Our Day Part 49

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNITED STATES BATTLESHIP "NEVADA"

Photograph taken from the Manhattan Bridge. New York.

COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. N.Y.]

"Never was national and racial feeling stronger upon earth than it is now. Never was preparation for war so tremendous and so sustained. Never was striking power so swift and so terribly formidable.... The shadow of conflict and of displacement greater than any which mankind has known since Attila and his Huns were stayed at Chalons, is visibly impending over the world. Almost can the ear of imagination hear the gathering of the legions for the fiery trial of peoples, a sound vast as the trumpet of the Lord of hosts."--_Quoted in the Literary Digest, May 6, 1911._

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMRADES AFTER THE BATTLE

Soldiers bringing in two wounded captives.

PHOTO BY CENTRAL PHOTO SERVICE. N.Y.]

What the ancient prophecy foretold--the preparing of war in the last days, the waking up and arming of the nations--we have seen fulfilling before our eyes in this generation.

Satanic Agencies at Work

In prophecies of the gathering of the nations for the last great struggle, Inspiration draws aside the veil, and allows us to see the agencies that have been stirring up the world for the war. As the prophet John was shown in vision the scenes of the last days, he saw the invisible powers of Satan, "the spirits of devils," going forth "unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of G.o.d Almighty." Rev. 16:14.

Earnest-minded statesmen have lamented their helplessness to combat the forces and influences pressing the world on toward conflict. In one of his last speeches as premier of Great Britain, the late Marquis of Salisbury was defending yet further calls for army and navy appropriations. He said:

"For years public opinion was in favor of a pacific policy, but now that state of opinion has pa.s.sed away. The tide has turned, and who am I, and who are we, that we should attempt to stem the tide? If the tide has turned, we shall have to go with it.

We are in the presence of forces far larger than we can wield."

What those forces were, the aged statesman did not recognize, but the prophecy tells us. The prophet was shown the evil spirits from Satan going forth everywhere as the end nears, to stir up the whole world to the last great conflict.

Sir Edward Grey, British foreign secretary, described these agencies very accurately. Speaking in the House of Commons, Nov. 27, 1911, he said:

"It is really as if in the atmosphere of the world there were some mischievous influence at work, which troubles and excites every part of it."

It is all coming to pa.s.s exactly as the sure word of prophecy foretold.

The conviction that great and decisive events are at hand has taken possession of many hearts in all the world. When the European war broke out in 1914, on a scale unprecedented in human history, it was no wonder that the question sprang to many lips, "Is it Armageddon?"

The question was not lightly asked. The committee of the Church Missionary Society (Church of England), one of the greatest missionary organizations in the world, sent a message to its missionaries in all lands at the outbreak of the war. In this message was a call to prepare for the coming of the Lord:

"It may be that these events will quickly usher in the return of Christ to gather His saints together from the four quarters of the earth.... Many see in the events preceding and accompanying this terrible cataclysm of war the signs of our Lord's near return. If so, blessed will that servant be whom his Lord when He cometh shall find giving 'their food in due season' to those fellow servants who have been put in his charge."--_Church Missionary Review, November, 1914._

Timely as this call was, it was evident, from the prophetic scriptures, that the conflict then opening could not be the Armageddon of the Apocalypse, for the prelude to that final clash of nations is an event yet in the future--the downfall of a nation whose part in the closing scenes is clearly described in the prophecy of the coming Armageddon.

The end of the power which rules over the territory through which the river Euphrates flows, is the prelude to Armageddon. The prophecy says:

"The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared." Rev. 16:12.

Next follows the gathering of "the whole world" to "the battle of that great day of G.o.d Almighty." Verse 14.

Through all modern times Turkey has been identified with the Euphrates.

The region of Syria and Asia Minor, long held by Turkey, has been the historic meeting place of the East and the West. In the London _Fortnightly Review_, May, 1915, Mr. J.B. Firth wrote:

"When, with the fall of Ottoman sovereignty at Constantinople, the Turk is driven out of Europe, there will arise once more the eternal question of the possession of Asia Minor. That land is the corridor between Europe and Asia, along which have pa.s.sed most of the European conquerors--the Russians alone excepted--who have invaded Asia, and most of the Asiatic conquerors who have invaded Europe."

The fall of the Turkish power in this Euphrates region will, in some manner, prepare the way for "the kings of the East" to come up to the final conflict.

The Awakening of the East

The same spirit that has been stirring up the West in preparation for the contest has been working in the East also. Year after year observers have pointed out the great changes taking place in Asia. September, 1909, the London _Contemporary Review_ said:

"The whole of Asia is in the throes of rebirth. At last we may see these three--the yellow race, the Indian race, and the Arab-Persian Mohammedan race. And all that is making for the Armageddon."

A writer in the May, 1913, issue of the London _Nineteenth Century and After_, reviewing the situation at the close of the Balkan War, said:

"A new spirit is abroad in the East. It arose on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific when j.a.pan proved that the great powers of Europe are not invulnerable. North and south and west it has spread, rousing China out of centuries of slumber, stirring India into ominous questioning, reviving memories of past glory in Persia, breeding discontent in Egypt, and luring Turkey onto the rocks."

With all the nations stirred up by the spirit agencies of the G.o.d of this world, the prophet next saw the armies of earth gathering to the last great battle. The prophecy continues:

"And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." Rev. 16:16.

Armageddon means the hill, or mount, of Megiddo, which overlooks the plain of Esdraelon, the historic battle ground of northern Palestine.

Carmack says of it:

"Megiddo was the military key of Syria; it commanded at once the highway northward to Phoenicia and Coele-Syria and the road across Galilee to Damascus and the valley of the Euphrates. It was moreover the chief town in a district of great fertility, the contested possession of many races. The vale of Kishon and the region of Megiddo were inevitable battle fields. Through all history they retained that qualification; there many of the great contests of southwestern Asia have been decided. In the history of Israel it was the scene of frequent battles. From such a.s.sociation the district achieved a dark n.o.bility; it was regarded as a pre-destined place of blood and strife; the poet of the Apocalypse has clothed it with awe as the ground of the final conflict between the powers of light and darkness."--_"Pre-Biblical Syria and Palestine," p. 82._

Thus Armageddon, as the "military key of Syria," marks Palestine and the Near East as the great international storm center in the final conflict.

The Political Storm Center

In vision, nearly two thousand years ago, the prophet saw the forces of the last days gathering around this pivotal region. Today observers recognize the eastern Mediterranean as indeed the pivotal point around which international interests involving East and West naturally revolve.

Some years ago, in discussing railway development in Asia and Africa, and the great highways of sea transportation, the London _Fortnightly Review_ said:

"Palestine is the great center, the meeting of the roads.

Whoever holds Palestine, commands the great lines of communication, not only by land, but also by sea."

Again, the Manchester _Guardian_, emphasizing the importance attaching to this strategic center, said during the great war:

"Egypt, as things are,--and the fact cannot be too often emphasized,--is the weak spot in our system of imperial defense by sea power. Not until Palestine is in our possession can Egypt be regarded as safe."--_Quoted in Literary Digest, Feb.

12, 1916, p. 369._

Other nations have recognized the strategic value of a territory so situated. Thus political considerations make this region pointed out by the prophecy a center of conflicting interests. Hogarth, in his book, "The Near East," calls it "the time-honored storm center of the eastern Mediterranean."

The Religious Storm Center

To the conflict of political interests is added the rivalry of religious sentiment. Commenting on the religious a.s.sociations of Palestine in relation to the international political situation, the London _Spectator_ some years ago stated the matter thus: