year the anti-revolution bill was laid before the popular assembly. It consisted of a series of amendments to the ordinary criminal law of the country, and was proposed as a permanent feature of the criminal code. In these amendments, fines or imprisonment were provided for all who, in a manner dangerous to the public peace, publicly attacked religion, the monarchy, marriage, the family, or property, with expressions of abuse, or who publicly asserted or disseminated statements, invented or distorted, which they knew, or according to the circumstances, must conclude to be invented or distorted, having in view to render contemptible the institutions of the state or the decrees of the authorities.

"The new law also contained provisions of similar character aimed at the socialistic propaganda in the army and navy.

"Had the opposition proceeded only from the Socialists in and out of Parliament, the government would have carried its bill in triumph. But the character of the offenses specified, together with the extent to which the interpretation of the law was left to police judges, awoke the distrust, even the alarm, of large sections of the people, who saw in its provisions a menace to freedom of speech, freedom of teaching, and freedom of public assembly.

"Great newspapers like the Berliner Tageblatt forwarded to the Reichstag petitions from their readers containing from twenty thousand to one hundred thousand names. Meanwhile the opposition of four hundred and fifty German universities was recorded against the bill at a mass-meeting of delegates held in the capital.

"The rejection of a measure thus widely opposed was inevitable, and the Socialist party will doubtless make the most of the government defeat. Yet the Reichstag condemned the bill, not because it was aimed at the Socialists, but because, in striking at anarchical tendencies, the measure was believed to endanger the rights of the people at large."

In London it is said that Socialism is constantly gaining ground while Anarchism is apparently dead. The Independent Labor Party, which was the greatest power of organized labor in England, is now avowedly a socialistic organization. It expects a bloody revolution to come ere long, which will result in the establishment of a Socialistic republic upon the ruins of the present monarchy.

Ecclesiasticism No Longer a Bulwark!

Realizing this as they do, to some extent at least, we see them anxiously looking to the church (not the faithful few saints known and recognized of God as his church, but the great nominal church, which alone the world recognizes) to see what of moral suasion or ecclesiastical authority can be brought to bear upon the great questions at issue between the rulers and the peoples. The church, too, is anxious to step into the breach, and would gladly assist in restoring amicable relations between princes and peoples; for the interests of the ecclesiastical aristocracy and the civil aristocracy are linked together. But in vain is help looked for from this source; for the awakened masses have little reverence left for priestcraft or statecraft. Nevertheless, the expediency of soliciting the aid of the church is being put to the test. The German Reichstag, for instance, which, through the influence of Prince Bismarck, banished the Jesuits from Germany in 1870, deeming them inimical to the welfare of Germany, afterwards repealed the measure, hoping thus to conciliate the Catholic party and gain its influence in support of the army measures. A significant remark was made on the occasion of the debate of the question, which, though it will prove most true as a prophecy, at the time served only to convulse the house with laughter. The remark was that the recall of the Jesuits would not be dangerous, since the deluge (Socialism--Anarchy) was sure to come soon and drown them too.

In the attempted reconciliations of the king and government of Italy with the Church of Rome the motive has evidently been fear of the spread of anarchy and the prospects of social warfare. With reference to this Premier Crispi, in a notable speech beginning with a historical review of current Italian politics, and closing with a declaration as to the social problems of the day, especially the revolutionary movement, said:

"The social system is now passing through a momentous crisis. The situation has become so acute that it seems absolutely necessary for civil and religious authority to unite and work harmoniously against that infamous band on whose flag is inscribed, 'No God, no king!' This band, he said, had declared war on society. Let society accept the declaration, and shout back the battle-cry, 'For God, king and country!'"

This same fearful foreboding on the part of the civil powers throughout all civilized nations is that upon which is based the recent conciliatory attitude of all the civil powers of Europe toward the Pope of Rome, and which now begins to look quite favorable to his long-cherished hope of regaining much of his lost temporal power. This attitude of the nations was most remarkably illustrated in the costly gifts presented to the Pope, on the occasion of the Papal Jubilee some years ago, by the heads of all the governments of Christendom. Feeling their own incompetency to cope with the mighty power of the awakening world, the civil authorities, in sheer desperation, call to mind the former power of Papacy, the tyrant, which once held all Christendom in its grasp; and though they hate the tyrant, they are willing to make large concessions, if by this means they may succeed in holding in check the discontented peoples.

"Belgium has for centuries been Catholic and Ultra-montane to the core. This country has a population of more than six millions, of whom only fifteen thousand are Protestant and three thousand Jews. All the rest are Catholic. Here is confessional solidity. The Catholic church has been the leading factor and force in the life and history of Belgium, and here she has celebrated her greatest triumphs and has again and again boasted of them. With some few exceptional cases she has controlled the educational system of the country, especially the elementary and public schools...

"Now, how has Social Democracy fared in Catholic Belgium? This the last elections have shown. Nearly one-fifth of all the votes cast have been given for the candidates of the Social Democrats, and we must remember that on the side of non-Socialistic candidates are found a great many more 'plural votes' than on the side of the Social Democrats --it being the rule in Belgium that the wealthy and educated exercise the right of 'plural votes,' i.e., their votes are counted two or three times. The Ultra-montanes indeed claim that this increase in the Socialistic vote is to be attributed to the growth from the Liberal Party. To a certain extent this is the case, but the claims of the Clericals that it is the bulwark against Socialism, irreligion and moral degeneracy thereby become none the less absurd. Whence did these Liberals come, if the Catholic church is the physician for all the ills the state and society are heir to?

Extravagant Preparations for War

The fear of impending revolution is driving every nation in "Christendom" to extravagant preparations for war. A metropolitan journal says, "Five of the leading nations of Europe have locked up in special treasuries 6,525,000,000 francs for the purpose of destroying men and material in war. Germany was the first of the nations to get together a reserve fund for this deadly purpose. She has 1,500,000,000 francs; France has 2,000,000,000 francs, Russia, despite the ravages of cholera and famine, 2,125,000,000 francs; Austria, 750,000,000 francs; Italy, the poorest of all, less than 250,000,000 francs. These immense sums of money are lying idle. They cannot or will not be touched, except in case of war. Emperor William of Germany said he would rather that the name of Germany be dishonored financially than touch a single mark of the war fund."

The militia force of the United States, as reported by the Secretary of War to the House of Representatives in the same year aggregates a body of 141,846 men, while its available, but unorganized, military strength, or what, in European countries, is called the "war footing" of the country, the Secretary places at 9,582,806 men.

Said a correspondent for the New York Herald, having just returned from a tour in Europe:

"The next war in Europe, come when it may, will be of a destructive violence unknown up to this day. Every source of revenue has been strained, if not drained, for the martial effect. It would be idle to say that the world has not yet seen the like, because never before has it had such destructive warlike means. Europe is a great military camp. The chief Powers are armed to the teeth. It is the combination of general effort, and not for parade or amusement. Enormous armies in the highest condition of discipline and armed to perfection, leaning on their muskets or bridle in hand, are waiting in camp and field for the signal to march against each other. A war in Europe settles only one thing definitely, and that is the necessity for another war.

"It is said that large standing armies are guarantees of peace; this may be so for a time, but not in the long run: for armed inactivity on such an enormous scale involves too many sacrifices, and the heavy burdens will inevitably force action."

Modern Implements of War

A correspondent of the Pittsburgh Dispatch writes from Washington, D.C.:

"One of Mr. Maxim's inventions is called the 'riot gun,' a light little affair that can be transported in one's arms with enough ammunition to drive any ordinary mob out of the streets or out of existence. It is curious how all of the most recent inventions in this line look toward a certainty of riotous mobs. Since when did the inventor turn prophet? Well, this 'riot gun' can be worked at the rate of ten murderous shots a second, with the gunner all the time concealed, and in perfect safety, even from a mob armed with guns or even pistols, provided that same mob does not conclude to make a rush and capture gun and gunner. It seems to be expected by inventors like Mr. Maxim that modern mobs will stand in the streets to be shot down without acting either on the defensive or the aggressive, and that they will not stand around safe corners with bombs, or blow up or burn a city in their frenzy. However this may be, he has done all he can in the way of a gun for mobs. This little weapon can carry enough ammunition with it to clean out a street at one round, and in a few seconds, and it can be operated from walls or windows with as great facility as in the open street. With a twist of the wrist it can be turned up or down on the point of its carriage, and made to kill directly above or below the gunner without endangering the life or limb of that devotee of the fine art of murder.

But there is a still more recent improvement. The New York World gives the following account of the gun and powder:

"Maxim, the gun maker, and Dr. Schupphaus, the gunpowder expert, have invented a new cannon and torpedo powder, which will throw a huge cannon-ball full of explosives ten miles, and where it strikes it will smash into kindling-wood everything within hundreds of feet.

"The discovery is called the 'Maxim-Schupphaus system of throwing aerial torpedoes from guns by means of a special powder, which starts the projectile with a low pressure and increases its velocity by keeping the pressure well up throughout the whole length of the gun.' Patents on the system have been taken out in the United States and European countries.

"The volume of gases generated by combustion grows constantly less, because the burning surface is less, and as it is the volume of gas which gives velocity to the projectile shot from the gun, a loss of velocity is the inevitable result. The projectile does not go so far as it would if the pressure of the gases had increased, or had at least been maintained.

"In each piece of the Maxim and Schupphaus powder is a lot of small holes running through the entire length of the rod. When the powder is ignited the flame spreads instantaneously not only over the circumference of each rod, but throughout the perforations as well. These little holes are burnt out with such rapidity that the difference in the volume of explosive gases generated at the beginning and at the end of the bore of the gun is about in the ratio of sixteen to one.

"The big gun which Messrs. Maxim and Schupphaus propose to construct will be a twenty-inch gun, especially adapted for coast defense. This gun will show some peculiarities. It will not be built up, that is, composed of many pieces of steel bound together, but will consist of a single thin steel tube about thirty feet long, with walls not over two inches in thickness, in marked contrast with the mortars whose walls are made eight or ten inches thick in order to resist the pressure of the discharge. The recoil of the gun will be offset by hydraulic buffers underneath, containing water and oil. A twenty-inch gun of this type, using the new powder, could be planted at the entrance to New York harbor, either in Ft. Washington or Ft. Wadsworth and command the entire sea for a radius of ten miles. So uniform are the pressures and velocities obtained that a wonderful accuracy of fire is possible. It would only be necessary to train the gun upon any ship sighted by the range-finder within this radius to insure its complete destruction. The quantity of explosives thrown would be sufficient to sink a man-of-war if the projectile exploded in the water within fifty feet of its side. At one hundred and fifty feet the concussion of a five hundred pound projectile would be severe enough to cause dangerous leaks and disable a ship."

Dr. R.J. Gatling, the inventor of the wonderful machine gun that bears his name, said, with reference to the new invention of smokeless powder:

"'What is the difference between a rapid firing gun and a machine gun?'

"A rapid firing gun doesn't begin to fire with the rapidity of a machine gun. The former is usually of one barrel, and is loaded with shells. It is a great gun for torpedo boats, but fifteen times to the minute is pretty good time for one of them. A machine gun of the Gatling type has from six to twelve barrels, and with three men to operate, practically never ceases firing, one volley succeeding another at a speed of 1,200 discharges per minute. These three men can do more killing than a whole brigade armed with old-fashioned muskets."

A writer in the Cincinnati Enquirer says:

"The physiognomy of the next war, whenever it happens, will assume features entirely new, and so horrible as to leave forever the reproach of barbarism engraved upon the brow of civilization. The new military organizations which have quadruplicated the armies, the smokeless and terrible new powder that nothing can resist, the present fulminant artillery and rifle magazine which will mow down the armies like a tornado shakes down the apples of a tree, the balloon observatories and balloon batteries which will drop masses of powder on cities and fortresses, laying them waste in a short time and much more effectively than a bombardment; the movable railways for artillery, the electric light and telephone, etc., have reversed all tactics of warfare. The next war will be conducted upon an entirely different system, unexperimented on as yet, and from which will arise great surprises. 'We arm for defense and not for offense,' says every power; 'our strength is our safeguard: it imposes peace on our neighbors and inspires all with the respect due us.'

"But every power follows on the same policy, which is equivalent to saying that all that formidable, murderous display is directed to only protect peace from the clutches of war. Though this be the climax of irony, I sincerely believe it, because it is evident, and I think peace well guarded against war by the very instruments of the latter, or rather by the apprehension caused by their magnitude and ugliness. But those unrelenting armaments are like an ever-absorbing vortex into which the public fortune is drifting, and going, as it were, to fill up a fathomless volcano in the form of an explosive substance. Strange as it may be, this is the true situation. Europe is lying upon a vast volcano dug out by herself, and which she laboriously fills up with the most dangerous element. But conscious of its danger, she diligently keeps all firebrands away from the crater. But whenever her caution relaxes and the explosion occurs, mind this, the entire world will feel the shock, and shudder. Barbarism will exhibit so much ugliness that a universal curse will spread from one nation to another, and will cause the peoples to devise some means more worthy of our time to settle international affairs, and war will be buried by her own hands beneath the ruins she will have raised."

Another Peace-Compelling Gun

We wondered some time ago how the insurrection, such as the Scriptures seemed to imply, could ever sweep over the whole earth; how anarchy could break loose in spite of all the combined power and influence of capital and civilization opposed to it. But now we see that education (knowledge), is preparing the way for the world's great disaster, which the Scriptures seem to indicate may be expected within the next few years. Now we can see that the very men who have been trained to use the most up-to-date apparatus for the destruction of human life may be found amongst those who have the charge and care of the armories and ammunitions of war. Following is the article referred to:

"This gun, weighing less than twenty pounds, and manipulated like an ordinary fowling piece, pours out a stream of bullets when in action at the rate of 400 shots per minute. The new arm is called the Benet-Mercier, and is of French invention. It has a stock that is placed against the shoulder. In action the soldier lies on the ground, resting the gun on two supports. This gives an advantage in safety over the Hiram Maxim rapid-firing model, since the operator of that gun is compelled to stand in feeding it. This brings him into full sight of the enemy--or rather it brings all three men into sight, for three are required for the manipulation of this heavier weapon."

The United States Unique in Her Position, Yet
Threatened with Even Greater Evils Than the Old World

The position of the United States of America among the nations is unique in almost every respect; and so much so that some are inclined to regard this country as the special child of divine providence, and to think that in the event of world-wide revolution it will escape. But such fancied security is not consistent with sound judgment, in view of either the signs of the times or the certain operations of those just laws of retribution by which nations, as well as individuals, are judged.

Yet the nation, as a nation, has not, and never had, any claims upon divine providence. The providential overruling in some of its affairs has been only in the interests of the people of God. The nation, as a nation, is without God and without hope of perpetuity when, through it, God shall have served his own wise purposes for his people--when he shall have gathered "his elect." Then the winds of the great tribulation may blow upon it, as upon the other nations, because, like them, it is one of the "kingdoms of this world" which must give place to the Kingdom of God's dear Son.

A sovereign people, thus dignified and brought to an appreciation of the rights of manhood, is therefore naturally one of the first to resist, and that most determinedly, any apparent tendencies to curb its ambition or to restrain its operations. Even now, notwithstanding the liberal spirit of its institutions and the immense advantages they have conferred upon all classes of the nation, the intelligence of the masses begins to discern influences at work which are destined are long to bring them into bondage, to despoil them of their rights as freemen and to deprive them of the blessings of bountiful nature.

*Vol. II, Chapter 10.

The danger of Romanism to this country was foreseen by Lafayette, who, though himself a Roman Catholic, helped to win, and greatly admired, the liberty of this country. He said, "If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Romish clergy." Thus from congested wealth, from Romanism and from immigration, we see great dangers.

That many men of wealth see this, and to some extent fear that the threatening troubles may culminate here first, is manifest from various indications, of which the following, from The Sentinel, Washington, D.C., of some years ago, is an illustration:

"EMIGRATING FROM THE UNITED STATES--Mr. James Gordon Bennett, owner of the New York Herald, says the National Watchman, has resided so long in Europe as to be considered an alien. Mr. Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, it is said has taken up his permanent residence in France. Andrew Carnegie, the millionaire iron king, has bought a castle in Scotland and is making it his home. Henry Villard, the Northern Pacific Railroad magnate, has sold his holdings and gone permanently to Europe with about $8,000,000. W. W. Astor has removed from New York to London, where he has bought a magnificent residence, and made application to become a British subject. Mr. Van Alen, who recently secured the ambassadorship to Italy by a $50,000 contribution to the Democratic campaign fund, is a foreigner to all intents and purposes, and declares this country unfit for a gentleman to live in."

Said Prof. Herron in a lecture given in San Francisco on "The Christian Revival of the Nation"--"CHRIST IS HERE! AND THE JUDGMENT IS TODAY! Our social conviction of sin-- the heavy hand of God on the conscience--shows this! Men and institutions are being judged by his teachings!"

But amidst all the shaking of the earth (organized society) and of the heavens (the ecclesiastical powers) those who discern in it the outworking of the divine plan of the ages rejoice in the assurance that this terrible shaking will be the last that the earth will ever have or need; for, as the Apostle Paul assures us, it signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken--the overturning of the whole present order of things--that those things which cannot be shaken --the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of light and peace--may remain. For our God is a consuming fire. In his wrath he will consume every system of evil and oppression, and he will firmly establish truth and righteousness in the earth.

The Cry of "Peace! Peace! When There Is No Peace"

Such a proclamation, participated in by all the nations of Christendom was that which was issued from the great naval display on the occasion of the opening of the Baltic Canal. The canal was projected by the grandfather of the present German Emperor, and the work was begun by his father, for the benefit of Germany's commerce, as well as for her navy. The present Emperor, whose faith in the sword as a never failing remedy for the interruptions of peace, and whose accompaniments of cannon and gunpowder are equally relied upon, determined to make the opening of the finished canal the occasion of a grand international proclamation of peace, and a grand display of the potentialities upon which it must rest. Accordingly, he invited all the nations to send representative battleships (peace makers) to the great Naval Parade through the Baltic Canal on June 20, 1895.

In response to that call there came more than a hundred floating steel fortresses, including twenty giant "battleships," technically so-called, all fully armed, and all capable of a speed of at least seventeen miles an hour. "It is difficult," said the London Spectator, "to realize such a concentration of power, which could in a few hours sweep the greatest seaport out of existence, or brush the concentrated commercial fleets of the world to the bottom of the ocean. There is, in fact, nothing on the seaboard of the world which could even pretend to resist such a force; and Europe, considered as an entity, may fairly pronounce herself at once unassailable at sea and irresistible....The fleet assembled at Kiel was probably the highest embodiment possible of power for fighting, provided that the fight shall never last longer than its explosive stores."

The cost of the vessels and their armaments amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. One salute, fired simultaneously by 2,500 guns, consumed in an instant thousands of dollars worth of powder; and the entertainment of the distinquished guests cost the German people $2,000,000. The speeches of the German Emperor and foreign representatives dwelt on "the new era of peace" ushered in by the opening of the great canal and the cooperation of the nations in the demonstration. But the fair speeches, and the mighty roar of cannon by which the kings and emperors proclaimed Peace! Peace! with threats of vengeance to any who refuse it upon their terms, were not interpreted by the people as the fulfilment of the prophetic message of "Peace on earth and good will toward men." It had no soothing effect upon the socialist element; it suggested no panacea for the healing of social disorders, for lightening the cares or reducing the burdens of the masses of the poor and unfortunate; nor did it give any assurance of good will on earth, nor indicate how good will could be secured and maintained, either between nation and nation, or between governments and peoples. It was therefore a grand farce, a great, bold, national falsehood; and it was so regarded by the people.

The London Spectator voiced the sentiments of thinking people with reference to the display in the following truthful comment:

The New York Evening Post commented as follows:

"In the very gathering of war-vessels there is manifest a spirit the reverse of peace-loving. Each nation sends its biggest ships and heaviest guns, not simply as an act of courtesy, but also as a kind of international showing of teeth. The British navy despatches ten of its most powerful vessels merely as a sample of what it has in reserve, and with the air as of one saying, 'Be warned in time, O ye nations, and provoke not the mistress of the seas.' French and Russian squadrons, in like manner, put on their ugliest frown lest host William should presume upon the jollification to make too friendly advances. Our own American ships join the fleet with the feeling doubtless animating many an officer and sailor on board that it is time the haughty Europeans learned that there is a rising naval power across the sea which they had better not trifle with.

"An especial air of bouffe attaches to the presence of the French and Russians. As lovers of international peace, especially as lovers of Germany, they are truly comic. Fury over the thing in some parts of France is great....

"But the most striking insincerity of all is to be found in the opening of the Kiel canal itself. It is dedicated to 'the traffic of the world.' Hence its international significance, hence all the rejoicing and glorification. But what do Germany and France and the other continental Powers really think about the traffic of the world? Why at this very moment, as for twenty years past, they are straining every nerve to fetter and hinder and reduce as far as possible the free commercial intercourse of nations....Until this proscriptive spirit of commercial hostility and jealousy passes away, or wears itself out through sheer absurdity, you may open as many inter-oceanic canals as you please, but you cannot persuade sensible people that your talk about their significance for international good feeling and the general love of peace is anything but a bit of transparent insincerity."

The Chicago Chronicle said:

"It is the purest barbarism, this pageant at Kiel. Held in celebration of a work of peace, it assumes the form of an apotheosis of war. Mortal enemies gather there, displaying their weapons while they conceal their enmity behind forced friendliness. Cannon planned for war are fired for courtesy. The Emperor himself eulogizes the display of armaments. 'The iron-armed might which is assembled in Kiel harbor,' he said, 'should at the same time serve as a symbol of peace and of the cooperation of all European peoples to the advancement and maintenance of Europe's mission of civilization.' Experience controverts this theory. He who has a gun wishes to shoot with it. The nation which is fit for war wants to make war. The one serious menace to European peace today is the fact that every European nation is prepared for war.

According to The St. Paul Globe, royalty and privilege rather than industry, were on exhibition at Kiel. It said:

"What is the place of a fleet of ironclads today in the advancement of civilization? What pirate fleets are there to be swept from the high seas? What inferior and savage nation exists to whom we might convey an illuminating influence of modern civilization by casting upon it the searchlights of a squadron of war-ships? There is but one assault at this moment in which the nations might unite their forces heartily on the plea that they were working for modern civilization. Yet not one of the governments represented at Kiel would dare to propose an armed alliance with the others for the purpose of chasing out of Europe the hideous and cruel Turk.

"Would a conflict between the splendid ironclads, or any two of the nations represented at Kiel, aid in any way the cause of civilization? Are not these armaments, on the contrary, the relics and witnesses of surviving barbarism? The most savage features of any nation are its munitions of war. The purpose of most of those which Europe provides in such profusion by taxes upon a burdened people is to keep those people themselves in humble subjection to the powers above them."

The "Pageantry of Oppression," is what The Minneapolis Times called the Kiel naval pageant, upon which it commented as follows:

"The fact that the opening of this magnificent waterway is valued more for its military than for its commercial advantages, and that it was celebrated by the booming of ordnance from the assembled war fleets of the world, is an indictment of civilization. For if the so-called 'civilized' nations of the world need such vast enterprises for military operations and such enormous navies as are now maintained at the expense of the people, then the human nature of the Caucasian race has not improved in the least since the time of Columbus or by the great discovery he made. If such navies are necessary, then liberty is impossible and despotism is a condition necessary for the human race."

This loud and united cry of the nations, through their representatives, of "Peace! Peace! when there is no peace," calls forcibly to mind the word of the Lord through the Prophet Jeremiah, who says: