LIBRA RY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS i *4 H jBBpya. I rzi_* BBnMKrTiTc f l Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library L161—0-1096 STUDIES — IN THE — SCRIPTURES path of the just is as the shining light, which shinbth morb AND MORE UNTO THE PERFECT DAY." SERIES IV. of Vengeance. 144,000 Edition ** VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL RECOMPENSE SAITH THE LORD.*' “HE PUT ON RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A BREASTPLATE, . . . THE GARMENTS OFiVENGHANC® FOR CLOTHING, AND WAS CLAD WITH ZEAL AS A CLOKE ACCORDING TO THEIR DEEDS, PROPORTIONATELY HE WILL REPAY,- FURY TO HIS ADVERSARIES, RECOMPENSE TO HIS ENEMIES." ** SAY TO THEM OF A REVERENTIAL HEART, BE STRONG, FEAR NOT. BEHOLD YOUR GOD SHALL COMB WITH VENGEANCE, BUT WITH A DIVINE RECOMPENSE WILL HE COME AND SAVE YOU." —ROM. 12 : 19 : isaiah 59:17-20; 35 : 3-5-- INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION BROOKLYN, N. Y., U. S. A. TO THE KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS IN THE INTEREST OF HIS CONSECRATED “ SAINTS/* WAITING FOR THE ADOPTION, —AND OF— “ALL THAT IN EVERY PLACE CALL UPON THE LORD/* « THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH,” — AND OF —■ THE GROANING CREATION, TRAVAILING AND WAITING FOR THE MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD, THIS WORK IS DEDICATED. * To make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God.” “ Wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispen¬ sation of the fulness of the times He might gather together in one all things, under Christ.” Eph. 3 :4, s, 9 ; 1 : 8 - 10 . COPYRIGHT 1897. WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY, BROOKLYN, N. V., U. S. A. i N. B —A German translation of this voiume is in preparation. V a) _0 al' Lu .9 Stubies in tbe Scriptures. Christian people are becoming more and more awake to the fact that a great tidal wave of unbelief is sweep¬ ing over Christendom;—not the blasphemous atheism voiced by Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll, but the cultured kind represented irt the scholarship of our day, which makes the danger all the more insidious. Not only are the great Colleges and Seminaries un¬ dermining the faith of the better educated, but the Common School books, and especially those used in the High Schools, are similarly inculcating a distrust in the Bible, a contradiction of its teachings. For a college graduate of to-day to declare his faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures would bring upon him the scorn of his companions—a scorn which few would court, or could endure. At very best, a few will be found to claim that they believe that Jesus and his Apostles were sincere, though they blundered in quoting from the Old Testament as inspired. Such a belief in Jesus and his Apostles is no belief at all; for if present-day “higher critics” are wise enough to know when and where our Lord and his Apostles erred in their quotations from the Old Testament, then these wise men of our day are our proper guides, —more inspired than Jesus and his Apostles. Our Society, realizing the need, is seeking to do all in its power to stem the tide and lift up the Lord’s “standard for the people .” It has prepared six sets of Bible Studies (of which this volume is one) for Christian people of all denominations to use in lending a helping hand to all perplexed inquirers with whom they may, by God’s providence, come in contact. These are supplied at bare cost, and can be had direct from the Society’s warerooms or of its colporteurs, who are gradually reaching forth these helping hands far and near. These valuable “studies” are supplied at little more than two cents each;—io of them -well bound in a cloth case, embossed in silver, for 35 cents. The thought is this: As a Christian man or woman you have children or relatives or neighbors or friends open to your influence—perhaps, indeed, asking your counsel—asking, “How do we know that there is a God?” or, “What proofs have we that the Bible is inspired?” It is no longer wise to call these silly ques¬ tions, nor to ask, “Are you an infidel?” However competent you might be to prepare an¬ swers to these and a score of other questions, you may not have the needed time and opportunity to do so. How convenient then to step to your book-case, take down the proper study on the subject, and to say to the inquirer, Sit down and read that short study, and the whole matter of your question will be fully and satisfactorily settled; and if your doubts ever again arise come over and read the same afresh. Possibly you may be a member of an Epworth League or Christian Endeavor Society, or of a Baptist Young People’s Union, and may be called on for an essay on some Scripture topic. How convenient to select one among these numerous studies (covering almost every topic) and to find therein the appropriate Scriptures cited. Ministers use them thus when com¬ posing special sermons and addresses. Ministers who have large libraries touching every conceivable religious topic—many volumes costing $6 to $8 per volume—may not feel their need of these “Bible Studies,” but to others they are almost indis¬ pensable. Indeed, in addition to the price feature, which brings them within the reach of everybody—six volumes of over 3,000 pages for $2.25—the usual price of one such volume—they are written in pure, but simple English, whereas the “scholarly works” are replete with technical terms and only for the few. We invite Christian people of all denominations to join us in our work of extending these “helping hands” to the rising generation. A single friend or relative helped—rescued from doubt or unbelief—would repay the cost of these studies a thousand times. CONTENTS. STUDY I. Prophetic Mention of it.—The Time at Hand.—Object of this Volume.' General Observations. . is STUDY II. "THE DOOM OF BABYLON”—“CHRISTENDOM.” « MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.” Babylon.—Christendom.—The City.—The Empire.—The Mother.—Thb Daughters.—Babylon's Doom.—Its Dread Significance. . . .21 STUDY III. THE NECESSITY AND JUSTICE OF THE DAY OF VENGEANCE. Upon this Generation, Type and Antitype.—Thr Great Tribulation a Legitimate Effect from Preceding Causes.—The Responsibilities op * Christendom,” and Her Attitude Toward Them.— Of C ivil Authori* ties, of Religious Leaders, of the Various Ranks of the Masses of Men in Civilized Lands.—The Relationship of the Heathen Nations to Christendom and to the Trouble.—The Judgment of God.—“Vengeance is Mine : I Will Repay, Saith the Lord.”.47 STUDY IV. BABYLON ARRAIGNED BEFORE THE GREAT COURT. The Civil, Social and Ecclesiastical Powers of Babylon, Christendom, Now Being Weighed in the Balances.—The Arraignment of the Civil Powers.—The Arraignment of the Present Social System.—The Ar¬ raignment of the Ecclesiastical Powers.—Even Now, in the Midst of Her Festivities the Handwriting of her Doom is Traced and May Be Distinctly Read, Though the Trial is Not Yet Completed. . . 75 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 In¬ crease 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. iij STUDY VI. BABYLON BEFORE THE GREAT COURT. HER CONFUSION—ECCLESIASTICAL. The True Church, Known unto the Lord, has no Share in the Judgments of Babylon.—The Religious Situation of Christendom Presents no Hope¬ ful Contrast to the Political Situation.—The Great Confusion.—The Responsibility of Conducting the Defense Devolves upon the Clergy.— The Spirit of the Great Reformation Dead.—Priests and People in the Same Situation.—The Charges Preferred.—The Defense.— A Confeder¬ acy Proposed.—The End Sought.—The Means Adopted.—The General Spirit of Compromise.—The Judgment Going Against the Religious In¬ stitutions of Christendom. 157 STUDY VII. THE NATIONS ASSEMBLED AND THE PREPARATION OF THE ELEMENTS FOR THE GREAT FIRE OF GOD’S INDIGNATION. How and Why the Nations are Assembled.—The Social Elements Prepar¬ ing for the Fire.—The Heaping of Treasures.—The Increase of Pov¬ erty.—Social Friction Nearing Combustion.—A Word from the President of the American Federation of Labor.—The Rich sometimes too Severe¬ ly Condemned.—Selfishness and Liberty in Combination.—Independence as Viewed by the Rich and by the Poor.—Why Present Conditions Cannot Continue.—Machinery an Important Factor in Preparing for the Great Fire.—Female Competition.—Labor's View of the Situation, Reasonable and Unreasonable.—The Law of Supply and Demand In¬ exorable upon all.—The Outlook for Foreign Industrial Compe¬ tition Appalling.—Mr. Justin McCarthy’s Fears for England.—Kier Hardie, M. P., on the Labor Outlook in England.—Hon. Jos. Cham¬ berlain’s Prophetic Words to British Workmen.—National Aggression as Related to Industrial Interests.—Herr Lieeknecht on the Social and Industrial War in Germany.—Resolutions of the International Trades Union Congress.—Giants in These Days.—List of Trusts and Combines.—Barbaric Slavery vs. Civilized Bondage.—The Masses Be¬ tween the Upper and Nether Millstones.—The Conditions Universal and Beyond Human Power to Regulate. 269 STUDY VIII. THE CRIES OF THE REAPERS. The Conservative Element of Society.—Peasants, Farmers.—New Condi¬ tions in Christendom.—Agrarian Agitation.—Its Causes.—Gold and Silver Standards are Factors.—The Scripture Prediction Fulfilling. -—These Things Related to the Battle of The Great Day. . . 385 STUDY IX. THE CONFLICT IRREPRESSIBLE. THE TESTIMONY OF THE WORLDLY WISE. General Intelligence a New Factor in All Reckonings.—Senator Ingall’s Views.—Views of Rev. Lyman Abbott.—Views of Bishop New¬ man (M. E.).—Views of a Noted Jurist.—Views of Col. Robert Ingersoll. —Hon. J. L. Thomas on Labor Legislation. Wendell Phillips’ View.— Historian Macaulay’s Prediction.—Hon. Chauncey Depew’s Hopes.— Bishop Worthington [P. E.] Interviewed.—W. J Bryan's Reply.—An English View.—Edward Bellamy’s Statement of the Situation.—Rev. J. T. McGlynn’s Opinion.—Prof. Graham’s Outlook.—View's of a Justice of the Supreme Court.— A French View, a “ Social Melee.” . 413 STUDY X. PROPOSED REMEDIES—SOCIAL AND FINANCIAL. Prohibition and Female Suffrage.—Free Silver and Protective Tariff.— “Communism.”—“They Had All Things in Common.”—“Anarchism.”— “ Socialism ” or “Collectivism.”—Babbitt on Social Upbuilding.—Her¬ bert Spencer on Socialism.—Examples of Two Socialist Communities.— “ Nationalism.”—General Mechanical Education as a Remedy.—The “ Single Tax ” Remedy.—Henry George’s Answer to Pope Leo xiii. on Labor.—Dr. Lyman Abbott on the Situation.—An M. E. Bishop’s Sugges¬ tions.—Other Hopes and Fears.—The Only Hope.—“That Blessed Hope.”—The Attitude Proper for God’s People Who She These Things. —In the World but Not of It. .469 STUDY XI. THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT DAY. The Approaching Trouble Variously Symbolized by the Prophets.—Typk vied in Israel’s Fall, A. D. 70, and in the French Revolution.— Its Gen- eral Character and Extent.—The Lord's Great army.—“ The Worst of the Heathen.”—“ The Time of Jacob’s Trouble.”— His Deliverance.— The Discomfiture of Gog and Magog. .527 STUDY XII. OUR LORD’S GREAT PROPHECY. MATT. 24 ; MARK 13; LUKE 21 :5-36; 1 7 : 2O-37. Importance of This Prophecy.—The Conditions and Three Questions which Called It Forth.—Beware of False Christs.— A Brief Historic Foreview of Eighteen Centuries.—The Trouble in the Close of the Jewish Age, and that Closing the Gospel Age, Blended in the Language of all the Evangelists.—The Abomination of Desolation.—Flee to the Mountain.—Those with Child, etc.—Before Winter and the Sabbath.— Lo Here ! Lo There ! Believe them not.—TheTribulation of Those Days. —The Darkening of the Sun and Moon as Signs.—The Falling of the Stars.—Symbolic Fulfilments Also.—The Sign of the Son of Man.— What the Tribes of Earth Shall See.—The Fig Tree.—“ This Genera¬ tion.”—Watch!— “As in the Days of Noah, They Knew Not.”—Re¬ member Lot’s Wife.—One Taken and Another Left.—The Elect to be Gathered to the Truth.—Satan’s Household to be Broken Up. —Pro¬ visions for Feeding the Household of Faith. .... 563 STUDY XIII. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE KINGDOM, AND HOW IT WILL MANIFEST ITSELF. Walking by Faith.—Who Constitute the Kingdom.—Setting Up the Spir¬ itual Kingdom.—Setting up “ Princes in All the Earth.”—The Desire of All Nations.—The Intimate Communication Between the Kingdom and its Ministers or “ Princes.”—Jacob’s Ladder.—Moses’ Vail.—Great Changes Inaugurated.—Will there be Danger from so Much Power in the Hands of the New Potentate?—The Rod-of-Iron Rule, Flow Long? —The World’s Conversion.—A Nation Born in a Day.—“All that are in the Graves.”—The Increase of His Kingdom.—The Vicegerency Sur¬ rendered.—God’s Will Done on Earth.615. STUDY XIV. JEHOVAH’S FOOTSTOOL MADE GLORTOUS. God’s Footstool Defiled and Abandoned Because of Sin.—The Promised Revival of its Glory.—The Purchased Possession to be Restored.—Its Brightest Jewel.—The Reestablishment of Jehovah’s Feet “ On the Mount of Olives.”—The Resultant Blessings.—The Footstool Finally Glorious Indeed. ..647 “The Day oe vengeance.” STUDY I. Prophetic Mention of it.—The Time at Hand.—Object of this Volume.— General Observations. “ The day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my re¬ deemed is come.” “ It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.”—Isa. 63:4; 34:8. HUS the Prophet Isaiah refers to that period which Daniel (12:1) describes as “a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation;” of which Malachi (4:1) says, “Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble;” wherein the Apostle James (5:1-6) says the rich men shall weep and howl for the miseries that shall come upon them; the day which Joel (2:2) de¬ scribes as a day of clouds and thick darkness; which Amos (5 :2o) says is “ darkness and not light, even very dark and no brightness in it;” and to which the Lord refers (Matt. 24:21, 22) as a time of “great tribulation,” so ruinous in its character that, if it were not cut short, no flesh would survive its ravages. That the dark and gloomy day thus described by the prophets is a day of judgment upon mankind socially and nationally—a day of national recompenses—is clear from many scriptures, But while noting these, let the reader 12 The Day of Vengeance. bear in mind the difference between national judgment and individual judgment. While the nation is composed of Individuals, and individuals are largely responsible for the courses of nations, and must and do suffer greatly in the calamities which befall them, nevertheless, the judg¬ ment of the world as individuals will be distinft from its judgment as nations. The day of individual judgment for the world will be the Millennial age, as already shown.* Then, under the favorable conditions of the New Covenant, and granted a clear knowledge of the truth, and every possible assistance and incentive to righteousness, all men individually, and not colledtively as nations and other social organizations, will be on trial, or judgment, for eternal life. The judg¬ ment of nations, now instituted, is a judgment of men in their colledtive (religious and civil) capacities. The civil in¬ stitutions of the world have had a long lease of power; and now, as “ The Times of the Gentiles ’ ’ come to a close, they must render up their accounts. And the Lord’s judg¬ ment, expressed beforehand by the prophets, is that not one of them will be found worthy of a renewal of that lease or a continuance of life. The decree is that the dominion shall be taken from them, and that he whose right it is shall take the Kingdom, and the nations shall be given to him for an inheritance.—Ezek. 21 127; Dan. 7:27; Psa. 2:8; Rev. 2:26, 27. Hear the word of the Lord to the nations assembled be¬ fore him for judgment :—“ Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people; let the earth hear, and all that is therein: the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies.” “The Lord is ... an everlasting King: at his wrath the earth shall tremble. * Vol. 2., Chapter 8. The Day of Vengeance. 13 and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. ’ ’ “A noise shall come, even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations. . . . Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind [intense and com¬ plicated trouble and commotion] shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth.” “Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for my de¬ termination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth [the present social order] shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy; and then [afterward] will I turn unto the people a pure lan¬ guage; that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.”—Isa. 34:1,2; Jer. 10:10; 2 5 : 3 I- 331 Zeph. 3:8, 9; Luke 21:25. We have already shown* that the time is at hand, and that the events of the day of Jehovah are even now crowd¬ ing closely upon us. A few years more must of necessity ripen the elements now working in the direction of the predicted trouble; and, according to the sure word of prophecy, the present generation will witness the terrible crisis and pass through the decisive conflict. It is not our purpose, in calling attention to this subjedl, to arouse a mere sensation, or to seek to gratify idle curi¬ osity. Nor can we hope to produce that penitence in the hearts of men which would work a change in the present social, political and religious order of society, and thus avert the impending calamity. The approaching trouble is inevitable: the powerful causes are all at work, and no human power is able to arrest their operation and progress * Vol. 11. 14 The hay of Vengeance. toward the certain end: the effedts must follow as the Lord foresaw and foretold. No hand but the hand of God could stay the progress of the present current of events; and his hand will not do so until the bitter experiences of this conflidt shall have sealed their instrudlion upon the hearts of men. The main objedt of this volume is not, therefore, to enlighten the world, which can appreciate only the logic of events and will have no other; but to forewarn, fore¬ arm, comfort, encourage and strengthen ‘‘the household of faith,” so that they may not be dismayed, but may be in full harmony and sympathy with even the severest measures of divine discipline in the chastening of the world, seeing by faith the glorious outcome in the precious fruits of righteousness and enduring peace. The day of vengeance stands naturally related to the benevolent objedt of its divine permission, which is the overthrow of the entire present order of things, prepara¬ tory to the permanent establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, under Christ, the Prince of Peace. The Prophet Isaiah (63: 1-6), taking his standpoint down at the end of the harvest of the Gospel age, beholds a mighty Conqueror, glorious in his apparel (clothed with authority and power), and riding forth vidtoriously over all his enemies, with whose blood all his garments are stained. He inquires who the wonderful stranger is, say¬ ing, “ Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?” Edom, it will be remembered, was the name given to Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, after he sold his birth¬ right. (Gen. 25 :30-34.) The name was also subsequently applied both to the people descended from him and to the country in which they settled. (See Gen. 25:30; 36:1; The Day of Vengeance. 1 S Num. 20:18, 20, 21) Jer. 49:17.) Consequently, the name Edom is an appropriate symbol of a class who, in this age, have similarly sold their birthright; and that, too, for a consideration as trifling as the mess of pottage which influenced Esau. The name is frequently so used by the prophets in reference to that great company of pro¬ fessed Christians which is sometimes called “the Christian World, ’’ and “Christendom" ( 7 . e ., Christ’s Kingdom), which names the thoughtful should readily recognize as misnomers, betraying a great lack of understanding of the true objedl and character of Christ’s Kingdom, and also of the appointed time and manner of its establishment. They are simply boastful appellations which misrepresent the truth. Is the world indeed yet Christian ? or is even that part of it that claims the name?—the nations of Europe and America? Hear the thunder of cannon, the tread of marshalled hosts, the scream of bursting shells, the groans of the oppressed and the mutterings of the angry nations with deafening emphasis answer, No! Do these constitute Christ’s Kingdom—a true Christendom? Who indeed will take upon himself the burden of proof of such a monstrous proposition? The fallacy of the boast¬ ful claim is so palpable that any attempt at proof would so thoroughly dissolve the delusion that none who wish to perpetuate it would presume to undertake it. The fitness of the symbolic name “Edom" in its appli¬ cation to Christendom is very marked. The nations of so-called Christendom have had privileges above all the other nations, in that, to them, as to the Israelites of the previous age, have been committed the oracles of God. As a result of the enlightening influences of the Word of God, both diredtly and indirectly, have come to these nations all the blessings of civilization; and the presence in their midst of a few saints (a “little flock"), developed under i6 The Day of Vengeance its influence, has been as “the salt of the earth ” preserv¬ ing it to some extent from utter moral corruption. And these, by their godly examples, and by their energy in holding forth the Word of life, have been “the light of the world, * ’ showing men the way back to God and righteous¬ ness. But only a few in all these favored nations have made proper use of their advantages, which have come to them as an inheritance by reason of their birth in the lands so blessed with the influences of the Word of God, diredt and indirect. Like Esau, the masses of Christendom have sold their birthright of special and peculiar advantage. By the masses, we mean not only the agnostic portion of it, but also the great majority of worldly professors of the religion of Christ, who are Christians only in name, but who lack the life of Christ in them. These have preferred the mean morsels of present earthly advantage to all the blessings of communion and fellowship with God and Christ, and to the glorious inheritance with Christ promised to those who faithfully follow in his footsteps of sacrifice. These, though they are nominally God’s people,—the nominal spiritual Israel of the Gospel age, of which “Israel after the flesh” in the Jewish age was a type,—really have little or no re- spedt for the promises of God. These, although they are indeed a mighty host, bearing the name of Christ, and posing before the world as the Church of Christ; although they have built up great organizations representing various schisms in the professed body of Christ; although they have written massive volumes of un -“systematic theology,” and founded numerous colleges and seminaries for the teaching of these; and although they have done “many wonderful works” in the name of Christ, which were often, nevertheless, contrary to the teachings of his Word; —these constitute the Edom class who have sold their The Day of Vengeance. 7 7 birthright. The class includes almost all “ Christendom ’ ’ —all reared in the so-called Christian lands, who have not availed themselves of the privileges and blessings of the gospel of Christ and conformed their lives thereto. The remainder are the few justified, consecrated and faith¬ ful individuals who are joined to Christ by a living faith, and who, as “ branches, ” abide in Christ, the True Vine. These constitute the true Israel of God,—Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile. The symbolic Edom of Isaiah’s prophecy corresponds to the symbolic Babylon of Revelation, and of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Thus the Lord designates and describes that great system to which men ascribe the misleading name, Christendom—Christ’s Kingdom. As all of the land of Edom symbolizes all of “Christendom,” so its capital city, Bozrah, represented Ecclesiasticism, the chief citadel of Christendom. The prophet represents the Lord as a victorious warrior who makes a great slaughter in Edom, and specially in Bozrah. The name Bozrah signifies “sheep-fold.” Bozrah is even yet noted for its goats, and the slaughter of this day of vengeance is said to be of the “lambs and goats.” (Isa. 34:6.) The goats would correspond to the “ tares, ’ ’ while the lambs would represent the tribulation saints (Rev. 7:14; 1 Cor. 3 :1) who negleCted to use the opportunities granted them, and did not so run as to obtain the prize of their high calling; and who therefore, although not rejected of the Lord, were not accounted worthy to escape the trouble as matured “sheep”—called, chosen and faithful. The reply to the Prophet’s inquiry—“Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?”— is, “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” It is the same mighty one described by the Revelator (Rev. "9:11-16), the “King of kings and Lord of lords.” 2D i 3 The Day of Vengeance. Jehovah’s Anointed, our blessed Redeemer and Lord Jesus. For our information the Prophet inquires further, say¬ ing, “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winepress?” Hear the reply;—“I have trodden the winepress alone; and of •the nations there was none with me: and I trod them down in mine anger, and I trampled on them in my fury ; and their blood was sprinkled on my garments, and all my raiment have I stained; for the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed was come. And I looked, and there was no one to help, and I was aston¬ ished ; and there was no one to support; and then my own arm [power] aided me; and my fury, this it was that up¬ held me. And I stamped down nations in my anger, . . . brought down to the earth their vidtorious strength.” And the Revelator adds, “He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”—Rev. 19:15. The treading of the winepress is the last feature of har¬ vest work. The reaping and gathering is all done first. So this treading of the winepress of the wrath of God into which “the vine of the earth ” (the false vine, which has misappropriated the name Christian and Christ’s King¬ dom) is cast when its iniquitous clusters are fully ripe (Rev. 14:18-20), represents the last work of this eventful “har¬ vest ’ ’ period.* It pidlures to our minds the last features of the great time of trouble which shall involve all nations, and of which we are so abundantly forewarned in the Scriptures. The fadl that the King of kings is represented as tread¬ ing the winepress “ alone 11 indicates that the power exerted for the overthrow of the nations will be divine power, and not mere human energy. It will be God’s power that will punish the nations, and that will eventually “bring forth judgment [justice, righteousness, truth] unto vidtory.” Vol, ill., Chapter 6. The Day of Vengeance. 1 9 “ He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips [the force and spirit of his truth] shall he slay the wicked.” (Isa. 11:4; Rev. 19:15; Psa. 98:1.) To no human generalship can the honors of of the coming vidtory for truth and righteousness be ascribed. Wild will be the conflidl of the angry nations, and world-wide will be the battle-field and the distress of nations; and no human Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon will be found to bring order out of the dread¬ ful confusion. But in the end it will be known that the grand vidlory of justice and truth, and the punishment of iniquity with its just deserts, was brought about by the mighty power of the King of kings and Lord of lords. All of these things are to be accomplished in the closing days of the Gospel age, because, as the Lord states through the Prophet (Isa. 63 :4; 3 4:8), ‘‘ The year of my redeemed is come,” and “it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.” All through the Gospel age the Lord has taken cognizance of the controversy, the strife and contention, in nominal Zion. He has observed how his faithful saints have had to contend for truth and righteousness, and even to suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake at the hands of those who opposed them in the name of the Lord; and for wise purposes the Lord has hitherto refrained from interfering; but now the day of recompenses has come, and the Lord hath a controversy with them, as it is written, “For the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish.” (Hos. 4:1-3.) This prophecy, so true in its fulfilment 20 The Day of Vengeance. upon fleshly Israel, is doubly so in its fuller application to nominal spiritual Israel—Christendom. “A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth ; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations: he will plead with all flesh: he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord.” “Hear ye now what the Lord saith, . . . Hear ye, O mountains [kingdoms], the Lord’s controversy, and ye [hitherto] strong foundations of the earth [society]; for the Lord hath a controversy with his [professed] people. ” “ He will give those that are wicked to the sword.”—Jer. 25:31; Micah 6:1, 2. Hear again the Prophet Isaiah concerning this contro¬ versy:—“ Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein: the world, and all things that conic forth of it [all the selfish and evil things that come of the spirit of the world]; for the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath [taking the future standpoint] utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter; . . . and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.”—Isa. 34:1, 2, 7, 8. Thus the Lord will smite the nations and cause them to know his power, and he will deliver his faithful people who go not with the multitudes in the way of evil, but who wholly follow the Lord their God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And even this terrible judgment upon the world, as nations, thus dashing them to pieces as a potter’s vessel, will prove a valuable lesson to them when they come forth to an individual judgment under the Millennial reign of Christ. Thus, in his wrath, the Lord will remember mercy. STUDY II. “THE DOOM OF BABYLON”—“CHRISTENDOM.” “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.” Babylon.—Christendom.—The City.—The Empire.—The Mother.—The Daughters.—Babylon's Doom.—Its Dread Significance. ^THE DOOM of Babylon which Isaiah . . . saw.—Lift ye up a 1 . standard upon the high mountain, raise high your voice unto them, motion with the hand that they may enter into the gates of the princes. “ I have commanded my sanctified, I have also called my mighty ones for my anger; even them that rejoice in my highness. “ They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. “ There is a noise of tumult on the mountains, like as of a great peo¬ ple; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together; the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. “Wail ye; for the Day of Jehovah is at hand: it shall come as a de¬ struction from the Almighty. Therefore, all hands shall become weak, and every mortal’s heart shall melt: and they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall have throes, as a woman that travaileth : they shall wonder every man at his neighbor; red like flames shall their faces glow. “Behold, the Day of Jehovah cometh, direful with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners there¬ of out of it. “ For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not shed abroad her light. “ And I will visit on the world its evil, and on the wicked their 21 22 The Day of Vengeance. iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and the haughtiness of tyrants will I humble. I will make a man more pre¬ cious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall be removed out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, in the day of his fierce anger.”—Isa 13:1-13. Compare Rev. 16:14; Heb. 12:26-29. “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plum¬ met; and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.”—Isa. 28: 17. The various prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and the Apocalypse concerning Babylon are all in full ac¬ cord, and manifestly refer to the same great city. And since these prophecies had but a very limited fulfilment upon the ancient, literal city, and those of the Apocalypse were written centuries after the literal Babylon was laid in Tuins, it is clear that the special reference of all the pro¬ phets is to something of which the ancient literal Babylon was an illustration. It is clear also that, in so far as the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah concerning its down¬ fall were accomplished upon the literal city, it became in its downfall, as well as in its character, an illustration of the great city to which the Revelator points in the sym¬ bolic language of the Apocalypse (Chapters 17 and 18), and to which chiefly the other prophets refer. As already intimated, what to-day is known as Christen¬ dom is the antitype of ancient Babylon; and therefore the solemn warnings and predictions of the prophets against Babylon—Christendom—are matters of deepest concern to the present generation. Would that men were wise enough to consider them! Though various other sym¬ bolic names, such as Edom, Ephraim, Ariel, etc., are in the Scriptures applied to Christendom, this term, “Baby- ion,” is the one most frequently used, and its significance, confusion , is remarkably appropriate. The Apostle Paul .also points out a nominal, spiritual Israel in contradistinc- The Doom of Babylon. 2 3 tion to nominal fleshly Israel (See i Cor. 10:18; Gal. 6: 16; Rom. 9:8); and likewise there is a nominal spiritual Zion, and a nominal fleshly Zion. (See Isa. 33:14; Amos 6:1.) But let us examine some of the wonderful corres¬ pondencies of Christendom to Babylon, its type, including the diredf testimony of the Word of God on the subjedt. Then we will note the present attitude of Christendom, and the present indications of her foretold doom. The Revelator intimated that it would not be difficult to discover this great mystical city, because her name is in her forehead; that is, she is prominently marked, so that we cannot fail to see her unless we shut our eyes and refuse to look—“And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth.” (Rev. 17:5.) But before looking for this Mystical Babylon, let us first observe the typical Babylon, and then, with its prominent features in mind, look for the antitype. The name Babylon was applied, not only to the capi¬ tal city of the Babylonian empire, but also to the empire itself. Babylon, the capital, was the most magnificent, and probably the largest, city of the ancient world. It was built in the form of a square on both sides of the Euphrates river; and, for protedtion against invaders, it was surrounded by a deep moat filled with water and in¬ closed within a vast system of double walls, from thirty- two to eighty-five feet thick, and from seventy-five to three hundred feet high. On the summit were low towers, said to have been two hundred and fifty in number, placed along the outer and inner edges of the wall, tower facing tower; and in these walls were a hundred brazen gates, twenty-five on each side, corresponding to the number of streets which intersedted each other at right angles. The city was adorned with splendid palaces and temples and the spoils of conquest 24 The Day of Vengeance. Nebuchadnezzar was the great monarch of the Babylon¬ ian empire, whose long reign covered nearly half the period of its existence, and to him its grandeur and military glory were chiefly due. The city was noted for its wealth and magnificence, which brought a corresponding moral de¬ gradation, the sure precursor of its decline and fall. It was wholly given to idolatry, and was full of iniquity. The people were worshippers of Baal, to whom they offered human sacrifices. The deep degradation of their idolatry may be understood from God’s reproof of the Israelites when they became corrupted by contadl with them.—See Jer. 7:9; 19:5. The name originated with the frustrating of the plan for the great tower, called Babel (confusion), because there God confounded human speech; but the native etymology made' the name Babil, which, instead of being reproachful, and a reminder of the Lord’s displeasure, signified to them,— “the gate of God.” The city of Babylon attained a position of prominence and affluence as capital of the great Babylonian empire, and was called “the golden city,” “the glory of kingdoms, and the beauty of Chaldee’s excellency.”—Isa. 13:19; 14:4. Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded in the dominion by his grandson Belshazzar, under whose reign came the collapse which pride, fulness of bread and abundance of idleness always insure and hasten. While the people, all uncon¬ scious of impending danger, following the example of their king, were abandoning themselves to demoralizing excesses, the Persian army, under Cyrus, stealthily crept in through the channel of the Euphrates (from which they had turned aside the water), massacred the revelers, and captured the city. Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of that strange hand writing on the wall—“ Mene, Afene, Tekel , Upharstn" — which Daniel had interpreted only a few hours before to mean,—“God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished/):. The Doom of Babylon. 2 5 Thou art weighed in the balance and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Per¬ sians.’ ’ And so complete was the destrudlion of that great city that even its site was forgotten and was for a long time uncertain. Such was the typical city; and, like a great millstone cast into the sea, it was sunken centuries ago, never again to rise: even the memory of it has become a reproach and a by word. Now let us look for its antitype, first observing that the Scriptures clearly point it out, and then noting the apt¬ ness of the symbolism. In symbolic prophecy a “city” signifies a religious gov¬ ernment backed by power and influence. Thus, for instance, the “holy city, the new Jerusalem,” is the symbol used to represent the established Kingdom of God, the overcomers of the Gospel Church exalted and reigning in glory. The Church is also, and in the same connexion, represented as a woman, “the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” in power and glory, and backed by the power and authority of Christ, her husband. “And there came unto me one of the seven angels . . . saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride , the Lamb’s wife. And he . . . showed me that great city , the holy Jerusalem . ”—Rev. 21:9, 10. This same method of interpretation applies to mystical Babylon, the great ecclesiastical kingdom, “that great city” (Rev. 17:1-6), which is described as a harlot, a fallen woman (an apostate church;—for the true Church is a virgin), exalted to power and dominion, and backed, to a considerable degree, by the kings of the earth, the civil powers, which are all more or less intoxicated with her spirit and dodlrine. The apostate church lost her virgin purity. Instead of waiting, as an espoused and chaste virgin, for exaltation with the heavenly Bridegroom, she associated her¬ self with the kings of the earth and prostituted her virgin s6 The Day of Vengeance. purity—both of dodtrineand charadfer—to suit the world’s ideas; and in return she received, and now to some extent exercises, a present dominion, in large measure by their support, diredt and indiredt. This unfaithfulness to the Lord, whose name she claims, and to her high privilege to be the “chaste virgin” espoused to Christ, is the occasion of the symbolic appellation, “harlot,” while her influence as a sacerdotal empire, full of inconsistency and confusion, is symbolically represented under the name Babylon, which, in its widest sense, as symbolized by the Babylonian em¬ pire, we promptly recognize to be Christendom; while in its more restricted sense, as symbolized by the ancient city Babylon, we recognize to be the nominal Christian Church. The fact that Christendom does not accept the Bible term “Babylon,” and its significance, confusion, as ap¬ plicable to her, is no proof that it is not so. Neither did ancient Babylon claim the Bible significance—confusion. Ancient Babylon presumed to be the very “gate of God;” but God labeled it, Confusion (Gen. 11:9): and so it is with her antitype to-day. She calls herself Christendom, the gateway to God and everlasting life, while God calls her Babylon—confusion. It has been very generally and very properly claimed by Protestants that the name “Babylon” and the prophetic description are applicable to Papacy, though recently a more compromising disposition is less inclined so to apply it. On the contrary, every effort is now made on the part of the sedts of Protestantism to conciliate and imitate the Church of Rome, and to affiliate and cooperate with her. In so doing they become part and parcel with her, while they justify her course and fill up the measure of her iniquities, just as surely as did the scribes and Pharisees fill up the measure of their fathers who killed the prophets. (Matt. 23: 31, 32.) All this, of course, neither Protestants nor 27 The Doom of Babylon. Papists are ready to admit, because in so doing they would be condemning themselves. And this fadt is recognized by the Revelator, who shows that all who would get a true view of Babylon must, in spirit, take their position with the true people of God “in the wilderness”—in the con¬ dition of separation from the world and worldly ideas and mere forms of godliness, and in the condition of entire consecration and faithfulness to and dependence upon God alone. “ So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilder¬ ness ; and I saw a woman, . . . Babylon.—Rev. 17:1-5. And since the kingdoms of the civilized world have sub¬ mitted to be largely dominated by the influence of the great ecclesiastical systems, especially Papacy, accepting from them the appellation “Christian nations” and “Christendom,” and accepting on their authority the dodtrine of the divine right of kings, etc., they also link themselves in with great Babylon, and become part of it, so that, as in the type, the name Babylon applied, not only to the city, but also to the whole empire, here also the symbolic term “Babylon ” ap¬ plies, not only to the great religious organizations, Papal and . Protestant, but also, in its widest sense, to all Christendom. Hence this day of judgment upon mystic Babylon is the day of judgment upon all the nations of Christendom; its calamities will involve the entire structure—civil, social and religious; and individuals will be affedted by it to the extent of their interest in, and dependence upon, its various organizations and arrangements. The nations beyond Christendom will also feel the weight of the heavy hand of recompense in that they also are to some extent bound in with the nations of Christendom by various interests, commercial and others; and justly, too, in that they also have failed to appreciate what light they have seen, and have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Thus, as the Prophet declared, “All 28 The Day of Vengeance. the earth [societyj’shall be devoured with the fire of God’s jealousy” (Zeph. 3:8); but against Babylon, Christendom, because of Jier greater responsibility and misuse of favors received, will burn the fierceness of his wrath and indigna¬ tion. (Jer. 51:49.) “At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among the nations.”—Jer. 50: 46. BABYLON-MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS. But some sincere Christians, not yet awake to the decline of Protestantism, and who do not realize the relationship of the various sedts to Papacy, but who perceive the unrest and the dodlrinal upheavals in all the religious systems, may still be anxiously inquiring,—“If all Christendom is to be involved in the doom of Babylon, what will become of Protestantism, the result of The Great Reformation?” This is an important question; but let the reader consider that Protestantism, as it exists to-day, is not the result of the Great Reformation, but of its decline; and it now partakes to a large degree of the disposition and charadter of the Church of Rome, from which its various branches sprang. The various Protestant sedts (and we say it with all due deference to a comparatively few devout souls within them, whom the Lord designates as “ wheat ,” in contradistinction to the overwhelming numbers of “ tares ”) are the true daughters of that degenerate system of nominal Christi anity, the Papacy, to which the Revelator makes reference in applying to her the name “Mother of harlots.” (Rev. 17:5.) And let it not pass unobserved that both Roman ists and Protestants now freely own the relationship of mother and daughters, the former continually styling her- self the Holy Mother Church, and the latter, with pleased complacency, endorsing the idea, as shown by many pub- The Doom of Babylon. 29 lie utterances of leading Protestant clergymen and laymen. Thus they “glory in their shame,” apparently all unmindful of the brand which they thus accept from the Word of God, which designates the Papacy as “the mother of har¬ lots.” Nor does the Papacy, in claiming her office oi motherhood, ever seem to have questioned her right to that title, or to have considered its incompatibility with her profession still to be the only true church, which the Script¬ ures designate a “ virgin ” espoused to Christ. Her acknowl¬ edged claims of motherhood are to the everlasting shame of both herself and her offspring. The true Church, which God recognizes, but which the world knows not, is still a virgin ; and from her pure and holy estate no daughter systems have ever sprung. She is still a chaste virgin, true to Christ, and dear to him as the apple of his eye. (Zech. 2:8; Psa. 17:6, 8.) The true Church cannot be pointed out anywhere as a co?npany from which all the tares have been separated, but it consists only of the true “wheat,” and all such are known unto God, whether the world recognizes them or not. But let us see how the Protestant systems sustain this re¬ lationship of daughters to Papacy. Since Papacy, the mother, is not a single individual, but a great religious system, in keeping with the symbol we should expedl to see other religious systems answering to the illustration of daughters of similar charadler—not, of course, so old, nor necessarily so depraved, as Papacy—but, nevertheless, “har¬ lots” in the same sense; i. e., religious systems claiming to be either the espoused virgin or the bride of Christ, and yet courting the favor and receiving the support of the world, at the price of disloyalty to Christ. To this description the various Protestant organizations fully correspond. They are the great daughter systems. As already pointed out* the birth of these various daugh- * Vol. in., p. 112. 30 The Day of Vengeance. ter systems came in connexion with reforms from the coi- niptions of the mother Church. The daughter systems parted from the mother under circumstances of travail, and were born virgins. However, they contained more than true reformers; they contained many who still had the spirit of the mother, and they inherited many of her false doc¬ trines and theories; and it was not long until they fell into many of her bad practices and proved their charadters true to the prophetic stigma—“harlots.” But let it not be forgotten that while the various reforma¬ tion movements did valuable work in the “cleansing of the sandtuary,” yet only the temple class, the sandtuary class, has ever been the true Church, in God’s reckoning. The great human systems, called churches, have never been more than nominally the Church. They all belong to a false system which counterfeits, misrepresents and hides from the world the true Church, which is composed only of fully consecrated and faithful believers, who trust in the merit of the one great sacrifice for sins. These are to be found scattered here and there within and outside of these human systems, yet always separate from their worldly spirit. They are the “wheat” class of our Lord’s parable, clearly dis¬ tinguished by him from the “tares.” Not comprehending the real charadter of these systems, as individuals they have humbly walked with God, taking his Word as their coun¬ selor and his spirit as their guide. Nor have they ever been at ease in nominal Zion, where they have often painfully ob¬ served that the spirit of the world, operating through the unrecognized “ tare ” element, endangered spiritual pros¬ perity. They are the blessed mourners in Zion, to whom God hath appointed “beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning.” (Matt. 5:4; Isa. 61:3.) It is only in this “harvest” time that the separation of this class from the “tare” element is due; for it was the Lord’s The Doom of Babylon. 3 r purpose to “let both grow together until the harvest [the time in which we are now living].”—Matt. 13:30. Hence it is that this class is now being awakened to a realization of the real charadter of these condemned systems. As previously shown,* the various reform move¬ ments, as predidted by the prophet (Dan. 11 :32~35), were “overcome by flatteries:” each one, after accomplishing a measure of cleansing, stopped short; and, so far as they found it practicable, they imitated the example of the Church of Rome in courting and receiving the favor of the world at the expense of their virtue,—their fidelity to Christ, the true Head of the Church. Church and state again made common cause, in a measure united their worldly interests, at the expense of the real, the spiritual, interests of the church; and progress and reform in the church were again at a stand-still. Indeed, a retrograde movement set in, so that to-day many of them are much farther from the proper standard, both of faith and pradtice, than in the days of their founders. Some of the reformed churches were even admitted to share in authority and power with earthly rulers; as, for in¬ stance, the Church of England, and the Lutheran Church in Germany. And those who have not succeeded to that extent have (as in this country, for instance) made many compromising overtures to the world for smaller favors. It is also true that while the world powers have ad¬ vanced the worldly ambitions of the unfaithful church, the church has also freely admitted the world to her communion and fellowship; and so freely, that the baptized worldlings now form the large majority of her membership, filling nearly every important position, and thus dominating her. This was the disposition which degraded the church in the beginning of the age, which brought about the great * Vol. in., Chapter 4. 32 The Day of Vengeance falling away (2 Thes. 2:3, 7-10), and which gradually, out rapidly, developed the Papal system. This loose charadler, early assumed by the various reiorm movements, and which gradually developed sectarian organ¬ izations, continues to the present day; and the more tnese organizations grow in wealth, numbers and influence the further they fall from Christian virtue and develop the arro¬ gance of their mother. A few earnest Christians in the various sedls observe this to some extent, and with shame and sorrow confess and lament it. They see that every possible effort is made by the various sectarian organiza¬ tions to please the world and to court its favor and secure its patronage. Elegant and costly church edifices, lofty spires, chiming bells, grand organs, fine furnishments, art¬ istic choirs, polished orators, fairs, festivals, concerts, plays, lotteries and questionable amusements and pastimes are all arranged with a view to securing the world’s approval and support. The grand and wholesome dodtrines of Christ are thrust to the background, while false dodlrines and sensational topics take their place in the pulpit, the truth is ignored and forgotten, and the spirit of it lost. In these particulars how truly the daughters resemble the mother organization! As one among numerous evidences of the freedom and even pride with which this relationship of the Protestant sedls to Papacy is owned, we give the following sentiments of a Presbyterian clergyman, quoted from one of his sermons as published by the daily press. The gentleman said:— “Wince as you will, you must admit that this (the Catholic Church) is the Mother Church. She possesses an unbroken history extending back to the time of the Apostles. [Yes, that is where the apostacy began. 2 Thes. 2:7, 8.] For every fragment of religious truth which we prize , we are indebted to her as the depository. If she has no claims to being the true Church, then are we bastards and not sons. The Doo??i of Babylon. 33 “Talk about missionaries to labor amongst Romanists! I would as soon think of sending missionaries amongst Methodists and Episcopalians and United Presbyterians and Lutherans for the ourpose of converting them into Pres¬ byterians. ’ ’ Yes, nearly all the dodtrinal errors so tenaciously held by Protestants were brought with them from Rome, though beyond the gross errors of Papacy, such as the sacrifice of the mass, the worship of saints, of the virgin Mary and of images, the auricular confession, the granting of indulgences, etc., considerable progress was made by each of the reform movements. Butalas! Protestants of to-day are not only will¬ ing, but anxious, to make almost any compromise to secure the favor and assistance of the old “mother” from whose tyranny and villainy their fathers fled three centuries ago. Even those principles of truth which at first formed the ground of protest are being gradually forgotten or openly repudiated. The very foundation dodtrine of “justification by faith” in the “continual sacrifice” is rapidly giving way to the old Papal dogma of justification by works and by the sacrilegious sacrifice of the mass.* And numbers both in pulpits and in pews now openly declare that they have no faith in the efficacy of the precious blood of Christ as the ransom-price for sinners. The claims of apostolic succession and clerical authority are almost as presumptuously set forth by some of the Pro¬ testant clergy as by the Papal priesthood. And the right of individual private judgment,—the very fundamental principle of the protest against Papacy, which led to the Great Reformation,—is now almost as strenuously opposed by Protestants as by Papists. Yet Protestants are fully aware that it was in the exercise of the right of private judgment that the Reformation was begun and for a short time carried * The latter, the mass, amongst Episcopalians—“ High Church”— in Great Britain and the United States. 3D 34 The Day of Vengeance. forward, although later a presumptuous domination of rec¬ ognized leaders retarded the wheels of progress, and has, ever since, kept them stridtly within the traditional lines and put a ban upon all who fearlessly step beyond them. Thus viewed, Protestantism is no longer a protest against the mother church, as at first. As a writer for the press recently remarked,—“ The ism is still with us, but what has become of the protest ? * Protestants seem to have forgot¬ ten,—for they truly ignore,—the very grounds of the original protest, and, as systems, they are fast drifting back toward the open arms of the ‘ 4 Holy (?) Mother Church,” where they are freely invited and assured of a cordial reception. ‘ 1 Let us hold out to you our hand affedtionately’ ’ (says Pope Leo to Protestants in his recent* Encyclical addressed “To The Princes and Peoples of the Earth”), “and invite you to the unity which never failed the Catholic church, and which never can fail. Long has our common mother called you to her breast; long have all the Catholics of the uni¬ verse awaited you with the anxiety of brotherly love. . . . Our heart, more even than our voice, calls to you, dear brethren, who for three centuries past have been at issue with us in the Christian faith.” Again, in his Encyclical to the Roman church in Amer¬ ica,f Pope Leo says, “Our thoughts now turn to those who dis¬ sent from us in matters of Christian faith. . . . How solicitous we are of their salvation; with what ardor of soul we wish that they should be at length restored to the embrace of the Church, the common mother of all! . . . Surely we ought not to leave them to their fancies, but with mildness and charity draw them over, using every means of persuasion to induce them to examine closely every part of the Catholic dodtrine and to free themselves from preconceived notions.” * 1894. f 1895. The Doom of Babylon. 35 And in his “Apostolic Letter to the English People” (1895) he gives utterance to the following prayer, ‘ ‘O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England. . . . O sorrowful Mother, intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy Son”— i. e. f himself, the Pope. In furtherance of this same plan, “Missions for Protest¬ ants” have been started under the charge of what are known as the “Paulist Fathers.” These meetings have been and are being held in the large cities. They are con¬ duced along lines of conciliation and explanation; writ¬ ten questions from Protestants are requested and answered publicly; and traCs for Protestants are freely distributed. Protestants are praCically conceding the Romish position, and really have no answer to make; and any one who can and does answer, and refers to fa< 5 ts, is denounced as a dis¬ turber by both Protestants and Catholics. Every intelligent person can see how easily Protestant¬ ism is being ensnared by this cunning craftiness, and how perceptibly the popular current is set toward the Church of Rome, which is changed indeed in voice and power, but unchanged in heart, and still justifying the Inquisition and other of her methods of the dark ages by claiming her right, as ruler of earth, to punish heretics as she pleases. It is clear, therefore, that while many faithful souls, ignorant of the real state of the case, have reverently and devoutly worshipped God within these Babylon systems, nevertheless, this does not alter the faC that they are, one and all, “harlot” systems. Confusion reigns in them all; and the name Babylon aptly fits the entire family—mother, daughters and accomplices, the nations styled Christendom.. -—Rev. 18:7; 17:2—6, 18. 36 The Day of Vengeance. Let it be borne in mind, then, that in the great politico- ecclesiastical systems which men call Christendom, but which God calls Babylon, we have not only the founda¬ tion but also the superstructure and the crowning pinnacle, of the present social order. This is implied in the gener¬ ally accepted term, Christendom, which of late is applied, not only to those nations which support Christian seCts by legislation and taxation, but also to all nations which show tolerance to Christianity without in any definite manner favoring or supporting it; as, for instance, these United States. The dodtrine of “the divine right of kings,’’ taught or supported by almost every se< 5 t, is the foundation of the old civil system, and has long given authority, dignity and stability to the kingdoms of Europe; and the dodtrine of the divine appointment and authority of the clergy has hindered God’s children from progressing in divine things and bound them by the chains of superstition and ignor¬ ance to the veneration and adoration of fallible fellow- beings, and to their dodlrines, traditions and interpreta¬ tions of God’s Word. It is this entire order of things that is to fall and pass away in the battle of this great day -—the order of things which for centuries has held the peo¬ ple docile under the ruling powers, civil, social and relig¬ ious. All this has been by God’s permission (not by his appointment and approval, as they claim). But though an evil in itself, it has served a good, temporary purpose in preventing anarchy, which is immeasurably worse, because men were not prepared to do better for themselves, and because the time for Christ’s Millennial Kingdom had not yet come. Hence God permitted the various delusions to gain credence in order to hold men in check until the “The Time of the End”—the end of “The Times of the Gentiles.” The Doom of Babylon. Babylon’s doom. 37 Upon the prophetic page we may clearly read the doom of Babylon, Christendom; and it is none the less clearly expressed in the signs of the times. That her destruction will be sudden, violent and complete is thus forcibly stated:— “ And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great mill¬ stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus, with violence, shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.” (Rev. 18 : 8, 21; Jer. 51:63, 64, 42, 24-26.) And yet that it was to undergo a gradual consuming process is shown by Daniel (7:26),—“ But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” The Papal dominion (and much of the abjeCt reverence of the people for ecclesiasticism in general), as already shown,* was broken down at the beginning of the Time of the End— 1799; and, though the subsequent process of consumption has been slow, and there have been occasional signs of ap¬ parent recovery, which never seemed more flattering than at present, the assurance of Papacy’s final destruction is posi¬ tive, and its death-struggle will be violent. First, however, she must attain more of her old-time prestige, which will be shared with a confederated association of her daughters. Together they will be lifted up, that together they may be violently thrown down. That the punishment of Babylon will be great is assured. It is written prophetically that, “ Great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.” “And he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.” “Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her, even as she rewarded you, * Vol. in., p. 40. The Day of Vengeance. and double unto her double according to her works. In the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.’” (Rev. 16:19; 19:2; 1815-7.) While the broad¬ est application of this language is, of course, to Papacy, it also involves all who are in any degree in confederation or sympathy with her. All such will be sharers in her plagues. (Rev. 18:4.) Although the kings of the earth have hated the harlot and cast her off (Rev. 17:16), still she says, “I sit a queen, and am no widow,” loudly boasts of her right to rule the nations, and claims that her former power will soon be regained. Of her boastings and threats the following from a Catholic journal of recent date is a fair sample:— “The Papacy will regain its temporal sovereignty, be¬ cause it is useful and convenient to the Church. It gives the head executive of the church a fuller liberty and a fuller sway. The Pope can be no king’s subjedt long. It is not in keeping with the divine office to be so. It cramps him and narrows his influence for good. Europe has acknowl¬ edged this influence, and will be forced to bow to it in greater times of need than this. Social upheavals, and the red hand of anarchy, will yet crown Leo or his successor with the reality of power which the third circle symbol¬ izes, and which was once recognized universally.” Yes, as the day of trouble draws on, ecclesiasticism will endeavor to use its power and influence more and more to secure its own political welfare, by its control of the turbu¬ lent elements of society; but in the crisis of the near future the lawless element will spurn all conservative influence and break over all restraints, the red hand of Anarchy will do its dreadful work, and Babylon, Christendom, social, polit¬ ical and ecclesiastical, shall fall. The Doom of Babylon. 39 “ Therefore, ’ ’ says the inspired writer,— i. e ., because she will violently struggle for life and power,—“ shall her plagues come in one day [suddenly], death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire [sym¬ bolic fire—destructive calamities], for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.”—Rev. i8:S. “Thus saith the Lord, Behold I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me [all in sympathy with Babylon], a destroying wind; and I will send into Babylon fanners that shall fan her, and shall empty her land: for in the day of' trouble they shall be against her round about. . . . De¬ stroy ye utterly all her host.”—Jer. 51 u-3. “And I will render unto Babylon [to the Papacy spec¬ ially], and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea [or Babylonia —Christendom—to all the nations of the so-called Christ¬ ian world] all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the Lord.” (Jer. 51 124.) As we call to mind the long train of evils by which Babylon has op¬ pressed and worn out the saints of the most High (the true Zion), and how it is written that God will avenge his own eleCt, and that speedily; that, according to their deeds, he will repay recompense to his enemies; that he will render unto Babylon a recompense (Luke 18:7, 8; Isa. 59:18; Jer. 51:6), we begin to realize that some fearful calamity awaits her. The horrible decrees of Papacy,—the reproach and reward of which Protestantism also is incurring by her present compromising association with her,—for the burn¬ ing, butchering, banishing, imprisoning and torturing of the saints in every conceivable way, executed with such fiendish cruelty in the days of her power by the arm of the State, whose power she demanded and received, await the full measure of just retribution; for she is to receive “double for all her sins.” And the nations (of Christendom) which 40 The Day of Ve?igeance. have participated in her crimes and guilt must drink with her to the dregs that bitter cup. “ And I will punish Bel in Babylon [the god of Babylon, —the Pope]; and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up [He shall repudiate in his ex¬ tremity the “great swelling words” and blasphemous titles which he has long appropriated to himself—that he is the infallible vicar, “ vice-gerent of Christ,” “another God on earth,” etc.], and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him. Yea, the wall of Babylon [the civil power that once defended it, and that in a measure does so still] shall fall. . . . Thus saith the Lord of hosts: the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire [shall be destroyed]; and the people shall labor in vain, and the folk in the fire [to prop and save the walls of Babylon], and they shall be weary.” (Jer. 51544, 58.) This shows the blindness of the people, and the hold Babylon has on them, that they will labor to uphold her against their own best interests; but notwithstanding her desperate struggle for life and to con¬ serve her prestige and influence, like a great millstone cast into the sea, Babylon shall go down, never again to rise; “for strong is the Lord God that judgeth her.” Only then will the people realize their wonderful deliverance, and that her overthrow was by the hand of God.—Rev. 19: 1, 2. Such is the doom of Babylon, Christendom, which Isaiah and other prophets foresaw and foretold. And it is in view of the fa£t that within her borders are many of his own dear people that the Lord, through his prophet (Isa. 13: 1, 2), commands his sandtified ones, saying, “Lift ye up a standard [the standard of the blessed gospel of truth, di¬ vested of the traditional errors that have long beclouded it] upon the high mountain [among those who constitute The Doom of Babylon. 4i the true embryo Kingdom of God] ; raise high your voice unto them [earnestly and widely proclaim this truth unto the bewildered sheep of the Lord’s flock who are still in Babylon ]; motion with the hand [let them see the power of the truth exemplified, as well as hear its proclamation], that they [the willing and obedient, the true sheep] may go into the gates of the nobles [that they may realize the bless¬ ings of the truly consecrated and heirs of the heavenly Kingdom].’ * So the warning voice goes forth to “him that hath an ear to hear.” We are in the time of the last or Laodicean stage of the great nominal gospel church of wheat and tares. (Rev. 3:14-22.) She is upbraided for her luke¬ warmness, pride, spiritual poverty, blindness and naked¬ ness, and counseled to forsake quickly her evil ways before it is too late. But the Lord knew that only a few would hearken to the warning and call; and so the promise of reward is given, not to the whole mass of those addressed^ but to the few who still have an ear for the truth, and who overcome the general disposition and spirit of Babylon,— “ To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear [a disposition to hearken to and heed the word of the Lord], let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” But upon those who have no ear, no disposition to hear, the Lord will pour his indignation. That, with few individual exceptions, the attitude of all Christendom is that of pride, self-righteousness and self- complacency is manifest to the most casual observer. She still saith in her heart, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. ’ ’ She still glorifies herself and lives deliciously. She says, “ I am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing,” and does not realize 42 The Day of Vengeance. that she is “wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Nor does she heed the counsel of the Lord to buy of him (at cost of self-sacrifice) gold tried in the fire (the true riches, the heavenly riches, “ the divine nature ’ ’), and white raiment (the robe of Christ’s imputed righteous¬ ness, which so many are now discarding, to appear before God in their own unrighteousness), and to anoint her eyes with eyesalve (complete consecration and submission to the divine will as expressed in the Scriptures), that she might see and be healed.—Rev. 3:18. The spirit of the world has so fully taken possession of the ecclesiastical powers of Christendom, that reformation of the systems is impossible; and individuals can escape their fate only by a prompt and timely withdrawal from them. The hour of judgment is come, and even now up¬ on her walls the warning hand of divine providence is tracing the mysterious words, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.”—GOD HATH NUMBERED THY KING¬ DOM AND FINISHED IT! THOU ART WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES AND FOUND WANTING ! And the Prophet (Isaiah 47) now speaks, saying,— “ Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon [said in derision of her claim to purity] ; sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans ; for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. . . . Thy nakedness shall be uncovered; yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. ... Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. . . . Thou saidst, I shall be a lady forever, so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. “ Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleas¬ ures ; that dwellest carelessly; that sayest in thine heart, The Doom of Babylon. 43 I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children. But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood [compare Rev. 18:8] : in their full measure shall they come upon thee despite of the multi¬ tude of thy sorceries, despite of the very great abundance of thy enchantments; for thou hast trusted in thy wicked¬ ness : thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy [worldly] wis¬ dom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee : and thou hast said in thy heart, I am, and none else beside me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth : and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not [previously] know.”—Compare Verse 9 and Rev. 18:7. Such being the solemn declarations against Babylon, well will it be for all who heed the warning voice and the instrudtion of the Lord to his people yet within her borders ; for “ Thus saith the Lord: . . . Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; he will render unto her a recompense. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed. . . . We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her; . . . for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. . . . My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord.”—Jer. 51 :i, 6, 8, 9, 45. Com¬ pare Rev. 17:3-6; 18:1-5. For those who would obey this command to come out of Babylon, there is but one place of refuge; and that is, not in a new se6t and bondage, but in “The secret place of the Most High”—the place or condition of entire consecra¬ tion, typified by the Most Holy of the Tabernacle and 44 The Day of Vengea?ice. Temple. (Psa. 91.) “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’’ And such may truly say in the midst of all the calamities of this evil day, “The Lord is my refuge and my fortress, my God: in him will I trust.” To come out of Babylon cannot mean a physical emi¬ gration from the midst of the nations of Christendom; for not only Christendom, but all the earth, is to be de¬ voured with the fire [the fiery trouble] of the Lord’s anger, though the fiercest of his wrath will be against the enlight¬ ened nations of Christendom, who knew, or at least had abundant opportunity to know, the Lord’s will. The idea of the command is a separation from all the binding yokes of Christendom—to have no part nor lot in her civil, social or religious organizations; and this, both from principle and from a wise and divinely directed policy. On principle, as soon as the increased light of harvest truth illuminates our minds and makes manifest the deform¬ ities of error, we must be loyal to the former and discard the latter by withdrawing all our influence and support from it. This implies the withdrawal from the various religious organizations, whose dodtrines misrepresent and make void the Word of God; and it places us in the attitude of aliens toward all existing civil powers; not op¬ posing aliens, however, but peaceable and law-abiding aliens, who render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s; aliens whose citizenship is in heaven, and not upon earth; and whose influence is always favorable to righteousness, justice, mercy and peace. Principle in some cases, and policy in others, would separate us from the various social arrangements among men. On principle, it would set free any who are en¬ tangled with the oaths and obligations of the various The Doom of Babylon. 45 secret societies; for ye who were in darkness are now light in the Lord, and should walk as children of light, having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reproving them.—Eph. 5 16-17. But as we come closer and closer to the great crisis of this “evil day” it will doubtless be manifest to those who view the situation from the standpoint of “ the sure word of prophecy,” that, even if there be cases where principle is not involved, it will be the part of wisdom to withdraw from the various social and financial bondages which must inevitably succumb to the ravages of world-wide revolution and anarchy. In that time (and, bear in mind, it will probably be within the next twelve years) financial insti¬ tutions, including insurance companies and beneficial socie¬ ties, will go down; and “treasures ’ ’ in them will prove utterly worthless. These caves and rocks of the mountains will not furnish the desired protedtion from the wrath of this “evil day, ’ ’ when the great waves of popular discontent are lash¬ ing and foaming against the mountains (kingdoms—Rev. 6 : 15-17 ; Psa. 46:3); and the time will come when men “shall cast their silver into the streets, and their gold shall be as though it were unclean [margin]: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not [with their wealth] be able to satisfy their souls, neither [to] fill their bowels: because it; was the stumbling block of their iniquity.” (Ezek. 7:19. Compare also verses 12-18, 21, 25-27.) Thus will the Lord make a man’s life more precious than fine gold, even the golden wedge of Ophir.—Isa. 13:12. But those who have made the Most High their refuge need not fear the approach of such times. He shall cover them with his feathers, and under his wings shall they trust; yea, he will show them his salvation. As the wildest confusion approaches they may comfort their hearts with the The Day of Vengeance . 46 blessed assurance that“ God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble;” and say, “Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed [though the present social order be entirely overthrown]; and though the mountains [kingdoms] be carried into the midst of the sea [overwhelmed in anarchy] ; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” God will be in the midst of his faith¬ ful saints, who make him their refuge, and they shall not be moved. God will help Zion early in the Millennial morning; sheshallbe “ accounted worthy to escape all those things coming upon the world.”—Psa. 46; Luke 21:36. “THE GATHERING STORMS OF DOUBT.” “ Our Father, while our hearts unlearn The creeds that wrong thy name, Still let our hallowed altars burn With faith’s undying flame. “ Help us to read our Master’s will Through every darkening stain That clouds his sacred image still. And see him once again. “ The brother man, the pitying friend, Who weeps for human woes, Whose pleading words of pardon blend With cries of raging foes. “ If ’mid the gathering storms of doubt Our hearts grow faint and cold, The strength we cannot live without Thy love will not withold. “Our prayers accept; our sins forgive; Our youthful zeal renew ; Shape for us holier lives to live, And nobler work to do.” The above original verses were read by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes before the Young Men’s Christian Union, Boston, June I, ’93. They indicate that he realized somewhat the darkness overhanging Babylon. STUDY HI. THE NECESSITY AND JUSTICE OF THE DAY OF VENGEANCE. Upon this Generation, Type and Antitype.—The Great Tribulation a Legitimate Effect from Preceding Causes.—The Responsibilities of “Christendom,” and Her Attitude Toward Them.—Of Civil Authori¬ ties, of Religious Leaders, of the Various Ranks of the Masses cf Men in Civilized Lands.—The Relationship of the Heathen Nations to Christendom and to the Trouble.—The Judgment of God.—“Vengeance is Mine : I Will Repay, Saith the Lord.” “ Verily, I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this genera¬ tion.”—Matt. 23:34-36; Luke 11:50,51. O those unaccustomed to weighing principles from the x standpoint of an exadt moral philosophy it may seem strange that a subsequent generation of humanity should suffer the penalty of the accumulated crimes of several preceding generations; yet, since such is the ex¬ pressed judgment of God, who cannot err, we should expedl mature consideration to make manifest the justice of his decision. In the above words, our Lord declared that thus it should be with the generation of fleshly Israel whom he addressed in the end of the typical Jewish Age. Upon them should come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, who was slain between the temple and the altar.—Matt. 23:35. That was a terrible prophecy, but it fell upon heedless 47 48 The Day of Vengeance. and unbelieving ears; and, true to the letter, it had its ful¬ filment about thirty-seven years later, when civil strife and hostile invaders accomplished the fearful recompense. Of that time we read that the inhabitants of Judea were di¬ vided by jealousies into many warring fadlions, and that mutual mistrust reached its highest development. Friends were alienated, families were broken up, and every man suspedled his brother. Theft, impostures and assassinations were rife, and no man’s life was secure. Even the temple was not a place of safety. The chief priest was slain while performing public worship. Then, driven to desperation by the massacre of their brethren in Caesarea, and appar¬ ently appointed everywhere else for slaughter, the whole nation united in revolt. Judea was thus brought into open rebellion against Rome, and in defiance against the whole civilized world. Vespasian and Titus were sent to punish them, and ter¬ rible was their overthrow. One after another of their cities was swept away, until at last Titus laid siege to Jerusalem. In the spring of A. d. 70, when the city was crowded with the multitudes who came up to the feast of the Passover, he drew up his legions before her walls, and the imprisoned inhabitants shortly became the prey of famine and the sword of the invaders and civil strife. When any managed to creep out of the city they were crucified by the Romans; and sc dreadful was the famine that parents killed and ate their own children. The number that perished is stated by Josephus tc have been over a million, and the city and temple were reduced to ashes. Such were the fadls in fulfilment of the above prophecy upon rebellious fleshly Israel in the end of their age of special favor as God’s chosen people. And now, in the end of this Gospel age, according to the broader significance of the prophecy, is to come the parallel of that trouble Its Necessity and Justice. 49 upon nominal spiritual Israel, which, in its widest sense, is Christendom—“a time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation,” and hence in some sense even more terrible than that upon Judea and Jerusalem. We can scarcely imagine a trouble more severe than that above de¬ scribed, except in the sense of being more general and wide¬ spread, and more destructive, as the machinery of modern warfare signally suggests. Instead of being confined to one nation or province, its sweep will be over the whole world, especially the civilized world, Christendom, Babylon. We may therefore regard that visitation of wrath upon fleshly Israel as a foreshadowing of the greater indignation and wrath to be poured upon Christendom in the end of this age. Those who in their haste incline to view this course of the Almighty toward this generation as unjust have only failed to comprehend that perfect law of retribution, which surely, though often slowly, works out its inevitable results. The justice, yea, the necessity and the philosophy of it, are very manifest to the thoughtful and reverent, who, instead of being inclined to accuse God of injustice, apply their hearts to the instruction of his Word. THE GREAT TRIBULATION A LEGITIMATE EFFECT FROM PRECEDING CAUSES. We stand to-day in a period which is the culmination of ages of experience which should be ^ and is, in some respects, greatly to the world’s profit; especially to that part of the world which has been favored, directly and indirectly, with the light of divine truth—Christendom, Babylon, — whose responsibility for this stewardship of advantage is consequently very great. God holds men accountable, not only for what they know, but for what they might know if they would apply their hearts unto instruction,—for the 5 ° The Day of Vengeance lessons which experience (their own and others’) is designed to teach; and if men fail to heed the lessons of experience, or wilfully negleCt or spurn its precepts, they must suffer the consequences. Before so-called Christendom lies the open history of all past time, as well as the divinely inspired revelation. And what lessons they contain!—lessons of experience, of wisdom, of knowledge, of grace, and of warning. By giv¬ ing heed to the experiences of preceding generations along the various lines of human industry, political economy, etc., the world has made very commendable progress in material things. Many of the comforts and conveniences of our present civilization have come to us largely from applying the lessons observed in the experiences of past generations. The art of printing has brought these lessons within the range of every man. The present generation in this one point alone has much advantage every way: all the accu¬ mulated wisdom and experience of the past are added to its own. But the great moral lessons which men ought also to have been studying and learning have been very generally disregarded, even when they have been emphat¬ ically forced upon public attention. History is full of such lessons to thoughtful minds inclined to righteousness; and men of the present day have more such lessons than those of any previous generation. Thoughtful minds have, from time to time, noted and called attention to this fadt. Thus, Professor Fisher, in prefacing his account of the rise, progress and fall of empires, truly says: ‘‘ That there is a reign of law in the succession of human events, is a con¬ viction warranted by observed faCts. Events do not spring into being disjoined from antecedents leading to them. They are perceived to be the natural issues of the times that have gone before. Preceding events have fore¬ shadowed them.” Its Necessity and Justice. . 51- This is indeed true: the law of cause and effedt is no¬ where more prominently marked than on the pages of history. According to this law, which is God’s law, the seeds of past sowing must of necessity germinate, develop and bring forth fruitage; and a harvest at some time is there¬ fore inevitable. In Vol. ii. we have shown that the harvest time of the Gospel age is already come; that it began in 1874, when the presence of the Lord of the harvest was due; and that, while a great harvest work has been in progress ever since that date, we are now fast nearing the latter end of the harvest period, when the burning of the tares and the gathering and treading of the fully ripe clusters of the “vine of the earth ” (the matured fruits of the false vine,— “ Babylon ”) are due.—Rev. 14:18-20. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CHRISTENDOM AND HER ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM. Babylon, Christendom, has had a long probation of power, and has had many opportunities both to learn and to practice righteousness, as well as many warnings of a coming judgment. All through this Gospel age she has had in her midst the saints of God,—devoted, self-sacrificing, Christ-like men and women,—“the salt of the earth.” She has heard the message of salvation from their lips, seen the principles of truth and righteousness exemplified in their lives, and heard them reason of righteousness and of judg¬ ment to come. But she has disregarded these living epistles of God; and not only so, but her so-called Christian na¬ tions, in their greed for gain, have brought reproach upon the name of Christ among the heathen, following the Christian missionary with the accursed rum traffic and other “civilized” evils; and in her midst and by her authority the true embryo kingdom of heaven (composed only of the saints, whose names are written in heaven) hassuf- 5 2 The Day of Vengeance. fered violence. She has hated them and persecuted them even unto death, so that thousands of them all along the centuries have, by her decrees, sealed their testimony with their blood. Like their Master, they were hated without a cause; they were rejected as the offscouring of the earth for right¬ eousness’ sake; and their light was again and again quenched that the preferred darkness might reign with its opportuni¬ ties to work iniquity. Oh how dark is this record of Christendom! The mother system is “drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus;” and she and her daughters, still blind, are ready still to persecute and be¬ head (Rev. 20:4), though in a more refined manner, all who are loyal to God and his truth, and who venture, how¬ ever kindly, to point out to them plainly the Word of the Lord which reproves them. The civil powers of Christendom have been warned fre¬ quently when again and again empires and kingdoms have fallen with the weight of their own corruption. And even to-day, if the powers that be would hearken, they might hear a last warning of God’s inspired prophet, saying, “Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings: be instrudled ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves [in opposi¬ tion], and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.” But their resistance shall avail nothing; for, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then [since they persistently negledl to heed his warn¬ ings] shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.—Psa. 2 :10-12, 1-5. Its Necessity a, 7 id Justice. 53 Again, as represented by the simple and now widely known principles of his holy law, “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty [of those in authority]; he judgeth among the gods [the rulers, saying], How long- will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked ? Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy; deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.” (Psa. 82:1-4.) That the im¬ port and expediency of this counsel are, by the exigencies of the present times, being forced upon the attention of those in authority, the daily press is a constant witness; and numerous are the warning voices of thoughtful men who see the danger of the general negleCt of this advice. Even men of the world, who scan the future only from the stand¬ point of expediency, perceive the necessity for the pursu¬ ance of the course advised by the prophets. The late Emperor William of Germany saw this, as is indi¬ cated by the following from the Berlin correspondent of the Observatore Romano (1880) :— “When the Emperor William received the news of the last horrible attempt upon the life of the Czar he became very serious, and after remaining silent for some minutes he said, with melancholy accent, but with a certain energy, ‘If we do not change the direction of our policy, if we do not think seriously of giving sound instruction to youth, if we do not give the first place to religion, if we only pre¬ tend to govern by expedients from day to day, our thrones will be overturned and society will become a prey to the most terrible events. We have no more time to lose, and it will be a great misfortune if all the governments do not come to an accord in this salutary work of repression.’ ” In a book recently published in Germany, entitled Re¬ form or Revolution , its author, Herr von Massow, who is neither a Socialist nor a Radical, but a Conservative, and President of the Central Committee for Labor Colonies, accuses his countrymen of “ostrich politics,” of imitating 54 The Day of Vengeance. that bird’s proverbial habit of hiding its head in the sand in the belief that it becomes invisible when it cannot see. Von Massow writes:— “We may ignore fadts, but we cannot alter them. There is no doubt that we are on the eve of a revolution. All who have eyes to see and ears to hear must admit this. Only a society submerged in egoism, self-satisfadlion and the hunt for pleasure can deny it; only such a society will continue to dance on the volcano, will refuse to see the Mene- Tekel , and continue to believe in the power of bayonets. “The great majority of the educated have no idea of the magnitude of the hatred which is brewing among the lower orders. The Social-Democratic Party is regarded as any other political party; yet this party does not care about political rights, does not care for administrative reform or new laws. This party is based upon the wish of the lower classes to enjoy life, a wish to taste pleasures of which those who never owned a hundred-mark bill have an altogether dis¬ torted conception. . . . Order will, of course, soon be restored [after the Socialist regime]; but what a state the country will be in! There will be countless cripples, widows and orphans; public and private banks will have been robbed; railroads, telegraphs, roads, bridges, resi¬ dences, fadlories, monuments,—everything will be demol¬ ished, and neither the Union nor the States nor the towns and parishes will be able to find the millions which it would cost to repair even a fraction of what is destroyed. It is almost incredible that nothing is done to ward off the danger. Charity is not what is needed, but warm hearts, willing to show some regard for the lower classes. Love, all-embracing love, will overcome much of the hatred that is brewing. Many may be lost to such an extent that nothing will bring them back; but there are also millions who may still be won for law and order, if proof is given that it is possible for them to obtain a livelihood worthy of a human being; that they need not, as is the case just now, be worse off than the animals which are, at least, stabled and fed.” The writer proceeds at length to open the eyes of the people of Berlin to the danger in which they live. “The Its Necessity and Justice. 55 Berliners,” he says, “imagine themselves secure in the protec¬ tion of the Guards, some 60,000 strong. A vain hope! During the Autumn, when the time-expired men leave their regiments, and before the new recruits have come, the gar¬ rison is scarcely 7,000 strong. An insurredtion led by some dissatisfied former officer could soon find 100,000 and even 160,000 workmen to take part. All these men have served in the army, are as well trained as their opponents, and understand the necessity of discipline. Telegraph and telephone wires would be cut; railroads damaged to pre¬ vent the arrival of reenforcements; officers hurrying to their posts would be intercepted. The revolutionists could blow up the barracks and shoot down the Emperor, the Ministers, generals, officials—every one wearing a uniform —ere a single troop of cavalry or a battery of artillery could come to their assistance.” But do those in authority heed the warnings and the solemn lessons of this hour? No: as the Prophet foretold of them—“They know not, neither will they understand: they walk on in darkness [until] all the foundations of the earth [the foundations of society—the hitherto established principles of law and order] are moved”—“terribly shaken” —shaken that they may be removed.—Heb. 12:27; Psa. 82:5; Isa. 2:19. The present Emperor of Germany is quite heedless of the expressed fears of his grandfather, just quoted. Recently,, in presenting Prince Bismarck with a magnificent sword sheathed in a golden scabbard, the Emperor said:— “Before the eyes of these troops I come to present your Serene Highness with my gift. I could find no better present than a sword, the noblest weapon of the Germans, a symbol of that instrument which your Highness, in the service of my grandfather, helped to forge, to sharpen, and also to wield—a symbol of that great building-time during which the mortar was blood and iron—a remedy which never fails, and which in the hands of Kings and Princes will, in case of need, also preserve unity in the interior of the Fatherland, even as, when applied outside the country, it led to internal union.” 56 The Day of Vengeance. The London Speftator commenting on this expression says:— ‘ ‘ That is surely a most alarming, as well as astounding, state¬ ment. There are two explanations of it current in Germany, —one that it is diredted against the claim of any German State to secede from the Empire, and the other, that it an¬ nounces the decision of the Emperor and his confederates to deal with Socialists and Anarchists, if necessary, through military force. In either case the announcement was un¬ necessary and indiscreet. Nobody doubts that the German Empire, which was, in fadf, built by the sword at Langen- salza, as well as in the war with France, would decree the military occupation of any seceding State; but to threaten any party, even the Socialists, with martial law, while it is trying to win through the ballot, is, in fadl, to suspend the Constitution in favor of a state of siege. We do not sup¬ pose that the Emperor intended anything of the kind, but it seems clear that he has been brooding over the situation; that he feels the resistance of the Socialists, and that his con¬ clusion is,—‘Well, well, I have still the sword, and that is a remedy that never fails.’ Many a King has come to that conclusion before him, but few have been so far left to them¬ selves as to deem it wise on such a subjedl to think aloud. It is a threat, let us explain it as we will; and wise monarchs do not threaten until the hour has arrived to strike, still less do they threaten military violence as the remedy even for internal grievances. ‘ The sword a remedy ’ for inter¬ nal ills ‘which never fails!’ As well say the surgeon’s knife is a remedy for fever which never fails. Prince Schwartzenburg, a Tory of Tories, with an irresistible army at his back, tried that remedy under more favorable circum¬ stances, and his conclusion after long experience was em¬ bodied in that wisest of all political good sayings, which the German Emperor would do well to consider:—‘ You can do anything with bayonets—except sit on them.’ “What could a Roman Imperator have said that was stronger than ‘the sword is the remedy that never fails’? There is the essence of tyranny in a sentence of that kind ; and if the Emperor really uttered it after consideration, it is not a leader that Germany has in him, but an absolute ruler of the type which all modern history shows us to be Its Necessity and Justice. 57 worn out. It may turn out, of course, that the Emperor spoke hastily, under the influence of that emotion, half- poetic, half-arising from an exaggerated sense of his own personality, which he has often previously betrayed; but if his speech is to be accepted in the light of a manifesto to his people, all that can be said is, ‘What a pity; what a source of hopefulness has passed away!’ ” The declaration of the present Czar of Russia, that he would uphold autocracy as ardently as did his late father, is an¬ other indication of failure to heed the solemn warnings of this auspicious hour and of the Word of God. And mark how it was received by the people of his dominion, despite all the official energy exercised there to muzzle free speech. A manifesto was issued by the People’s Rights party of Russia, and circulated throughout the empire. The manifesto was in the form of a letter to the Czar, and was remarkable for plain and forcible language. After censuring him for his assertion of his absolutism it de¬ clares :— “The most advanced zemstvos asked only for the har¬ mony of Czar and people, free speech, and the supremacy of law over the arbitrariness of the executive. You were deceived and frightened by the representations of courtiers and bureaucrats. Society will understand perfectly that it was the bureaucracy, which jealously guards its own om¬ nipotence, that spoke through you. The bureaucracy, be¬ ginning with the Council of Ministers and ending with the lowest country constable, hates any development, social or individual, and actively prevents the monarch’s free inter¬ course with representatives of his people, except as they come in gala dress, presenting congratulations, icons, and offerings. “Your speech proved that any attempt to speak out be¬ fore the throne, even in the most loyal form, about the cry¬ ing needs of the country, meets only a rough and abrupt rebuffi Society expedled from you encouragement and help, but heard only a reminder of your omnipotence, giving the im¬ pression of utter estrangement of Czar from people. You 5S The Day of Vengeance. yourself have killed your own popularity, and have alien¬ ated all that part of society which is peacefully struggling forward. Some individuals are jubilant over your speech, but you will soon discover their impotence. “In another sedtion of society your speech caused a feel¬ ing of injury and depression, which, however, the best social forces will soon overcome, before proceeding to the peaceful but obstinate and deliberate struggle necessary to liberty. In another sedtion your words will stimulate the readiness to struggle against the present hateful state of things with any means. You were the first to begin the struggle. Ere long it will proceed.’’ Thus all the nations of “Christendom” are heedlessly stumbling on in the long-preferred darkness. Even this fair land of boasted liberty, in many respedts so richly favored above all other nations, is no exception; and it, too, has had many warnings. Note the almost prophetic words of its martyr President, Abraham Lincoln, written shortly before his assassination, to a friend in Illinois. He wrote:— “Yes, we may all congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its close. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. The best blood of the flower of American youth has been freely offered upon our country’s altar that the nation might live. It has been a trying hour indeed for the Republic. But I see in the near future a crisis ap¬ proaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corpo¬ rations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before,, even in the midst of war.” And this very year, 1896, Representative Hatch of Missouri, in a speech before Congress on financial and social matters, is reported in the public press to have said:— Its Necessity and Justice. 59 “ Mark what I say! If the inexorable law of cause and effedt has not been expunged from the statute book of the Almighty, unless a halt is called very soon, you may expedt to see the horrors of the French Revolution put on the American stage with all the modern improvements, and that within the next decade. Nor am I alone. That gentleman, Astor, who went to England some time ago, bought him a place on the island and became a British sub- jedt, saw what is coming as plainly as I do, so he took time by the forelock and skipped out when there was not such a rush for staterooms as there will be after a while. He knew very well that if things would keep on as you and I have seen them for some time past the time was not far off when there would be such a crowd of his class of people hurry¬ ing aboard every outgoing steamer he might be shoved off the gangplank.” The Hon. H. R. Herbert, Secretary of the U. S. Navy, in a speech at Cleveland, O., April 30, ’96, used the follow¬ ing language in a very moderate speech to business men:— “We are entering upon an era of vast enterprises that threaten to occupy to the exclusion of others all the ordin¬ ary avenues of human progress. The optimist may tell you that this is to be for the betterment of the conditions of human life, that large enterprises are to cheapen products, cheapen transportation. The mammoth store in which you can get everything you want, and get it cheap, is every¬ where appearing. Industrial plants with millions of capital behind them are rapidly taking possession of the. field once occupied by smaller enterprises of the same charadter. “ Human wit seems unable to devise, without danger¬ ously curtailing the natural liberty of the citizen, any plan for the prevention of these monopolies, and the effedt is the accumulation of vast wealth by the few, the narrowing of the opportunities of the many, and the breeding of dis¬ content. Hence conflidts between labor and capital are to be of greater significance in the future than in the past. “There are thoughtful men who predidt that out of the antagonisms between capital and labor is to come a con- flidt that will be fatal to the republican government among us, a conflidl that will result first in anarchy and bloodshed 6o The Day of Vengea?ice. and then in monarchy under some bold leader who shall be able by military power to bring order out of chaos. “ Sometimes we are pointed to Socialism as the logical outcome of the present condition. The first experiments in this direction, it is said, are to be made in the cities, the employers, with unlimited means at their command, and the employees, with little opportunity for advancement, except by the ballot, are to contend with each other, class against class, for the control of municipal governments. This is one of the perils of the future. ... It was once supposed that the American farmer would forever stand as an immovable bulwark, but a change has come over the spirit of many of our farmers.” The ecclesiastical powers of Christendom have also had line upon line and precept upon precept. They have been warned by the providential dealings of God with his peo¬ ple in the past, and by occasional reformers. Yet few, very few, can read the handwriting on the wall, and they are powerless to overcome, or even to stay, the popular current. Mr. T. DeWitt Talmage seems to see and under¬ stand to some extent; for, in a recent discourse, he said:—* “ Unless the Church of Jesus Christ rises up and proves herself the friend of the people as the friend of God, and in sympathy with the great masses, who with their families at their backs are fighting this battle for bread, the church, as at present organized, will become a defundt institution, and Christ will go down again to the beach and invite plain, honest fishermen to come into an apostleship of right¬ eousness—manward and Godward. The time has come when all classes of people shall have equal rights in the great struggle to get a livelihood.” And yet this man, with a stewardship of talent and in¬ fluence which but few possess, does not seem in haste to follow his expressed convidtions as to the duties of influ¬ ential Christians in the hour of peril. The warnings go forth, and convidtions of duty and privilege fasten upon many minds; but, alas! all is of no avail; they go unheeded, Great power has been, and to Its Necessity and Justice. 61 some extent still is, in the hands of ecclesiastics; but, in the name of Christ and his gospel, it has been, and still is, selfishly used and abused. “Honor one of another,” * ‘ chief seats in the synagogues,” and “ to be called Rabbi,” Doctor, Reverend, etc., and seeking gain, each “from his own quarter [or denomination]” (John 5 144; Matt. 23: 6-12; Isa. 56:11), and “the fear of man which bringeth a snare”—these hinder some even of God’s true servants from faithfulness, while apparently many of the under-shep¬ herds never had any interest in the Lord’s flock except to secure the golden fleece. While we gladly acknowledge that many educated, culti¬ vated, refined and pious gentlemen are, and have been, included among the clergy in all the various denominations of the nominal Church, which all through the age has in¬ cluded both wheat and tares (Matt. 13:30), we are forced to admit that many who belong to the “tare” class have found their way into the pulpits as well as into the pews. Indeed the temptations to pride and vainglory, and in many cases to ease and affluence, presented to talented young men aspiring to the pulpit, have been such as to guarantee that it must be so, and that to a large extent. Of all the professions, the Christian ministry has afforded the quickest and easiest route to fame, ease and general temporal prosperity, and often to wealth. The profession of law requires a lifetime of intciledlual energy and busi¬ ness effort, and brings its weight of pressing care. The same may be said of the profession of medicine. And if men rise to wealth and distinction in these professions, it is not merely because they have quick wits and ready tongues, but because they have honestly won distinction by close and constant mental appkertion and laborious effort. On the other hand, in the cLrical profession, a refined, pleas¬ ant demeanor, moderate ability to address a public assembly 62 The Day of Vengeance . twice a week on some theme taken from the Bible, togethei with a moderate education and good moral character, se¬ cure to any young man entering the profession, the respedt and reverence of his community, a comfortable salary and a quiet, undisturbed and easy life. If he have superior talent, the people, who are admirers of oratory, soon discover it, and before long he is called to a more lucrative charge; and, almost before he knows it, he has become famous among men, who rarely stop to question whether his piety—his faith, humility and godli¬ ness—have kept pace in development with his intellectual and oratorical progress. In fact, if the latter be the case, he is less acceptable, especially to wealthy congregations, which, probably more frequently than very poor ones, are composed mostly of “ tares.” If his piety indeed sur¬ vive the pressure of these circumstances, he will, too often for the good of his reputation, be obliged to run counter to the dispositions and prejudices of his hearers, and he will shortly find himself unpopular and undesired. These circumstances have thus brought into the pulpit a very large proportion of what the Scriptures designate “hireling shep¬ herds.”—Isa. 56:11; Ezek. 34:2-16; John 10:11-14. The responsibility of those who have undertaken the gospel ministry in the name of Christ is very great. They stand very prominently before the people as the repre¬ sentatives of Christ,—as special exponents of his spirit, and expounders of his truth. And, as a class, they have had advantages above other men for coming to a knowledge of the truth, and freely declaring it. They have been relieved from the burdens of toil and care in earning a livelihood which fetter other men, and, with their temporal wants supplied, have been granted time, quiet leisure, special edu¬ cation, and numerous helps of association, etc., for this very purpose. Its Necessity and Justice. 63 Here, on the one hand, have been these great oppor¬ tunities for pious zeal and devoted self-sacrifice for the cause of truth and righteousness; and, on the other, great temptations, either to indolent ease, or to ambition for fame, wealth or power, Alas! the vast majority of the clergy have evidently succumbed to the temptations, rather than embraced and used the opportunities, of their posi¬ tions; and, as a result, they are to-day “blind leaders of the blind,” and together they and their flocks are fast stumbling into the ditch of skepticism. They have hidden the truth (becaus-e it is unpopular), advanced error (be¬ cause it is popular) and taught for dodtrine the precepts of men (because paid to do so). They have, in effedt, and sometimes in so many words, said to the people, “Believe what we tell you on our authority,” instead of diredling them to “ prove all things ” by the divinely inspired words of the apostles and prophets, and “hold fast” only “that which is good.” For long centuries the clergy of the Church of Rome kept the Word of God buried in dead languages, and would not permit its translation into the vernacular tongues, lest the people might search the Scrip¬ tures and thus prove the vanity of her pretensions. In the course of time a few godly reformers arose from the midst of her corruption, rescued the Bible from oblivion and brought it forth to the people; and a great protestant movement,—protesting against the false dodtrines and evil pradtices of the Church of Rome,—was the result. But ere long Protestantism also became corrupt, and her clergy began to formulate creeds to which they have taught the people to look as the epitomized dodtrines of the Bible, and of paramount importance. They have baptized and catechised them in infancy, before they had learned to think; then, as they grew to adult years, they have lulled them to sleep, and given them to understand that their safe course 64 The Day of Vengeance. in religious matters is to commit all questions of doctrine to them, and to follow their instructions, intimating that they alone had the education, etc., necessary to the com¬ prehension of divine truth, and that they, therefore, should be considered authorities in all such matters without further appeal to God’s Word. And when any presumed to ques¬ tion this assumed authority and to think differently, they were regarded as heretics and schismatics. The most learned and prominent among them have written massive volumes of what they term Systematic Theology, all of which, like the Talmud among the Jews, is calculated to a large extent to make void the Word of God, and to teach for doctrine the precepts of men (Matt 15:6; Isa. 29:13); and others of the learned and prominent have accepted honorable and lucrative professorships in Theological Seminaries, established, ostensibly, to train young men for the Christian ministry, but in fa6t to inculcate the ideas of the so-called ‘'Systematic Theology” of their several schools—to fetter free thought and honest reverent investi¬ gation of the sacred Scriptures with a view to simple faith in their teachings, regardless of human traditions. In this way generation after generation of the ‘‘clergy” has pressed along the beaten track of traditional error. And only oc¬ casionally has one been sufficiently awake and loyal to the truth to discover error and cry out for reform. It has been so much easier to drift with the popular current, especially when great men led the way. Thus the power and superior advantages of the clergy as a class have been misused, although in their ranks there have been (and still are) some earnest, devout souls who verily thought they were doing God service in upholding the false systems into which they had been led, and by whose errors they also had been in a great measure blinded. While these reflections will doubtless seem offensive to Its Necessity and Justice. 65 many of the clergy, especially to the proud and self-seek¬ ing, we have no fear that their candid presentation will give offense to any of the meek, who, if they recognize the truth, will be blessed by a humble confession of the same and a full determination to walk in the light of God as it shines from his Word, regardless of human tradi¬ tions. We rejoice to say that thus far during the harvest period we have come to know a few clergymen of this class, who, when the harvest truth dawned upon them, forsook the error and pursued and served the truth. But the major¬ ity of the clergy, alas ! are not of the meek class, and again we are obliged to realize the force of the Master’s words,—“How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! ” whether those riches be of reputation, fame, learning, money, or even common ease. The common people need not be surprised, therefore, that the clergy of Christendom, as a class, are blind to the truths due in this time of harvest, just as the recognized teachers and leaders in the end of the typical Jewish age were blind and opposed to the truths due in that harvest. Their blindness is indeed a recompense fjr their misused talents and opportunities, and therefore light and truth cannot be expedted from that quarter. In the end of the Jewish age the religious leaders significantly suggested to the people the inquiry, “ Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?” (John 7 : 48) and in accept¬ ing their suggestion and blindly submitting to their lead¬ ing, some missed their privilege, and failed to enter into the blessings of the new dispensation. So it will be with a similar class in these last days of the Gospel dispensation; those who blindly follow the leading of the clergy will fall with them into the ditch of skepticism; and only those who faithfully walk with God, partaking of his spirit, and humbly relying upon all the testimonies of his precious 66 The Day of Vengeance. Word, shalibe able to discern and discard the “ stubble ” of error which has long been mixed with the truth, and boldly to stand fast in the faith of the gospel and in loyalty of heart to God, while the masses drift off* in the popular current toward infidelity in its various forms;—Evolution, Higher Criticism, Theosophy, Christian Science, Spiritism, or other theories denying the necessity and merit of the great Calvary sacrifice. But those who successfully stand in this “evil day” (Eph. 6:13) will, in so doing, prove the metal of their Christian character; for so strong will be the current against them, that only true Christian de¬ votion to God, zeal, courage and fortitude will be able to endure to the end. These oncoming waves of infidelity will surely carry all others before them. It is written, “A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee, because thou hast said, The Lord is my protedlion, and the most High hast thou made thy refuge. . . . He that dwelleth in the secret place [of consecration, communion and fellowship] of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Al¬ mighty. . . . He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”—Psa. 91. Individual Christians cannot shirk their personal responsi¬ bility, placing it upon pastors and teachers, nor upon coun¬ cils and creeds. It is by the Word of the Lord that we are judged (John 12:48-50; Rev. 20:12), and not by the opinions or precedents of our fellow-men in any capacity. Therefore all should imitate the noble Bereans who “searched the Scriptures daily” to see if the things taught them were true. (A6ts 17:11.) It is our duty as Christians individually to prove all things we accept, and to hold fast that which is good. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is 1 Its Necessity and fustice. 67 "because there is no light in them.”—A6ts 17:11; 1 Thes. 5:21; Isa. 8 :20. The same principle holds good in temporal, as well as in spiritual things. While the various ships of state are drift¬ ing onward to destruction, those who see the breakers ahead, while they cannot alter the course of events in gen¬ eral, can, to some extent at least, seize present opportunities wisely to regulate their own conduct in view of the inevit¬ able catastrophe; they can make ready the life-boats and the life-preservers, so that when the ships of state are wrecked in the surging sea of anarchy, they may keep their heads above the waves and find a rest beyond. In other words, the wise policy, to say nothing of principle, in these days is to deal justly, generously and kindly with our fellow-men in every rank and condition of life; for the great trouble will spring from the intense wrath of the angry nations,—from the dissatisfaction and indignation of the enlightened masses of the people against the more for¬ tunate, aristocratic and ruling classes. The subjects of dissatisfaction are at present being widely discussed; and now, before the storm of wrath bursts, is the time for indi¬ viduals to make known their principles, not only by their words, but by their conduct in all their relations with their fellow-men. Now is the time to study and apply the prin¬ ciples of the golden rule; to learn to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to act accordingly. If men were wise enough to consider what, in the very near future, must be the out¬ come of the present course of things, they would do this from policy, if not from principle. In the coming trouble it is but reasonable to presume that, even in the midst of the wildest confusion, there will be discriminations in favor of such as have shown them¬ selves just, generous and kind; and extreme wrath against those who have practiced and defended oppression, It was 68 The Day of Vengeance. so in the midst of the horrors of the French revolution; and that it will be so again, is intimated by the counsel of the Word of the Lord, which says, ‘‘Seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” “Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remem¬ brance of them from the earth.” (Zeph. 2:3; Psa. 34: 14-16.) These words of wisdom and warning are to the world in general. As for the “saints,” the “little flock,” the “overcomers,” they are promised that they shall be ac¬ counted worthy to escape all those things coming upon the world.—Luke 21:36. THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE HEATHEN NATIONS TO CHRIS¬ TENDOM AND TO THE GREAT TRIBULATION. While the fierce anger of the Lord is to be visited upon the nations of Christendom specially, because they have sinned against much light and privilege, the Scriptures clearly show that the heathen nations have not been with¬ out responsibility, and shall not go unpunished. For many generations and through many centuries they have taken pleasure in unrighteousness. Their fathers in ages past forgot God, because they did not like to hold his righteous authority in remembrance: they loved darkness rather than light, and wilfully pursued the folly of their own imaginations; and their descendants have steadily walked on in the same downward course, even to the present day. Concerning the responsibility of these nations, the Apostle Paul (Rom. 1:18-32) tells us very plainly what is the mind of the Lord, saying, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of those jfs Necessity and Justice. 69 men who, through injustice suppress the truth; because the knowledge of God is apparent among them, for God hath shewed it unto them. For his invisible things, even his eternal power and deity, since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived by the things that are made; so that [having this light of nature— i. e., the testimony of nature as to the existence, power and goodness of God, and of conscience indicating what is right and what is wrong] they are without excuse [in pursuing an evil course of life]; because though they knew God [to some extent at least], they did not glorify or thank him as God, but became vain in their reasonings, and their perverse heart was darkened [as the natural result of such a course]. Assuming to be wise men, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image-likeness of corruptible man, and of birds, and of quadrupeds, and of reptiles. Therefore God gave them over, through the lusts of their hearts for impurity, to dishonor their bodies among them¬ selves; who exchanged the truth concerning God for a false religion, and reverenced and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is worthy of praise forever. Amen! “ On this account God delivered them over to infamous passions [/. e. f God did not strive with or endeavor to re¬ claim them, but let them alone to pursue their chosen evil course and to learn from experience its bitter fruits]. . . . And as they did not choose to retain the knowledge of God, God gave them over to a worthless mind, to do im¬ proper things, abounding in every iniquity;—in wicked¬ ness, in covetousness, in malignity; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, bad habits; secret slanderers, revilers, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, devisers of evil things, disobedient to parents, obstinate, covenant breakers, desti¬ tute of natural affedtion, without pity; who, though they know the ordinance of God [that those who practice such 7o The Day of Vengeance things are worthy of death], not only are doing them, but even are approving those who pradlice them.” While, as here shown, the heathen nations long ago sup* pressed what truth was known in the early ages of the world concerning God and his righteousness, and preferred darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil, and out of their evil and vain imaginations invented false religions which justified their evil ways; and while suc^ ceeding generations have endorsed and justified the evil course of their forefathers by subscribing to their dodtrines and walking in their footprints, thus also assuming the ac¬ cumulation of their guilt and condemnation, on the very same principle that the present nations of Christendom also assume the obligations of their preceding generations, yet the heathen nations have not been wholly oblivious to the fadl that a great light has come into the world through Jesus Christ. Even previous to the coming of Christ the wonderful God of Israel was known among many heathen nations through his dealings with that people; and all through the Gospel age the saints of God have been bear¬ ing the good news abroad. Here and there a few individuals have heeded the truth, but the nations have disregarded it generally, and walked on in darkness. Therefore “the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations.” (Isa. 34:2.) The heathen nations are now, without the gospel and its advantages, judged un¬ worthy of a continued lease of power; while the so-called Christian nations, with the gospel light and privileges of which they have not walked worthy, are also, by its stand¬ ard of truth and righteousness, judged unworthy of con¬ tinued power. Thus every mouth is stopped, and all the world stands guilty before God. Of all the nations “there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They Its Necessity and Justice. 7i are all gone out of the way, they are together become un¬ profitable; there is none that doeth good; no, not one.” The justice of God in punishing all nations is manifest; and while the heathen nations will receive the just reward of their doings, let not the greater responsibility of Christ¬ endom be forgotten; for if the Jews had “much advantage every way” over the Gentile nations, chiefly in that unto them were committed the oracles of God (Rom. 3:1, 2), what shall we say of the nations of Christendom, with their still greater advantages of both the Law and the Gospel ? Yet it is true to-day of Christendom, as it was then of the Jewish nation, that the name of God is blasphemed among the heathen through them. (Rom. 2:24.) Note, for instance, the imposition of the liquor and opium traffics upon the heathen nations, by the greed of the Christian nations for gold. A reliable witness, who speaks from personal knowledge wrote, some time ago, to the New York Voice as follows:— “According to my own observations on the Congo and the West Coast [Africa], the statement of many mission¬ aries and others, drink is doing more harm to the natives than the slave trade now or in past times. That carries off people, destroys villages; this not only slays by the thousands, but debauches and ruins body and soul, whole tribes, and leaves them to become the parents of degenerate creatures born in their own debauched image. . . . All the workmen are given a big drink of rum every day at noon, and forced to take at least two bottles of gin as pay for work every Saturday night; at many of the fadlories, when a one, two or three years’ contract expires, they are forced to take a barrel of rum or some cases or demijohns of gin to carry home with them. Native traders are forced to take casks of liquor in exchange for native produce, even when they remonstrate, and, gaining no redress, pour the liquor into the river; traders saying, ‘ The niggers must take rum, we cannot make money enough to satisfy the firm at home by selling them salt or cloth.’ Towns are 72 The Day of Vengeance. roaring pandemoniums every Sunday from drink. There are villages where every man, woman and child is stupid drunk, and thus former religious services are broken up. Chiefs say sadly to missionaries, ‘ Why did not you God- men come before the drink did? The drink has eaten out my people’s heads and hardened their hearts: they cannot understand, they do not care for anything good.’ ” It is even said that some of the heathen are holding up the Christians’ Bible before them, and saying, “Your practices do not correspond with the teachings of your sacred book.” A Brahmin is said to have written a mis¬ sionary, We are finding you out. You are not as good as your Book. If your people were only as good as your Book, you would conquer India in five years.”—See Ezek. 22-4. Truly, if the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south shall rise up in judgment against the generation of Israel which the Lord directly addressed (Matt. 12:41, 42), then Israel and every previous generation, and the heathen na¬ tions shall rise up against this generation of Christendom; for where much has been given much will be required. —Luke 12:48. But, dropping the morally retributive aspect of the ques¬ tion, we see how, in the very nature of the case, the heathen nations must suffer in the fall of Christendom, Babylon. Through the influences of the Word of God, direct and indirect, the Christian nations have made great advancements in civilization and material prosperity in every line, so that in wealth, comfort, intelledlual develop¬ ment, education, civil government, in science, art, manu¬ facture, commerce and every branch of human in¬ dustry, they are far in advance of the heathen nations which have not been so favored with the civilizing influen¬ ces of the oracles of God, but which, on the contrary, have experienced a steady decline, so that to-day they ex- Its Necessity and Justice. 73 hibit only the wrecks of their former prosperity. Compare, for example, the Greece of to-day with ancient Greece, which was once the seat of learning and affluence. Mark, too, the present ruins of the glory of ancient Egypt, once the chief nation of the whole earth. In consequence of the decline of the heathen nations and the civilization and prosperity of the Christian nations, the former are all more or less indebted to the latter for many advantages received—for the benefits of commerce, of international communication and a consequent enlarge¬ ment of ideas, etc. Then, too, the march of progress in recent years has linked all the nations in various common interests, which, if seriously unsettled in one or more of the nations soon affect all. Hence when Babylon, Chris¬ tendom, goes down suddenly, the effects will be most ser¬ ious upon all the more or less dependent nations, which, in the symbolic language of Revelation are therefore repre¬ sented as greatly bewailing the fall of that great city Babylon.—Rev. 18:9-19. But not alone in Babylon’s fall will the heathen nations suffer; for the swelling waves of social and political com¬ motion will quickly spread and involve and ingulf them all; and thus the whole earth will be swept with the besom of destruction, and the haughtiness of man will be brought low; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord.” (Rom. 12:19; Deut. 32 :35-) And the judgment of the Lord upon both Christendom and Heathendom will be on the strictest lines of equity. n Tiie Day of Vengeance. THE COMING STORM. u Oh! sad is my heart for the storm that is coming ^ Like eagles the scud sweepeth in from the sea; The gull seeketh shelter, the pine trees are sighing. And all giveth note of the tempest to be. a A spell hath been whispered from cave or from ocean, The shepherds are sleeping, the sentinels dumb, The flocks are all scattered on moorland and mountain, And no one believes that the Master is come. * He has come, but whom doth he find their watch keeping ? Oh! where—in his presence —is faith the world o’er? The rich, every sense in soft luxury steeping; The poor scarce repelling the wolf from the door. M O man, and O maiden, drop trifling and pleasure! O hark! while I tell of the sorrows to be. * * * As well might I plead in the path of yon glacier. Or cry out a warning to wave of the seal” STUDY IV. BABYLON ARRAIGNED BEFORE THE GREAT COURT. The Civil, Social and Ecclesiastical Powers of Babylon, Christendom. Now Being Weighed in the Balances.—The Arraignment of the Civil Powers.—The Arraignment of the Present Social System.—The Ar¬ raignment of the Ecclesiastical Powers.—Even Now, in the Midst of Her Festivities the Handwriting of her Doom is Traced and May Bb Distinctly Read, Though the Trial is Not Yet Completed. ® >r pHE mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the J. earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. He shall call to the heavens from above [the high or ruling powers], and to the earth [the masses of the people], that he may judge his [pro¬ fessed] people [Christendom].” “ Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel [nominal spiritual Israel—Babylon, Christendom], and I will testify against thee. Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers. Thou givest thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother [the true saints, the wheat class] ; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee , and set them in order before thine eyes. “ Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and thet£ be none to deliver.”—Psa. 50: 1,4, 7, 16-22. As the logical consequence of the great increase of knowl¬ edge on every subject; providentially granted in this “day of preparation” for Christ’s Millennial reign, the civil and 75 76 The Day of Vengeance. ecclesiastical powers of Christendom, Babylon, are now being weighed in the balances of Justice, in full view of the whole world. The hour of judgment having come, the Judge is now on the bench; the witnesses—the general public—are present; and at this stage of the trial the “Powers that be” are permitted to hear the charges and then to speak for themselves. Their cases are being tried in open court, and all the world looks on with intense and feverish interest. The object of this trial is not to convince the great Judge of the adlual standing of these powers; for already we are forewarned of their doom by his “sure word of prophecy;” and already men can read upon the walls of their banqueting halls the writing of the mysterious, but fateful, hand,—“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN!” The present trial, involving the discussion of rights and wrongs, of dodtrines, authorities, etc., is to manifest to all men the real character of Babylon, so that, though men have long been deceived by her vain pretensions, they may eventually, through this process of judgment, fully realize the justice of God in her final overthrow. In this trial, her claims of superior sandlity and of divine authority and appointment to rule the world, as well as her many monstrous and contra¬ dictory dodtrinal claims, are all being called in question. With evident shame and confusion of face before such a throng of witnesses, the civil and ecclesiastical powers, through their representatives, the rulers and the clergy, en¬ deavor to render up their accounts. Never, in all the annals of history, has there been such a condition of things. Never before were ecclesiastics, statesmen and civil rulers examined, cross-questioned and criticised as now at tha*bar of public judgment, through which the heart-searching Spirit of the Lord is operating upon them to their great confusion. Notwithstanding their determination and effort Babylon Arraigned. 77 to avoid the examination and cross-questioning of the spirit of these times, they are obliged to endure it, and the trial proceeds. BABYLON WEIGHED IN THE BALANCES. While the masses of men are to-day boldly challenging both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christendom to prove their claims of divine authority to rule, neither they nor the rulers see that God has granted, or rather per¬ mitted, a lease of power* to such rulers as mankind in general might choose or tolerate, whether good or bad, un¬ til “the Times of the Gentiles” expire; that during this time, God has permitted the world largely to manage its own affairs and take its own course in self-government, to the end that, in so doing, all men might learn that, in their fallen condition, they are incapable of self-government, and that it does not pay to try to be independent either of God or of each other.—Rom. 13:1. The rulers and the ruling classes of the world, not see¬ ing this, but realizing their opportunity, and taking ad¬ vantage of the less fortunate masses of men, by whose permission and tolerance, whether ignorant or intelligent, they have long been sustained in power, have endeavored to foist upon the illiterate masses the absurd dodtrine of the divine appointment and “divine right of kings”— civil and ecclesiastical. And to the end of perpetuating this dodtrine, so convenient to their policy, ignorance and superstition have for many centuries been fostered and en¬ couraged among the masses. Only in very recent times have knowledge and education become general. And this has come about by force of provi dential circumstances, and not by efforts of kings and * Vol. 11., p. 80. 7 « The Day of Vengeance. ecclesiastics. The printing press and steam transportation have been the chief agencies in promoting it. Prior to these divine interpositions, the masses of men, being to a large extent isolated from one another, were unable to learn much beyond their own experiences. But these agencies have been instrumental in bringing about a wonderful in¬ crease of travel and of social and business intercourse, so that all men, of whatsoever rank or station, may profit by the experiences of others throughout the whole world. Now the great public is the reading public, the traveling public, the thinking public; and it is fast becoming the discontented and clamorous public, with little reverence left for the kings and potentates that have held together the old order of things under which they now so restlessly chafe. It is less than three hundred and fifty years since a statute of the English Parliament made provision for the illiterates among its members, in these words,—“ any Lord and Lords of the Parliament, and Peer and Peers of the Realm having place or voice in Parliament, upon his request or prayer, claiming the benefit of this adl, though he cannot readV Of the twenty-six Barons who signed the Magna Charta, it is said that three only wrote their names, while twenty-three made their marks. Seeing that the tendency of the general enlightenment of the masses of the people is toward a judgment of the ruling powers and not conducive to their stability, the Russian Minister of the Interior proposed, as a check to the growth of Nihilism, to put an end to the higher edu¬ cation of any members of the poorer classes. In 1887 he issued an order from which the following is an extradl:— “The gymnasia, high schools and universities will hence¬ forth refuse to receive as pupils or students the children of domestic servants, peasants, tradesmen, petty shop-keepers, farmers, and others of like condition, whose progeny Babylon Arraigned. 79 should not be raised from the circle to which they belong, and be thereby led, as long experience has shown, ... to become discontented with their lot, and irritated against the inevitable inequalities of the existing social positions.” But it is too late in the day for such a policy as this to suc¬ ceed, even in Russia. It is the policy which the Papacy pur¬ sued in the days of its power, but which that crafty insti¬ tution now realizes would be a failure, and sure to readt upon the power attempting it. Light has dawned upon the minds of the masses, and they cannot be relegated to their former darkness. With the gradual increase of knowledge republican forms of government have been demanded, and the monarchical have been of necessity greatly modified by force of their example and the demands of the people. In the dawning light of the new day men begin to see that under the protection of false claims, supported by the people in their former ignorance, the ruling classes have been selfishly making merchandise of the natural rights and privileges of the rest of mankind. And, looking on and weighing the claims of those in authority, they are rapidly reaching their own conclusions, notwithstanding the poor apologies offered. But being themselves actuated by no higher principles of righteousness and truth than the ruling classes, the judgment of the masses is as far from right on the other side of the question, their growing dis¬ position being hastily to ignore all law and order rather than to consider coolly and dispassionately the claims of justice on all sides in the light of God’s Word- While Babylon, Christendom—the present organization and order of society, as represented by her statesmen and her clergy—is being weighed in the balances of public opinion, her many monstrous claims are seen to be founda¬ tionless and absurd, and the heavy charges against her—of 8o The Day of Vengeance. selfishness and of nonconformity to the golden rule of Christ, whose name and authority she claims,—have already over¬ balanced, and lifted the beam so high that, even now, the world has little patience to hear the further proofs of her really antichristian charadter. Her representatives call upon the world to note the glory of their kingdoms, the triumphs of their arms, the splendor of their cities and palaces, the value and strength of their institutions, political and religious. They strive to re¬ awaken the old-time spirit of clannish patriotism and super¬ stition, which formerly bowed in submissive and worship¬ ful reverence to those in authority and power; which lustily shouted, “Long live the king!” and reverently regarded the persons of those who claimed to be the representatives of God. But those days are past: the remains of the former ignor¬ ance and superstition are fast disappearing, and with them the sentiments of clannish patriotism and blind religious reverence; and in their place are found independence, suspicion and defiance, which bid fair ere long to lead to world-wide strife—anarchy. The peoples of the various ships of state talk angrily and threateningly to the captains and pilots, and at times grow almost mutinous. They claim that the present policy of those in power is to lure them to the slave markets of the future and to make mer¬ chandise of all their natural rights and reduce them to the serfdom of their fathers. And many insist with increasing vehemence upon displacing the present captains and pilots and letting the ships drift while they contend among them¬ selves for the mastery. But against this wild and danger¬ ous clamor the captains and pilots, the kings and statesmen, contend and hold their places of power, shouting all the while to the people, “ Hands off! you will drive the ves¬ sel onto the rocks!” Then the religious teachers come Babylon Arraigned. Si forward and council submission on the part of the people; and, seeking to emphasize their own authority as from God, they connive with the civil powers to hold the people under restraint. But they, too, begin to realize that their power is gone, and they are casting abcut for some means to reenforce it. So they talk of union and cooperation among themselves, and we hear them arguing with the state for more assistance from that source, promising in return to uphold civil institutions with their (waning) power. But all the while a storm is rising, and while the masses of the people, unable to comprehend the danger, continue to clamor, the hearts of those at the helms of the ships fail them for fear of that which they now see must surely come. The ecclesiastical powers, particularly, feel it incumbent upon them to render up their accounts in order to make the best possible showing; thus, if possible, to restrain the revolutionary current of public sentiment against them. But as they attempt to apologize for the meager good results of the past centuries of their power, they only add to their own confusion and perplexity, and arouse the attention of others to the true condition of affairs. These apologies are constantly appearing in the columns of the secular and religious press. And in marked contrast with these are the fearless criticisms from the world at large of both the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Christendom. Of these the following extradls from floating press reports are samples. THE world’s ARRAIGNMENT OF THE CIVIL POWERS. “Among all the strange beliefs of the race, there is none stranger than that which made Almighty God seledt with care some of the most ordinary members of the spe¬ cies, often sickly, stupid and vicious, to reign over great communities under his special protedtion, as his represen¬ tatives on earth .”—New York Evening Post. 6 D 82 The Day of Vengeance. Another journal some time ago had the following, under the caption,— “A Poor Lot of Kings:”— “ It is stated with some appearance of truth that King Milan of Servia is insane. The king of Wiirttemberg is a partial lunatic. The last king of Bavaria committed sui¬ cide while mad, and the present ruler of that country is an idiot. The Czar of Russia fills that office because his brother, the natural heir, was adjudged mentally incapable; and the present Czar is afflicted with melancholia since the time of his coronation, and has called to his aid the men¬ tal specialists of Germany and France. The king of Spain is a vidtim of scrofula and will probably not reach man¬ hood. The Emperor of Germany has an incurable abscess in his ear which will eventually affedt his brain. The king of Denmark has bequeathed poisoned blood to half a dozen dynasties. The Sultan of Turkey is affiidted with melancholia. There is not a throne in Europe where the sins of the fathers have not visibly descended upon the children, and in a generation or two more there will be neither Bourbon, Hapsburg, Romanoff nor Guelph to vex and rule the world. Blue blood of this kind will not be at a premium in the 1900’s. It is taking itself out of the problem of the future.” Another writer for the daily press figures up the cost of royalty as follows: — “The bargain made with Queen Vidtoria on her acces¬ sion gives her ^385,000 a year, with the power of granting new pensions to the amount of fi,2oo a year, estimated to be equal to an annuity of ^19,871. This makes a grand total of ^404,871 a year for the Queen alone, of which ^60,000 is for her privy purse; that is, simply pocket money. The duchy of Lancaster, which still re¬ mains under crown management, also pays ^50,000 a year into the privy purse. Thus the Queen has yCi 10,000 a year spending money; for the other expenses of her household are provided for by other items of the Civil last. When a gift of Aj5o or £100 to a charity by the Queen is an¬ nounced, it must not be supposed to come out of the privy purse, for there is a separate item of ^13,200 a year for royal bounty, alms and charity. Among the appointments Babylon Arraigned. S3 in the royal household are 20 classed as political, with total salaries of ^21,582 a year, the rule being that one man draws the salary and another does the work. The medical department includes 25 persons, from physicians extra¬ ordinary to chemists and druggists, all to keep the royal body in good health, while 36 chaplains in ordinary and 9 priests in ordinary minister to the royal soul. The Lord Chamberlain’s department includes a wearisome list of offices, among which, all jumbled up with the examiner of plays, the poet laureate and the surveyor of pictures, are the bargemaster, the keeper of the swans, and the keeper of the jewels in the Tower. The most curious of¬ fice under the head of the Royal Hunt is that of hereditary grand falconer, held by the duke of St. Albans at a salary of ^1,200 a year. Probably the Duke does not know the difference between a falcon and a penguin, and never in¬ tends to find out. Since her accession Queen Victoria has abolished many useless offices, thereby making a consider¬ able saving, all of which goes into her capacious privy purse. “ Having thus generously provided for the Queen, the British nation had to give her husband something. Prince Albert received ^30,000 a year by special vote, besides £6,000 a year as field marshal, £ 2,933 a y ear as Colonel of two regiments, ^1,120 a year as Governor of Windsor Castle, and ^1,5 00 as Ranger of Windsor and the Home parks. Altogether the Queen’s husband cost the nation ^790,000 during his 21 years of married life, and begat a large family to be quartered on the nation. Next comes the Empress Augusta of Germany, who draws £8 ,000 a year, besides having a dowry of ^40,000 and ^5,000 for wedding preparations. But this liberal allowance is not enough to pay her fare to England to see her mother, for on every such occasion ^40 is paid for her passage. When the Prince of Wales attained his majority he received a little matter of ^601,721 as a birthday gift, this being the amount of the accumulated revenues of the Duchy of Corn¬ wall up to that period. Since that time he has received an average of ^61,232 a year from the Duchy. The nation has also spent ^44,651 on repairs to Marlborough House, the Prince’s town residence, since 1871; pays him ^1,350 a year as Colonel of the Tenth Hussars; gave him ^23,- The Day of Vengeance. 84 450 to pay his marriage expenses; allows his wife ^10,000 a year, and gave him ^60,000 for spending money on his visit to India in 1875. Altogether he has drawn ^2,452,- 200 (over $12,000,000) from John Bull’s pccketbook up to ten years ago and has been drawing regularly ever since. “Now for the younger sons and daughters. Princess Alice received ^30,000 on her marriage in 1862, and an annuity of ^6,000 until her death in 1878. The Duke of Edinburgh was granted ^15,000 a year on coming of age in 1866, and an additional ^10,000 a year on his marriage in 1874, besides ^6,883 for wedding expenses and repairs to his house. This is what he gets for doing nothing but being a Prince. By work as a captain, and lately as an admiral in the navy, he has earned 15,000. Princess Helena, on her marriage to Prince Christian, of Schleswig- Holstein, in 1866, received a dowry of ^30,000 and a grant of ^7,000 a year for life, while her husband receives ^500 a year as Ranger of Windsor Home Park. The Princess Louisa received the same favors as her sister Helena. The Duke of Connaught began life in 1871 with ^15,000 a year from the nation and this was increased to ^25,000 on his marriage, in 1879. He now holds the command of the Bombay army, with jQ 6,600 a year and valuable per¬ quisites. The Duke of Albany was granted ^15,000 a year in 1874, the amount being increased to ^25,000 on his marriage in 1882, and his widow receives £6 ,000 a year. The ill-fated Duke was the genius of the family; and, if he had been an ordinary citizen with average opportunities, could have earned a comfortable living as a barrister, for he was an orator. The Princess Beatrice on her marriage received the usual dowry of ^30,000 and an annuity of £6,000. Thus the nation, from the Queen’s accession up to the end of 1886, had paid ^4,766,083 for the luxury of a Prince Consort, five Princesses and four Princes, leav¬ ing out of account special pocket fares, rent-free residences and exemption from taxes. “But this is not all. The nation has not only to sup¬ port the Queen’s descendants but her cousins and uncles and aunts. I will only record the amounts these royal pensioners have received since 1837. Leopold I., King of the Belgians, simply because he married the Queen’s aunt, Babylon Arraigned. 85 xcceived ^50,000 a year until his death, in 1865, a total of Vh,400,000 during the present reign. However, he had some sense of decency, for when he became the King of the Belgians in 1834, he had his pension paid over to trustees, stipulating only for annuities to his servants and the keeping up of Claremont House, and when he died the whole amount was repaid into the Exchequer. Not so the King of Hanover, an uncle of the Queen. He took all he could get, which, from 1837 to 1851 amounted at ^21,000 a year to ^294,000. Queen Adelaide, widow of William IV., drew ^100,000 a year for 12 years, or ^1,200,000 in all. The Queen’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, received ^30,000 a year from her daughter’s acces¬ sion to her death, a total of ^720,000. The Duke of Sussex, another uncle, received ^18,000 a year for six years, a total of ^108,000. The Duke of Cambridge, uncle No. 7, absorbed ^24,000 a year, or ^312,000 in all, while his widow, who still lives, has received ^6,000 a year since his death, or £222,000 in all. The Princess Augusta, another aunt, had about ^18,000 in all. The landgravine of Hesse, aunt No. 3, secured about ^35,000. The Duchess of Gloucester, aunt No. 4, got away with ^14,000 a year, for 20 years, or ^280,000 in all. The Princess Sophia, still another aunt, received ^167,000, and the last aunt, Princess Sophia of Gloucester, niece of George III., received £7,000 a year for 7 years, or ^49,000. Then the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Queen’s cousin, was paid^Ci,788 a year for 23 years of her reign, or ^42,124. “The Duke of Cambridge, as Commander-in-chief of the British army, with pensions, salary as Commander-in- chief, colonelcies of several regiments and rangership of several parks, large parts of which he has transformed in¬ to private game preserves, has received ^625,000 of public money. His sister, the Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, has received ^132,000, and his second sister, “FatMary,” Duchess of Teck, has taken ^153,000. This makes agrand total of ^4,357,i 2 4 which the nation has paid for the sup¬ port of the Queen’s uncles, aunts and cousins during her reign. “Besides the amounts given in the Queen’s Civil List, the original cost and the cost of maintenance of the four royal yachts is included in the navy estimates, although le- 86 The Day of Vengeance gitimately part of the expense of royalty. The original cost was ^£275,528, and the total cost of maintenance and pay, of allowances and victualling of the crew for ten years was ,£346,560, a total of ^622,088 for this single item. “ To sum up, the Queen’s numerous uncles, aunts and cousins have cost £'4,357,124; her husband, her sons and her daughters, £4,766,083; herself and her household, £19,838,679; and her yachts £622,088. This makes a total of ,£29,583, 974 [nearly one hundred and fifty mil¬ lion dollars] which the British nation has spent on mon¬ archy during the present reign. [To the year 1888.] Is the game worth the candle? This is a pretty steep price to pay for stability, for it means that the people are taxed to the limit of their powers to keep in idleness a number of persons who would do more good to the country if they were earning an honest living.” The quite recent coronation of the Czar of Russia was a marked illustration of royal extravagance, designed, as are all the flaunting plumes of royalty, to impress the masses of the people with the idea that their rulers are so far above them in glory and dignity as to be worthy of their worship as superior beings, and their most abjedt and ser¬ vile obedience. It is said that the great display of royalty on this occasion cost $25,000,000. Upon this extravagance, so in contrast with the wretched conditions of its peasant millions, with whose miseries the whole world became so well acquainted during the famine of 1893, we extradl from the comments of an English journal, The Spectator, as follows:— “It is difficult to study the accounts of the preparations for the Russian coronation, which read as if they ought to be printed in gold upon purple silk, without a sensation of disgust, more especially if we read at the same time the de¬ scriptions of the massacres of Armenians whom the Russians have refused to protedf, although they had the power. We can, with an effort, call up the marvelous scene presented in Moscow, with its Asiatic architecture and gleaming cu¬ polas, its streets full of gorgeous European uniforms and Babylon Arraigned. 87 more gorgeous Asiatic dresses, white Princes in red, yellow Princes in blue, brown Princes in cloth of gold, the rulers of tribes from the far East, the Dictator of China, and the brown Japanese General before whom that Dictator has fallen prone, side by side with members of all reigning Houses in Europe, and representatives of all known Churches except the Mormon, of all the peoples who obey the Czar—there are, we believe, eighty of them—and of every army in the West, all moving amidst regiments end¬ less in number and varieties of uniform, and through millions of humble folk—half Asiatic, half European— filled with excitement and with devotion to their earthly lord. We can anticipate the roar of the endless crowds, the choruses of the multitudinous monks, the salvoes of artillery, which are repeated from station to station till throughout the whole north of the world, from Riga to Yladivostock, all men hear at the same moment of time that the Czar has placed the crown upon his head. The Englishman studies it all as he would study a poem by Moore, and finds it at once gorgeous and sickly. Is not this too grandiose for grandeur? Is it not rather of the opera than of life? Is there not something like guilt, in an Em¬ pire like Russia, with its millions upon millions of suffer¬ ing people, in the gigantic expenditure which produces these purple effedts? Five millions sterling for a cere¬ monial ! Is there a principle upon which an expenditure like that can even be plausibly justified? Is it not the waste of a Belshazzar, the display of an almost insane pride, a pouring out of treasure as Oriental kings sometimes pour it out, solely to excite an emotion of glory in one over¬ sated mind? Nothing could induce an Englishman to vote such a sum for such an objedf, and England could spare the money at least ten times as readily as Russia. “Yet it may be feared that those who rule Russia are wise in their generation, and that this reckless outlay of energy and treasure secures a result which, from their point of view, is an adequate return. The objedt is to deepen the Russian impression that the position of the Czar is in some way supra-natural, that his resources are as limitless as his power, that he stands in some special relation to the Divine, that his coronation is a consecration so solemn and 88 The Day of Vengeance. with such meaning for mankind that no external display to make it visible can be excessive, that mankind may be summoned to gaze without derogation, that the moment¬ ary hush of peace which has been so carefully spread throughout the Northern world is caused not by order but by expectation of an adequate event. And the ruling Russians believe that the result is attained, and that the impression of the coronation equals throughout the Em¬ pire the impression of a victory which would cost as much in money and much more in tears. They repeat the cere¬ monial on every devolution of the throne, with an ever- increasing splendor and vastness of design, corresponding to the increase of Russian position, marked just now, as they think, by the sullen retrogression of Japan, by the submissiveness of China and by the crawling servility of the ruler of Constantinople. They even believe that the coronation increases their master’s prestige in Europe, that the grandeur of his Empire, the multitude of his soldiers, his possession of all the resources of civilization as well as of all the resources of a barbaric Power, is borne more closely home to the collective mind of the West, and in¬ creases the dislike which is there to face the great Northern Power. In Berlin, there is, they think, a deeper shiver at the thought of invasion, in Paris more exultation as men remember the Alliance, in London a longer pause as her statesmen meditate, as they are always meditating, how next the march of the glacier may be stayed or turned aside. Can any one assert with confidence that they are wholly wrong, or that for a year the diplomacy of Russia will not be bolder in consequence of the national festival, the resistance of those who resist more timid because they have seen, at least with their mental eyes, a scene which might perhaps, if brevity were sought, be best described as the review of an Empire held within the walls of its capi¬ tal, or the march past of Northern Europe and Asia in honor of its Commander-in-Chief? “It maybe misleading, but of this we feel assured, that scenes like that presented at this coronation form one of the risks of the world. They must tend to de¬ moralize its most powerful man. Of the present Czar no one knows anything, except, says one who was thrown Babylon Arraigned\ 89 into close contadl with him, that he is ‘a man of deep emotional feeling;’ but he must be more than the ordinary mass if he, a descendant of Alexander I. who signed the the Treaty of Tilsit, can feel himself for days the center of that coronation scene, can, in fadl, be worshipped as if he reigned in Nineveh, without dreaming dreams; and king’s dreams are usually of dominion. There is an intoxication of rank, we take it, as well as an intoxication of power, and the man on whom every eye is fixed, and before whom all princes seem small, must be of temperate mind indeed if he does not at moments swell with the con- vidtion that he is first among mankind. The rulers of Russia may yet find that, though in raising their Czars so high they have strengthened loyalty and deepened obedi¬ ence, they have dissolved the power of self-restraint which is the necessary defence of the mind.” But the fadl that these rulers of so-called Christian Kingdoms are as a whole devoid of true Christian sentiments and lacking in even human sympathy is abundantly proved by the fadl that, while wealth is squandered like water in the support of royalty and its vain pomp and show, and while millions of soldiers and sailors, and a most marvel¬ ous military armament are at their command, they listen unmoved to the cries of the poor Armenian Christians, whom the Turks are torturing and killing by the tens of thousands. The wonderful armies evidently are not organ¬ ized for humanity’s sake, but for the merely selfish purposes of the political and financial rulers of the world; viz.,— to grasp territory, to protedl interests of bondholders, and to fly at each other’s throats, inflamed with murderous spite, whenever a good opportunity is seen to enlarge their empires or to increase their wealth. In marked contrast with this royal extravagance which prevails, to some extent in every country where a royal family is maintained, is The Enormous Indebted?iess of European Countries . 77ie Day of Vengeance. 90 “The Fconomiste Francais published an elaborate article., by M. Rene Stourm, on the Public Debt of France. The most usual estimate of the capital of the debt is said to be $6,400,000,000. The most moderate estimates place it a few millions lower. M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu figures it at $6,343,573,630. The result of M. Stourm’s computation is a total of $5,900,800,000, with the qualification, how¬ ever, that he has omitted $432,000,000 of life annuities, which other economists have treated as part of the capital of the debt. The annual charge for interest and sinking fund, on the entire debt, including the life annuities, is $258,167,083. Of the funded debt $2,900,000,000 are perpetual 3 per cents., $1,357,600,000 perpetual four and a half per cents., and $967,906,200 redeemable bonds of vari¬ ous descriptions. Annuities to divers companies and cor¬ porations of $477,400,000, and $200,000,000 of floating- debt, make up the balance of M. Stourm’s total. This is by far the heaviest burden borne by any nation on the globe. The nearest approach to it is the debt of Russia, which is stated at $3,605,600,000. England is next, with $3,565,- 800,000, and Italy next, with $2,226,200,000. The debt of Austria is $1,857,600,000, and of Plungary $635,600,000. Spain owes $1,208,400,000, and Prussia $962,800,000. These are the figures of M. Stourm. None of these na¬ tions, excepting England and Prussia, raise sufficient revenue to guarantee a permanent equilibrium of the budget, but France is the most heavily burdened of them all, and the increase of her debt has been the most rapid in the recent past and is the most threatening of the future. “In conclusion M. Stourm says: ‘We refrain from dwelling upon the afflidting refledfions which the result of our labor awakens. Under whatever aspedt we regard these 29 *4 milliards, whether in comparison with the debts of other countries or with our own debt of ten or twenty years ago, they appear like a summit of unknown height, surpassing the limit which any people of the world, at any epoch, have supposed attainable. The Eiffel Tower will be their veritable counterpart; we dominate our neighbors’ and our own history with the height of our debt, . . . in the presence of which it is time that our country felt patriotic fright.’ ” Babylon Arraigned. 91: The LoJidoJi Telegraph recently gave the following resume of the national financial outlook: — “ Impecuniosity hangs like a dark and almost universal cloud over the nations of Europe. Times are very bad for the Powers all round, but worst of all for the small ones. There is hardly a nation on the Continent whose balance- sheet for the departed year does not present a gloomy out¬ look; while many of them are mere confessions of bank¬ ruptcy. Careful reports upon the financial conditions of the various States exhibit a struggle in the several excheq¬ uers to make two ends meet which has never been so general. The state of things is indeed almost world-wide; for, if we look outside our own Continent, the United States on one hand, and India and Japan, with their neighbors, on the other, have felt the prevalent pinch. . . . “ The Great Republic is too vast and resourceful to die of her financial maladies; though even she is very sick. Great Britain, too, has a deficit to face in the coming Budget, and has sustained costly, perhaps irreparable, losses by the mad business of the coal strike. France, like our¬ selves and America, is one of the countries which can¬ not well be imagined insolvent, so rich is her soil and so industrious are her people. Her revenue, how. ver, manifests frequent deficits; her national debt has assumed stupendous proportions, and the burden of her Army and Navy well- nigh crushes the industry of the land. Germany must also be written in the category of P wers too solid and too strong to suffer more than temporary eclipse. Yet during the past year it is computed that she has lost ^25,000,000 sterling, which represents about half the national savings. Much of this loss has been due to German investments in the stocks of Portugal, Greece, South America, Mexico, Italy and Servia; while Germany has also sharply felt the confusion in the silver market. The burden of her armed peace weighs upon her people with a crush¬ ing load. Among the Powers which we are grouping to¬ gether as naturally solvent, it is striking to find that Austria- Hungary has the best and happiest account to give. “ When we turn aside from this great group and cast our eyes on Italy, there is an example of a £ Great Power ’ well- nigh beggared by her greatness. Year by year her revenue 9 2 The Day of Vengeance. drops and her expenditures increase. Six years ago the value of Italy’s external commerce was 2,600,000,000 francs; now it has fallen to 2,100,000,000. She must pay ^30,- 000,000 sterling as interest on her public debt, besides a premium for the gold necessary. Her securities are a drug in the market; her prodigious issue of bank-notes has put silver and gold at fancy prices. Her population is plunged in a state of poverty and helplessness almost unimaginable here, and when her new Ministers invent fresh taxes san¬ guinary riots break out. “As for Russia, her financial statements are shrouded in such mystery that none can speak of them with confidence; but there is little reason to doubt that only the bigness of the Czar’s empire keeps.it from becoming bankrupt. The population has been squeezed until almost the last drop of the life-blood of industry is extradted. The most reckless and remorseless Financial Minister scarcely dares to give the screw of taxation another half-turn. “A moderate and accurate native authority writes about the situation in Russia in the following words :— “ ‘ Every copeck which the peasant contrives to earn is spent, not in putting his affairs in order, but in paying up arrears in taxes. . . . The money paid by the peasant popu¬ lation in the guise of taxes amounts to from two-thirds to three-fourths of the gross income of the land, including their own extra work as farm laborers.’ The apparent good credit of the government is sustained by artificial means. Close observers look for a crash alike in the social and financial arches of the empire. Here, too, the stupen¬ dous incubus of the armed peace of Europe helps largely to paralyze commerce and agriculture. The example of Portugal lies outside our purview; for, though the once famous kingdom is a defaulter, her unfortunate position is certainly not due to military ambition or to feverish ex¬ penditures. Greece, however, although insignificant among the Powers with her population of two millions, affords a glaring instance of the ruin to which financial extravagance and inflated designs will bring a nation. The ‘ great idea’ has been the curse of little Greece, and we have recently seen her driven to shirk the load of her public debt by an adt of absolute dishonesty, only partially suspended in face of Babylon Arraigned. 93 the protests of Europe. The money wasted on her ‘Army and Navy ’ might as well have been thrown into the sea. Politics have become with her a disease, infecting her best and most capable public men. With a common people too educated to work; university students more plentiful than bricklayers; public debts and private debts which nobody ever means to pay; a sham Army and Navy, eating up funds; dishonesty made a principle in politics; and secret plans which must either mean more loans or a corrupt and perilous bargain with Russia—these things characterize contemporary Greece. “Looking the Continent all round, therefore, it cannot be denied that the state of things as regards the welfare of the people and the national balance-sheets is sorely unsatis¬ factory. Of course one chief and obvious reason for this is that armed peace which weighs upon Europe like a night¬ mare, and has turned the whole Continent into a standing camp. Look at Germany alone ! That serious and sober Empire! The Army Budget rose there from ^17,500,000 sterlingin 1880 to^28,500,000 in 1893. The increase under the new Army Defence Adt adds ^3,000,000 sterling a year to the colossal mass of Germany’s defensive armor. “France has strained her strength to the same point of proximate collapse to match her mighty rival. It is need¬ less to point out the terrible part which these war insuran¬ ces bear in the present popular distress of Europe. Not merely do they abstract from profits and earnings the vast sums which buy powder and shot and build barracks, but they take from the ranks of industry at the commencement of their manly force millions of young workmen, who are also lost for the same periods to the family and the rein¬ forcement of populations. The Avorld has not yet invented a better clearing-house for the international cheques than the ghastly and costly Temple of War. : ’ But notwithstanding the heavy indebtedness and financial embarrassment of the nations, it is estimated by able statis¬ ticians that the aCtual cost to Europe of the various army and navy budgets, the maintenance of garrisons and the loss of industrial labor by the withdrawal of men from pro¬ ductive industry, may be reasonably taken as $1,500,000,00a 94 The Day of Vengeance. per annum, to say nothing of the immense loss of life, which in twenty-five years of the present century (from 1855 to 1880) is stated at 2,188,000, and that amidst hor¬ rors which beggar description. Mr. Charles Dickens has very truthfully observed that:— “We talk exultingly, and with a certain fire, of ‘a mag¬ nificent charge!’ of ‘a splendid charge!’ yet very few will think of the hideous particulars these two airy words stand for. The ‘splendid charge’ is a headlong rush of men on strong horses, urged to their fullest speed, riding down and overwhelming an opposing mass of men on foot. The reader’s mind goes no further; being content with the in¬ formation that the enemy’s line was ‘broken’ and ‘gave way.’ It does not fill in the pidlure. When the ‘splendid charge’ has done its work and passed by, there will be found a sight very much like the scene of a frightful railway accident. There will be the full complement of backs broken in two, of arms twisted wholly off, of men impaled upon their own bayonets, of legs smashed up like bits of firewood, of heads sliced open like apples, of other heads crunched into soft jelly by iron hoofs of horses, of faces trampled out of all likeness to anything human. That is what skulks behind a‘splendid chargeThis is what follows, as a matter of course, when ‘our fellows rode at them in style,’ and ‘cut them up famously. ’ ” “Picture to yourselves ” says a recent writer, “the toil¬ ing millions over the whole face of Europe, swarming forth day by day to their labor, working ceaselessly from early morn to dewy eve, in the cultivation of the soil, in the produdlion of fabrics, in the exchange of commodities, in mines, factories, forges, docks, workshops, warehouses; on railways, rivers, lakes, oceans; penetrating the bowels of the earth, subduing the stubbornness of brute matter, mas¬ tering the elements of nature, and making them subservient to human convenience and weal, and creating by all this a mass of wealth which might carry abundance and comfort to every one of their homes. And then imagine the hand of power coming in and every year sweeping some six hundred millions of the money so laboriously earned into* the abyss of military expenditure.” Babylon Arraigned. 95 The following from tne Harrisburg Telegram is also to the point:— “It costs the ‘ Christian'’ nations of Europe something to illustrate their notion of f peace on earth and good will to mend That is, it costs them something to keep them¬ selves all ready to blow one another into small fragments. Statistics published in Berlin show the amount of military expenditures of the great powers during the three years 1888, 1889, 1890. The following expenditures in round figures are given: France, $1,270,000,000 ; Russia, $813,- 000,000; Great Britain $613,000,000; Germany $607,- 000,000; Austria-Hungary, $338,000,000; Italy, $313,500,- 000. These six powers have expended altogether $3,954,- 500,000 for military purposes in three years, or at the rate of more than $1,318,100,000 a year. The total for the three years considerably exceeds the national debt of Great Britain, and is nearly large enough to pay the interest- bearing debt of the United States three times over. The corresponding expenditure in the United States has been about $145,000,000, exclusive of pensions. If we should add these our total expenditure would be swelled to about $390,000,000. ” “According to the estimates of French and German statisticians, there have perished in the wars of the last thirty years 2,500,000 men, while there has been expended to carry on those wars no less than $13,000,000,000. Dr. Engel, a German statistician, gives the following as the ap¬ proximate cost of the principal wars of the last thirty years: Crimean war, $2,000,000,000; Italian war of 1859, $300,- 000,000; Prusso-Danish war of 1864, $35,000,000; Warof the Rebellion (North) $5,100,000,000; South $2,300,000,- 000; Prusso-Austrian warof 1866, $330,600,000; Franco- German war of 1870, $2,600,000,000; Russo-Turkish war, $125,000,000; South African wars, $8,770,000; African war, $13,250,000; Servo-Bulgarian war, $176,000,000. “ All these wars were murderous in the extreme. The Crimean war, in which few battles were fought, cost 750,- 000 lives, only 50,000 less than were killed or died of their wounds North and South during the war of the Rebellion. The Mexican and Chinese expeditions cost $200,000,000, 96 The Day of Vengeance. and 85,000 lives. There were 250,000killed and mortally wounded during the Russo-Turkish war, and 45,000 each in the Italian war of 1859 and the war between Prussia and Austria.” In a letter to Deputy Passy of Paris, the late Hon. John Bright, member of the English Parliament, said:— u Atpresent all European resources are swallowed up in military exigencies . The people’s interests are sacrificed to the most miserable and culpable fantasies of foreign politics. The real interests of the masses are trodden under foot in deference to false notions of glory and national honor. I cannot help thinking that Europe is marching toward some great catastrophe of crushing weight. The military system cannot indefinitely be supported with patience, and the populations, driven to despair, may possibly before long sweep away the royalties and pretended statesmen who govern in their names.” Thus the judgment of the civil powers is going against them. Not only is the press thus outspoken, but the peo¬ ple everywhere are loudly talking and clamoring against the powers that be. The unrest is universal, and is be¬ coming more and more dangerous every year. THE world’s ARRAIGNMENT OF THE PRESENT SOCIAL SYSTEM. Christendom’s social system is also under inspection,— its monetary regulations, its financial schemes and institu- tutions, and, growing out of these, its selfish business policy, and its class-distinctions based mainly on wealth, with all that this implies of injustice and suffering to the masses of men,—these are as severely handled in the judgment of this hour as the civil institutions. Witness the endless discussions on the silver question, and the gold standard, and the interminable disputings between labor and capital. Like surging waves of the sea under a rising wind, sound the concerted mutterings of innumerable voices against the j8abylo?i Arraigned. 97 . # \ present social system, particularly in so far as it is seen to be inconsistent with the moral code contained in the Bible, which Christendom, in a general way, claims to recognize and follow. It is indeed a notable fa6l that in the judgment of Chris¬ tendom, even by the world at large, the standard of judg¬ ment is the Word of God. The heathen hold up the Bible, and boldly declare, “You are not as good as your book.” They point to its blessed Christ, and say, “You do not follow your pattern.” And both the heathen and the mas¬ ses of Christendom take up the golden rule and the law of love, wherewith to measure the dodtrines, institutions, policy and general course of Christendom; and all alike testify to the truth of the strange handwriting on her fes¬ tive walls,—“ Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting.” The world’s testimony against the present social system is heard everywhere in every land. All men declare it to be a failure; the opposition is increasingly adlive, and is spreading alarm all over the world, “ terribly shaking ” all confidence in existing institutions, and ever and anon paralyzing industry with panics, strikes, etc. There is not a nation in Christendom where the opposition to the present social arrangements is not pronounced, obstinate and increasingly threatening. Says Mr. Carlyle, “British industrial existence seems fast becoming one huge prison-swamp of reeking pestilence, physical and moral, a hideous living Golgotha of souls and bodies buried alive. Thirty thousand needle-women work¬ ing themselves swiftly to death. Three million paupers rotting in forced idleness, helping said needle-women to die. These are but items in the sad ledger of despair.” From another paper called The Young Man , we clip the following article, headed, “ Is the World Growing Better ?” It says:— The Day of Vengeance. 98 “Strongmen, eager for honest toil, are enduring the agonies of hunger and exposure, and in many cases the additional sorrow of beholding the sufferings of their families. On the other hand, overwhelming wealth is often allied with avarice and immorality; and while the poor starve by inches, the rich, to a large extent, ignore the needs of their brethren, and are only solicitous that Lazarus should not become inconveniently prominent. Thousands of young men are forced to slave in stuffy shops and cheerless warehouses for seventy and eighty hours a week, with never an interval for physical or mental recreation. At the East End women sew shirts or make matchboxes all day for a wage which is insufficient for the rent of a bed —not to speak of a separate room-—and are often compelled to choose between starvation and vice. At the West End whole thoroughfares are in the possession of the rouged and painted sirens of sensuality and sin—every one a stand¬ ing rebuke to the weakness and wickedness of man. As for the young men, thousands are gambling themselves into jail or drinking themselves into early graves; and yet every respedtable newspaper is occupied with long reports of horse races, and Christian (?) Government permits a public house to be planted at the corner of every street. Sin is made easy, vice is made cheap, trickery prevails in trade, bitterness in politics and apathy in religion.” The Philadelphia Press some time ago published the following:— “Danger Ahead!—There is no doubt about it that New York is divided into two great classes, the very rich and the very poor. The middling classes of reputable, indus¬ trious, fair-to-do people are gradually disappearing, going up in the scale of worldly wealth or down into poverty and embarrassment. It seems unquestioned that between these classes exists, and is rapidly growing, under inten¬ tional fostering of evil men, a distindt, pronounced, malig¬ nant hatred. There are men here who are worth $10,000,- 000 and $20,000,000, of whom you know nothing. I know one lady, living in a magnificent house, whose life is as quiet as that of a minister should be, who has given away not less than $3,000,000 in five years, whose benefactions Babylon Arraigned. 99 prior to her death will reach not less than $7,000,000, who has in her home paintings, statuary, diamonds, pre¬ cious stones, exquisite specimens of gold and silver, with costly works of every imaginable art, an inside estimate of k which is $1,500,000, and she is not as rich as many of her neighbors by several million dollars. There are men here who twenty years ago sold clothes on Chatham street, who to-day live at an annual expense of $100,000, who wear jewels costing in reasonable stores $25,000. “Come with me in a Madison avenue car any day, rain or shine, between the hours of ten o’clock in the morning and 5 or 6 in the afternoon, and I will find you car after car closely packed with ladies in whose ears are diamonds worth from $500 to $5,000 each, on whose ungloved hands, red and fluffy, sparkle fortunes. Walk with me from Stewart’s old store, at the corner of Ninth street and Broadway to Thirtieth street and Broadway any day. I do not mean Sundays, holidays, or special occasions, but ail times, and I will show you on block after block women in sealskin circulars down to their heels, worth from $500 to $1,000 each, with diamond earrings and with diamond finger rings, and other precious stones as well, carrying in their hands dainty pocketbooks stuffed with money. They represent the new rich with which New York is filling up. “On that same street, at that same time, I can show you men to whom a dollar would be a fortune, whose trousers, torn and disgraceful in their tatters, are held about their pinched waists by ropes or twine or pins, whose stocking¬ less feet shuffle along the pavement in shoes so ragged that they dare not lift them from the pavement, whose faces are freckled, whose beards are long and straggling, as is their hair, while their reddening hands taper at the nails like claws. How long before those claws will fasten on the newly rich? Make no mi stake about it, the feeling is born, the feeling is growing, and the feeling, sooner or later, will break forth. Only last night I walked through Fourteenth street, on which there are but few residences left, and in front of one, leading from the door to the curbstone, was a canopy, un¬ der which charmingly attired ladies, accompanied by their escorts, went from their carriages to the open door, through which floods of light and sounds of music came. I stood 100 The Day of Vengeance. with the crowd, a big crowd, a moment, and there was born this idea of an inevitable outbreak unless something is done, and speedily done, to do away with the prejudice which not only exists, but is intentionally fostered, against the very rich by the very poor. It would make you shud¬ der to hear the way the women spoke. Envy, jealousy, malignant ferocity, every element needed, was there. All that is wanted is a leader.” The world is contrasting with the horrid conditions of the Sweater System of human slavery and with the miseries of the vast army of people out of work, and another vast army of underpaid workers, the luxury and extravagance of immense wealth, as did a London journal some time ago—thus:— “A Millionaire’s Modest Home.—We learn from New York that Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the New York million¬ aire and railway king, has just opened his new palace with a grand ball. This modest home, which is to shelter about ten people during six months of the year, and to remain closed during the other six, stands at the corner of Fifty- seventh street and Fifth avenue, and has cost its owner i ,000,000. It is of Spanish design outside, built of grey stone, with red facings, turrets and battlements. _ It is three stories high with a lofty attic. The ball room is the larg¬ est private ball room in New York, being 75 ft. long by 5°it. wide, decorated in white and gold, Louis xiv. style. The ceiling cost a fortune, and is made in the form of a double cone, covered with painted nymphs and cupids. Round the cornice are delicately modeled flowers, each with an eledlric light in its heart, while an immense crystal chan¬ delier hangs from the centre. The walls on the night of the opening ball were covered from floor to ceiling with natural flowers, at a cost of ^1,000; and the entertain¬ ment is said to have cost the host ^5,000. Adjoining the mansion is the most expensive garden for its size in the world, for although it is only the size of an ordinary city lot, the sum of ^70,000 was paid for it, and a house which had cost ^25,000 to build was torn down to make room for the few flower beds.” Babylon Arraigned. ioi A San Francisco journal, Industry , recently contained the following comment on the extravagance of two wealthy men of this country:— ‘‘ The Wanamaker dinner in Paris, and the Vanderbilt dinner at Newport, costing together at least $40,000, per¬ haps a good deal more, are among the signs of the times. Such things presage a change in this country. This, which is only typical of a hundred more cases of like ostentatious money show, may well be likened to a feast in Rome before the end came, and the luxury in France that a century ago was the precursor of a revolution. The money spent annually by Americans abroad, mostly for luxury and worse, is estimated at a third as much as our National revenue. ’ 1 The following very interesting bit of information, quoted in the National View , is from Ward McAllister, lately a great New York society leader:— “The average annual living expenses of a family of average respedtability, consisting of husband and wife and three children, amounts to $146,945, itemized as follows: Rent of city house, $29,000; of country house, $14,000; expenses of country house, $6,000; indoor servants’ wages, $8,016; household expenses, inclusive of servant’s wages, $18,954; his wife’s dressing, $10,000; his own wardrobe, $2,000; children’s clothing and pocket money, $4,500; three children’s schooling, $3,600; entertaining by giving balls and dances, $7,000; entertaining at dinner, $6,600; opera box, $4,500; theater and supper parties after theater, $1,200; papers and magazines, $100; jeweler’s running account, $1,000; stationery, $300; books, $500; wedding presents and holiday gifts, $1,400; pew in church, $300; club dues, $425; physician’s bill, $800; dentist’s bill, $500; transportation of household to country and return, $250; traveling in Europe, $9,000; cost of stables, $17,000.” Chauncey M. Depew is quoted as having said:— “ Fifty men in the United States have it in their power by reason of the wealth they control, to come together within twenty-four hours and arrive at an understanding by which 102 The Day of Vengeance. every wheel of travel and commerce may be stopped from re¬ volving, every avenue of trade be blocked and every eledtric key struck dumb. Those fifty can control the circulation of the currency and create a panic whenever they will.” THE WORLD’S JUDGMENT OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL POWERS. The criticism of Ecclesiasticism is fully as severe as that of Monarchy and Aristocracy ; for they are recognized as one in interest. Of these sentiments the following will serve as illustrations. The North American Review for November ’93 con¬ tained a brief article by John Edgerton Raymond, on “The Decline of Ecclesiasticism.” Describing the forces which are opposed to the church, and which will eventually accomplish its overthrow, he said:— “The Christian Church is in the midst of a great con¬ flict. Never since the organization of Christianity have so many forces been arrayed against her. What certain theo¬ logians are pleased to call the ‘world power’ was never stronger than it is to-day. No longer is the church opposed by barbaric races, by superstitious philosophers, by priests of mythical religions, but by the highest culture, the deepest learning and the profoundest wisdom of enlightened nations. All along the line of her progress she is resisted by the ‘ world power, ’ which represents the highest attain¬ ments and the best ideals of the human mind. “Nor are all her opponents found beyond the pale. Within her solemn shades, robed in her vestments, voicing her commands, representing her to the world, stand many who are ready to cast off her authority and dispute her supremacy. Multitudes who yet obey her decrees are be¬ ginning to question; and doubt is the first step towards disobedience and desertion. The world will never know how many honest souls within the church groan in spirit and are troubled, yet keep a seal upon their lips and a chain upon their tongues ‘for conscience sake,’ lest they ‘cause their brother to offend.’ They are silent, not for fear of Babylon Arraigned. 103 rebuke, for the time has gone by when to speak freely was to suffer persecution, and when to suggest that the church might not be infallible was to be accused of infidelity. ’ ’ He says the demand is not for a new gospel, but for an old gospel with a new meaning:— “Everywhere the demand is made for a more literal and faithful proclamation of the precepts of the founder of Christianity. ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ is to many the epitome of divine philosophy. ‘Preach it! preach it! cry reformers of every school everywhere; ‘ not only preach it, but exemplify it!’ ‘Show us,’ they say, ‘that your practices conform to these precepts, and we will believe you! Follow Christ, and we will follow you!’ “ But just here lies the controversy. The church pro¬ fesses to teach the precepts of Christ, to preach his gospel. The world listens, and replies: ‘You have perverted the truth!’ And behold the spedtacle of an unbelieving world teaching a believing church the true principles of her re¬ ligion ! This is one of the most striking and significant signs of the age. And it is altogether new. The world has been familiar from the beginning with the retort: ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ But only in modern times have men ventured to say: ‘ Physician, let us prescribe the medi¬ cine !’ “ When the poor and needy, the oppressed and sorrow¬ ing, who are taught to look to heaven for future recom¬ pense, saw holy priests and favored princes robed in purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day; saw them laying up treasures on earth in defiance of moth and rust and thieves; saw them, with easy consciences, serving God and mammon, they began to doubt their sincerity. “And presently they began to affirm that all truth does not dwell under a church spire, that the church is power¬ less; that she cannot prevent misfortune, cannot heal the sick, cannot feed the hungry and clothe the naked, cannot raise the dead, cannot save the soul. Then they began to say that a church so weak, so worldly, could not be a divine institution. And soon they began to desert her altars. They said: ‘To deny the infallibility of the church, the efficacy of her ordinances, or the truth of her creeds, is io4 The Day of Vengeance. not to deny the efficacy of religion. We are not at war with Christianity, but with the church’s exposition of Christianity. Reverence for divine truth is compatible with the most profound contempt for ecclesiasticism. For the sublime Person who trod the earth, whose touch was life and whose smile was salvation, we have only veneration and love, but no longer for the institution that claims to represent him. “The church denounces her accusers as unbelievers, and goes on her way amassing treasure, building temples and palaces, making compacts with kings and covenants with mighty men, while the forces arrayed against her are in¬ creasing in numbers and power. She has lost her supremacy, her authority has passed away. She is but a sign, a shadow. And it is impossible for her to regain her lost ascendancy, or to return to her throne. Dreams of her universal do¬ minion are a delusion. Her scepter has been broken for¬ ever. Already we are in a transition period. The revolu¬ tionary movement of the age is universal and irresistible. Thrones are beginning to totter. A volcano smoulders be¬ neath the palaces of kings, and when thrones topple over, pulpits will fall. ‘ 4 There have been revivals of religion in the past, more or less local and temporary. There is yet to be a revival of religion which is to be world-wide—a restoration of faith in God and love for man—when the brightest dreams of universal brotherhood shall be realized. But it will come in spite of, rather than through, the church. It will corneas a readlion against ecclesiastical tyranny; as a pro¬ test against mere forms and ceremonials.” In an article in The Forum of Odtober, ’90, on “Social Problems and the Church,” by Bishop Huntington, we have his comment on a very notable and significant fadt, as follows:— “‘When a great mixed audience in one of the public halls in New York cheered the name of Jesus Christ and hissed the name of the church, it settled no question, solved no problem, proved no proposition, expounded no Scripture, but it was as significant as half the sermons that are preached . 9 He then referred to the fadl that the time was ‘ when the Babylon Arraigned. i°5 people heard the words, ‘Christ and the church/ with reverent silence if not with enthusiastic devotion, and then remarked: ‘ Only in these later days when workingmen think, read, reason and refledt, does a promiscuous crowd rudely, rather than irreverently, take the two apart, honor¬ ing the one and scouting the other. ’ ’ ’ Other significant expressions through the press, of the popular judgment, are as follows:— “The Catholic Review and some other papers insist that there should be ‘religious instruction in. the prisons.’ That’s right. We go further than that. There should be religious instruction in other places besides the prisons—in the homes, for instance, and in the Sunday schools. Yes, we will not be outdone in liberality, we favor religious in¬ struction in some churches. You can’t have too much of a good thing if you take it in moderation.” “The Chaplain of a certain penitentiary said that twenty years ago only about five per cent, of prisoners had pre¬ viously been Sunday school pupils, but that now seventy- five per cent, of actual and suspected criminals have been such. A certain pastor also gives an account of an inebriate asylum where the per cent, is eighty, and another of fallen women where all have been in Sunday schools. The press comment on these facts was that the term formerly applied to the school, ‘the nursery of the church,’ is getting to be a ghastly satire. What shall be done?” In the discussions with reference to the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, on Sundays, the following was elicited: — “Some Comfort Left.—If the worst comes to the worse and fairs, like theaters and saloons, are opened on Sundays in Chicago, it is a very comforting reflection that not a single American citizen is obliged to go. Nobody is worse off in this respect than were the apostles and the early Christians. They were not allowed the use of a police¬ man or of the Roman legions for the purpose of propagat¬ ing their opinions and compelling their neighbors to be more godly than they wanted to be. And yet it was that primitive Christianity with no aid from the State—nay, a xo6 The Day of Vejigeance. Christianity persecuted and suffering—which really con¬ quered the world.” In the general commotion of these times, many in the church as well as in the world are greatly perplexed and bewildered by the great confusion. The sentiments of such were clearly voiced some time ago in the New York Sun, which said:— “ The question, ‘Where are we?’ ‘Where are we?’ is be¬ coming a pregnant religious one. Professors sit in the chairs of seminaries teaching dodtrines far enough removed from the originals to make the ancient benefadtors turn in their graves; clergymen sign pledges on ordination which they probably know the administrator does not believe him¬ self ; the standards are in many cases only the buoys which show how far the ships of the churches have gotten away from the mapped out channels. It is the age of ‘go as you please,’ of ‘every man for himself,’ and all that. Nobody knows where it is all to end, and those who are interested most seem to care the least.” Not only are the condudt and influence of the churches thus severely criticised, but their most prominent doc¬ trines also. Note, for instance, how the blasphemous dodtrine of eternal torment for the great majority of our race, by which men have long been held in control through fear, is similarly slurred by the thinking public. On this subjedt the clergy begin to see a very urgent necessity for emphasis, in order to counteradt the growing sentiments of liberalism. The Rev. Dr. Henson of Chicago some time ago venti¬ lated his views of this subjedt; and as reporters inter¬ viewed other clergymen with reference to it, their flippant, heartless, jesting way of dealing with a subjedt about which they evidently know nothing, but which they claim to believe involves the eternal interests of millions of their fellow-men, was indeed worthy of the persecuting spirit of Romanism. Babylon Arraigned. 107 Rev. Dr. Henson said,—“The hades of the New Version is only hell in disguise; death is death though we call it sleep, and hell is hell though we call it hades; hell is a reality, and is infernally horrible. In hell we shall have bodies. The resurrection of the body implies place and implies physical torment. But physical is not the worst. Mental pain, remorse, anticipation, that makes the soul writhe as the worm writhes on glowing embers, is the worst; and this sinners will have to suffer. Thirst with no water to quench; hunger with no food to satisfy; a knife thrust into the heart, but to be thrust there again—endless, awful. This is the hell we have to meet. Death offers a release from life’s treadmill, but there is no relief in hell.” What impression did the “Doctor’s” sermon make? Perhaps one may judge from the following interviews of reporters and ministers next morning:— 4 * 4 What do you think of hell, and are we all going to be baptized in a lake of molten brimstone and pig-iron if we do not mend our ways?’ said a reporter to Prof. Swing, one of Chicago’s famous preachers. Then it was that Prof. Swing laughed a hearty, side-splitting laugh, until his rugged cheeks became as rosy as a school girl’s. The emi¬ nent preacher drums a tattoo on the edge of an inlaid table, and the chimney on his little study lamp rattles and seems to laugh too. 4 In the first place,’ said he, 4 1 suppose you realize that this subjeCt of hell and future punishment is something about which we actually know very little. Now, my method for making everything harmonize in the Bible is to spiritualize it. My idea is that the punishment will be graded according to the sins; but as the next world is to be spiritual, so must the rewards and punishments be spiritualized. ’ 4 4 The Rev. M. V. B. Van Ausdale laughed when he read a report of Dr. Henson’s sermon, and said: 4 Why, he must be right. I have known Dr. Henson for some time, and would vote for him with my eyes closed. We admit, all of us, that there is a hell or a place of retribution, and it combines all the properties assigned to it by Dr. Henson.’ 44 Dr. Ray had seen the sermon in print and thought Dr. 108 The Day of Vengeance. Henson expressed the same views he himself would take on the subjedt. “The Congregational ministers, assembled at the Grand Pacific in regular session, with doors closed and securely sent- ried, admitted an Evening News reporter who, after the meet¬ ing ended, propounded the query: ‘Have you read or heard about Dr. P. S. Henson’s sermon on hell, preached last night ?’ “An interested spedfator during the meeting was Dr. H. D. Porter, of Pekin, China. He arose early this morn¬ ing, and read in the papers Dr. Henson’s sermon in brief. He said,—‘ I do not know Dr. Henson, but I think the sentiments attributed to him are about right. Over in China I shall not preach the brimstone and real physical torture, nor shall I say hell will be a place where all suffer¬ ings of a real nature will give place to intense mental suf¬ fering and anguish of mind alone, but I will take the me¬ dium view, which portrays hell as a place of retribution, combining the physical and mental suffering and embodying the principles generally accepted by modern ministers.’ “Another stranger, the Rev. Spencer Bonnell, of Cleve¬ land, O., agreed with Dr. Henson in every detail. ‘There is coming a time,’ he said, ‘when some universal idea of hell should be advanced , so as to bring all minds into a state of equilibrium.’ The Rev. H. S. Wilson had little to say, but admitted that he agreed with Dr. Henson. The Rev. W. A. Moore expressed the same sentiments. “The Rev. W. H. Holmes wrote: ‘Dr. Henson is a brilliant preacher who understands well his own positions and is able to express them clearly and pointedly. This abstradt indicates that he gave the people, as usual, a very interesting sermon. His positions therein were generally well taken. About the body of flesh I do not know-’ “‘You do not know?’ “ ‘No. A man might die and find out for certain.’ “The Baptist ministers think that Dr. Henson’s .ortho¬ dox sermon on hell was just about the right thing, and those who discussed it at the morning meeting praised it warmly. An Evening News reporter showed the report of the ser¬ mon to a dozen of the ministers, but while all of them said they agreed with the sermon, but four were found who would discuss it at all. The Rev. C. T. Everett, publisher Babylon Arraigned. 109 of the Sunday-School Herald , said that the views as ex¬ pressed by Dr. Henson were generally held by Baptist ministers. ‘ We teach eternal and future punishment for the sins of this world, ’ he said, ‘ but as for the real hell of fire and brimstone, that is something that is not talked of to any great extent. We believe in the punishment and know it is severe, but a great many of us realize that it is impossible to know in what way it is given. As Dr. Hen¬ son says, it is only brutish men who think that hell implies physical punishment altogether; mental pain is the worst, and this poor sinners will have to suffer. Dr. Perrin said, with great emphasis, that it was almost useless to deny that whatever Dr. Henson preaches would be found in the Bible, and just about right. “The Rev. Mr. Ambrose, an old-time minister, was greatly pleased with the sermon. He believed every word of what Dr. Henson had said about future torment for poor sinners. ‘ Hell is what most Baptist preachers believe in,’ he said, ‘and they preach it, too.’ “The Rev. Mr. Wolfenden said he had not seen the re¬ port of the sermon, but if there was anything in it about a hell of future punishment he agreed with the Doctor, and he thought most Baptist ministers held the same views, al¬ though there were a few who did not believe in hell in the stridl orthodox sense. “From what the reporter gathered it is safe to say that, should the question come to an issue, the Baptist ministers would not be at all backward in supporting every argument for Dr. Henson’s real, old-fashioned, orthodox hell.” The clergy thus express their views, as if the eternal torture of their fellow-men were a matter of only trivial consequence, to be discussed with flippant jest and laughter, and declared as truth without a particle of evidence or Bible investigation.* The world marks this presumptive * A pamphlet of 80 pages, entitled, “What Say the Scriptures About Hell?” will be found very helpful on this subject, to Bible students. It examines every text of Scripture in which the word hell is found, in the light of the Greek and Hebrew text; and all the parables, etc., sup¬ posed to favor “eternal torment.” Address, Watch lower Bible and Irabt Society, Allegheny, Pa. Price ten cents, including postage. no The Day of Vengeance. arrogance, and draws its own conclusions in the matt The Globe Democrat says:—“Good news comes from New York that the American Tradt Society proposes to call in the pabulum it has offered for the last fifty years, and re¬ vise its religion altogether. The fadt is the world has outgrown the redhot and peppery dishes that suited the last gener¬ ation, and it is quite beyond the power of a very few solemn gentlemen to produce a readlion. The churches also are ambling along pleasantly with the rest of the world, preaching toleration, humanity, forgiveness, charity and mercy. It may be all wrong, and that these prophecies of a blue-black sort are just the proper thing for us to continue to believe and read, but then the people don’t, and won’t.” Another journal states :— “Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, in opposing sending con¬ tributions to the American Board of Foreign Missions, said pretty energetically: ‘I am sick and tired of going to the American Board in sufferance to aid in supporting mission* aries who believe out and out in the damnation of all the heathen and that damnable heresy that God doesn’t love the heathen. I am tired of the whole miserable humbug, and I won’t give a cent to spread the news of damnation. I won’t let the dodtrine be disseminated by my money. That God is love is good news, but it is made stale old stuff by these men who drag a Juggernaut car over the heathen and want us to feed the beasts that haul it. It is my Christian duty not to give to any concern that will teach the heathen that their fathers went to hell.” We thus see the present order of things trembling in the balances of public opinion. The appointed time for its overthrow having come, the great Judge of all the earth lifts up the scales of human reason, points to the weights of truth and justice, and, turning up the light of increas¬ ing knowledge, invites the world to test and prove the righteousness of his decision in condemning to destruction the hollow mockery of Christendom’s false pretensions. Gradually, but rapidly, the world is applying the test, and in the end all will arrive at the same decision; and as a Babylon Arraigned. hi great millstone, Babylon, the great city of confusion, with all her boasted civil and ecclesiastical power, and with all her assumed dignity, her wealth, her titles, her influence, her honors, and all her vain glory, will be cast into the sea (the restless sea of ungovernable peoples) to rise no more.— Rev. 18:21; Jer. 51:61-64. Her destruction will be fully accomplished by the end of the appointed “ Times of the Gentiles”—1915* Events are rapidly progressing toward such a crisis and termination. Though the trial is not yet completed, already many can read the handwriting of her doom—“Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting! ” and by and by the fearful doom of Babylon, Christendom, will be realized. The old superstitions that have long upheld her are fast be¬ ing removed: old religious creeds and civil codes hitherto reverenced and unhesitatingly endorsed are now boldly questioned, their inconsistencies pointed out, and their palpable errors ridiculed. The trend of thought among the masses of men, however, is not toward Bible truth and sound logic, but rather toward infidelity. Infidelity is rampant, both within and outside the church nominal. In the professed Church of Christ the Word of God is no longer the standard of faith and the guide of life. Human philosophies and theories are taking its place, and even heathen vagaries are beginning to flourish in places formerly beyond their pale. Only a few in the great nominal church are sufficiently awake and sober to realize her deplorable condition, ex¬ cept as her numerical and financial strength is considered, the masses in both pews and pulpits being too much intoxi¬ cated and stupefied by the spirit of the world, so freely imbibed, even to note her spiritual decline. But numeric¬ ally and financially her waning condition is keenly felt; for with the perpetuity of her institutions are linked all f 11 2 The Day of Vengeance. the interests, prospers and pleasures of the present life; and to secure these the necessity is felt of keeping up a fair showing of fulfilling what is believed to be her divine commission,—to convert the world. Her measure of suc¬ cess in this effort we will note in a succeeding chapter. While we thus see Babylon arraigned to answer for herself in the presence of an assembled world, with what force does the Psalmist’s prophecy of this event, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, recur to the mind! Though God has kept silence during all the centuries wherein evil triumphed in his name and his true saints suffered perse¬ cution in multiplied forms, he has not been oblivious to those things; and now the time has come whereof he spoke by the prophet, saying, “ But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." Let all who would be awake and on the right side in these times of tremendous import mark well these things and see how perfectly prophecy and fulfilment correspond. 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 In¬ crease 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. ^T\)R these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are i. written may be fulfilled. . . . Upon the earth distress of na¬ tions, with perplexity; the sea and the w'aves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are com¬ ing 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.” “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. . . . For our God is a consuming fire.”— Luke 21 : 22, 25-27; Heb. 12: 26-29. That the civil powers of Christendom perceive that the judgment is going against them, and that the stability of their power is by no means assured, is very manifest. Disraeli, when Prime Minister of England, addressed the Sd 113 The Day of Vengeance. fi *4 British Parliament, July 2, 1874 (just in the beginning of this harvest period or judgment day), saying, “The great crisis of the world is nearer than some suppose. Why is Christendom so menaced? I fear civilization is about to collapse.” Again he said, “Turn whatever way we like, there is an uncomfortable feeling abroad, a distress of na¬ tions, men’s hearts failing them for fear. . . . No mail cun fail to mark these things. No man who ever looks at a newspaper can fail to see the stormy aspect of the political sky that at present envelops us. . . . Some gigantic out¬ burst must surely fall. Every cabinet in Europe is agitated. Every king and ruler has his hand on his sword hilt; . . . we are upon times of unusual ghastliness. We are ap¬ proaching the end ! ’ ’ If such was the outlook as seen in the very beginning of the judgment, how much more ominous are the signs ot the times to-day! From an article in the London Spedlator , entitled “The Disquiet of Europe,” we quote the following :—* “ To what should we attribute the prevailing unrest in Europe? We should say that though due in part to the condition of Italy, it is mainly to be ascribed to the wave of pessimism now passing over Europe, caused partly by economic troubles and partly by the sudden appearance of anarchy as a force in the world. The latter phenomenon has had far greater influence on the Continent than in England. Statesmen abroad are always anticipating danger from below—a danger which bomb-throwing brings home to them. They regard the anarchists as, in fa6t, only the advance guard of a host which is advancing on civilization, and which, if it cannot be either conciliated or defied, will pulverize all existing order. They prophecy to themselves ill of the internal future, the existing quiet resting, as they think, too exclusively on bayonets. Judging the internal situation with so little hope, they are naturally inclined to be gloomy as to the external one, to think that it cannot last, and to regard any movement ... as proof that the 1 Babylon's Confusion — National. 115 end is approaching rapidly. In fa6t, they feel, in politics the disposition toward pessimism which is so marked in literature and society. This pessimism is for the moment greatly deepened by the wave of economic depression." The following from the same journal of March 9, ’95, is also to the point:— “The True Continental Danger.— M. Jules Roche has given us all a timely warning. His speech of Tuesday, which was received in the French Chamber with profound attention once more reminded Europe of the thinness of the crust which c till covers up its volcanic fires. His thesis was that France, after all her sacrifices—sacrifices which would have crushed any Power less wealthy—was still unprepared for war; that she must do more, and above all, spend more, before she could be considered either safe or ready. Throughout he treated Germany as a terrible and imminent enemy against whose invasion France must always be prepared, and who at this moment was far stronger than France. Under his last Military Bill the Emperor William II. (said M. Roche) had succeeded not only in drawing his whole people with¬ in the grip of the conscription, but he had raised the army actually ready for marching and fighting to five hundred and fifty thousand men, fully officered, fully equipped, scientifically stationed,—in short, ready whenever his lips should utter the fatal decision which his grandfather em¬ bodied in the two words ‘ Krieg-Mobil.’ France, on the contrary, though the net of her conscription was equally wide, had only four hundred thousand men ready, and to save money, was steadily reducing even that proportion. In the beginning of the war, therefore, which now usually decides its end, France, with enemies on at least two frontiers, would be a hundred and fifty thousand men short, and might, before her full resources were at her Generals' disposal, sustain terrible or even fatal calamities. The deputies, though far from devoted to M. Jules Roche, listened almost awe-struck, and M. Felix Faure has de¬ cided that, for the first time in six years, he will exert a forgotten prerogative granted to the President of the Re¬ public, and preside at the meeting of the Supreme Military Council, to be held on March 20th. He evidently intends. 116 The Day of Vengeance. as a trained man of business, to ‘ take stock ’ of the military situation, to ascertain clearly what France possesses in the way of guns, horses and men ready to move at once on an alarm, and if he finds the stock insufficient, for the great market, to insist on purchasing some more. Rich as the firm is, he may find its capital insufficient for that enter¬ prise, these colledtions of fresh stock being costly beyond measure; but, at all events, he intends to know the precise truth. “ M. Faure is a sensible man; but what a revealing light does his adtion, following on M. Roche’s words, throw on the situation in Europe! Peace is supposed to be guaran¬ teed by the fear of war; and yet the moment war is openly mentioned, the preparations for it are seen to be, now as much as at any time since 1870, the first preoccupation of statesmen. We know how little resistance the German Emperor encountered last year in securing the changes which so alarmed M. Jules Roche. The people hardly liked them in spite of the immense bribe of a reduced term of service, and they did not like paying for their cost; but they recognized the necessity; they submitted; and Germany is now ready for war at twenty-four hours* notice. France will submit also, however despairingly, and we shall see preparations made and moneys voted, which, but for an overpowering sense of danger, would be rejected with dis¬ gust. The French, even more than the Germans, are tired of paying, but for all that they will pay, for they think that on any day an army stronger than their own may be marching upon Paris or on Lyons. The philosophers de¬ clare that the ‘ tension ’ between France and Germany has grown perceptibly lighter, the diplomatists assert that all is peace; the newspapers record with gratitude the Kaiser’s civilities; France even takes part in a ceremonial intended to honor Germany and her navy ; but all the same the nation and its chiefs are adfing as if war were immediately at hand. They could not be more sensitive, or more alarmed, or more ready to spend their wealth, if they expedled war as a certainty within a month. Nothing, be it remembered, has occurred to accentuate the jealousy of the two nations. There has been no 4 incident ’ on the frontier. The Em¬ peror has threatened no one. There is no party even in Babylon's Confusion — National. 117 Paris raging for war. Indeed, Paris seems to have turned its eyes away from Germany, and to be emitting glances, fiery at once with hate and greed, in the diredlion of Great Britain. And, finally, there has been no sign or hint of sign in Russia that the new Czar wishes war, or apprehends war, or is specially preparing for war; and yet the least allusion to war shows Germany prepared to the last point, and France alarmed, furious, and disturbed lest she should not be prepared also. It is not any ‘ news ’ which is in question; it is the permanent situation which happens, al¬ most accidentally, to be discussed; and it is at once ad¬ mitted on all hands that this situation compels Germany and France to be ready for a war of invasion at twenty- four hours’ notice. ‘Double your tobacco tax, Germans,’ cries Prince Hohenlohe this week, ‘ for we must have the men.’ ‘Perish economy,’ shrieks M. Roche, ‘for we area hundred and fifty thousand men short.’ And observe that in neither country do these exhortations produce any panic or ‘crash’ or notable disturbance of trade. The danger is too chronic, too clearly understood, too thoroughly accepted as one of the conditions of life, for anything of that kind; it is always there; and only forgotten because men grow weary of hearing one unchanging topic of dis¬ course. That is the most melancholy fa< 5 t in the whole business. There is no scare in Germany or France about war any more than there is scare in Torre del Greco about Vesuvius, nothing but a dull acknowledgment that the volcano is there, has been there, will be there unchanged until the eruption comes. “We do not suppose that anything will happen imme¬ diately in consequence of M. Jules Roche’s speech, except more taxes, and possibly the development of a wrinkle or two on the President’s forehead, for he will not like all the results of his stock-taking, and he has been trained to in¬ sist that the needs of his business shall be provided for, but it is well that Europe should be reminded occasionally that for rulers and politicians, and even nations, there can be at present no safe sleep; that the ships are steering amidst icebergs, and watch must be kept without a moment’s cessation. One hour’s negledt, a crash, and an ironclad may founder. It seems a hard situation for the civilized 118 2 he Day of Vengeance. sedtion of mankind, to be eternally asked for more forced labor, a larger slice of wages, a greater readiness to lie out in the open with shattered bones; but where is the remedy to be found ? The peoples are wild to find one, the states¬ men would help them if they could, and the kings for the first time in history look on war with sick distaste, as if it had no ‘ happy chances’ to compensate for its incalculable risks; but they are all powerless to improve a position which for them all bring, nothing but more toil, more dis¬ comfort, more responsibility. The single alleviation for the peoples is that they are not much worse off than their brethren in America, wheie Without a conscription, with¬ out fear of war, without a frontier in fadt, the Treasury is over-pent as if it were European, the people are as much robbed by currency fluctuations as if they were at war, and all men are as carestricken as if they might be summoned at any moment to defend their homes. There has been nothing like the European situation in history, at least since private war ceased, and but that we know the way of man¬ kind, we should mar el that it ever escaped attention; that the peoples should ever be interested in trivialities, or that a speech like that of M. Jules Roche should ever be re¬ quired to make men unclose their eyes. ‘We have two millions of soldiers,’ says M. Jules Roche, ‘but only four hundred thousand of them are idling in barracks, and that is not enough by one hundred and fifty thousand men,’ and nobody thinks that anything but startlingly sensible; and the representatives of the people look gravely attentive, and the Head of the State snatches up a forgotten weapon to compel the heads of the army to tell him what French¬ men call the ‘ true truth.’ We do not belong to the Peace Society, being unable to believe in Utopias; but even we are driven to think sometimes that the world is desperately foolish, and that anything would be better—even the sur¬ render of Elsass-Lothringen by Germany or of Alsace- Lorraine by France—than this never-ending and resultless mortgaging of the future in obedience to a fear which those who adt on it all proclaim with one voice to be chimerical. It is not chimerical, and they only say so to be civil; but could it not be ended before ruin comes?” The following is an extract from an address by Jas. Beck, Babylon ’ s Confusion — National. 11 g Esq., of the Philadelphia Bar, published in The Christian Statesman. The subjedl of the address was “The Distress of Nations.” It is a true pidlure of our troubled times. “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 Ori¬ ent 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. To-day 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 inarms 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 thous¬ and 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 nine¬ teenth 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. “The spear, the lance, the sword, the battle-axe have been put aside by modern man as playthings of his child¬ hood. We have in their stead the armv rifle, which can 220 The Day of Vengeance. be fired ten times without reloading and can kill at three miles, and whose long, nickel-plated bullet can destroy three men in its course before its work of destruction is stayed. Driven as it is by smokeless powder, it will add to past horrors by blasting a soldier as with an invisible bolt of lightning. Its effectiveness has practically de¬ stroyed the use in battle of the cavalry. The day of ‘ splendid charges ’ like that of Balaklava is past, and Pickett’s men, if they had to repeat to-day their wondrous charge, would be annihilated before they could cross the Emmitsburg road. The destructive effects of the modern rifle almost surpass belief. Experiments have shown that it will reduce muscles to a pulp, and grind the bone to powder. A limb struck by it is mangled beyond repair, and a shot in the head or chest is inevitably fatal. The machine gun of to-day can fire eighteen hundred and sixty shots a minute, or thirty a second, a stream so continuous that it seems like a continuous line of lead, and whose hor¬ rible noise is like a Satanic song. A weapon of Titans is the modern twelve-inch cannon, which can throw a projectile eight miles and penetrate eighteen inches of steel, even when the latter is Harveyized, a pro¬ cess by which the hard surface of the steel is carbonized so that the finest drill cannot affect it. Of the present navies with their so-called *commerce destroyers,’ nothing need be said. Single ships cost four million dollars to build, and, armed with steel plates eighteen inches thick, can travel through water with their engines of eleven thousand horse power at a rate of twenty-four miles an hour. One such vessel could have scattered the combined Spanish, French and English fleets, numbering over one hundred ships, at Trafalgar, like a flock of pigeons, or put the Spanish Armada to flight like a hawk in a dove-cote; and yet in the unceasing warfare of arms and armament these leviathans of the deep have been instantaneously de¬ stroyed, as with a blast of lightning, by a single dynamite torpedo. “If these preparations for war, which cover our waters and darken our lands, mean anything, they indicate that civilized man is on the verge of a vast cataclysm, of which he is apparently as unconscious as were the people of Babylon's Confusion — National. 121 Pompeii on the last, fatal day of their city’s life, when they witnessed with indifference the ominous smoke curl from the crater’s mouth. Our age has sown, as none other, the dragon’s teeth of standing armies, and the human grain is ripe unto the harvest of blood. It needs but an incendi¬ ary like Napoleon to set the world on fire. “To deny that such is the evident tendency of these un¬ precedented preparations is to believe that wq can sow thistles and reap figs, or expeCl 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 shud¬ dering w r orld; 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 where¬ abouts of which cannot be ascertained because of the ab¬ sence of powder smoke.’ He concludes, ‘ Death incalculable may rain down as from the very heavens themselves.’ When w r e 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, Skobeleff 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 impos¬ sible to care for the wounded or bury the dead, and many of them will carry as a necessary part of military equip¬ ment a moving crematorium to burn those who have fallen in battle. “You may suggest that this dreadful visitation will pass over peaceful America, as the angel that slew the first-born of Egypt spared the bloodsplashed portals of the Israelites. God grant that it prove so ! Whence, however, is our as* 122 The Day of Vengeance. \ surance? So wonderfully have steam and electricity united men in a community of thought, interest and purpose, that it is possible, that if a great continental war should come, in which England would almost necessarily become involved, before it would be ended, the civilized world might be lapped in universal flame. Apart from this, upon the world’s horizon is now discernible a cloud, at present no bigger than a man’s hand, but which may some day over¬ cast the heavens. In the Orient are two nations, China and Japan, whose combined population reaches the amaz¬ ing total of five hundred millions. Hitherto these swarm¬ ing ant-hills have been ignorant of the art of war, for it is strangely true that the only two countries, which since the birth of Christ have experienced in their isolation compa¬ rative ‘peace on earth,’ are these once hermit nations upon whom the light of Christianity had never shone. But thirty years ago a mere handful of Englishmen and French¬ men forced their way, at the point of the bayonet, to Pekin. All this is changed. Western civilization has brought to the Orient Bibles and bullets, mitres and mitrail- ieux, godliness and Gatling guns, crosses and Krupp can¬ non, St. Peter and salt petre ; and the Orient may some day- say with Shylock: ‘ The villainy you teach me I will exe¬ cute, and it will go hard, but I will better the instruction. ’ Already they have learned the lesson so well as to play with deadly effect the awful diapason of the cannonade. Let once the passion for war, which distinguishes the Occi¬ dent, awaken the opulent Orient from its sleep of centuries, and who shall say that another Ghengis Khan, with a bar¬ baric horde of millions at his back, may not fall upon Europe with the crushing weight of an avalanche? “It may be argued, however, that these preparations mean nothing and are guarantees of peace, rather than provocative of war, and that the very effectiveness of modern weapons makes war improbable. While apparently there is force in this suggestion, yet practically it is con¬ tradicted by the facts, for the nations that have the least ar¬ mies have the most peace, and those who have the largest forces tremble on the verge of the abyss. Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and the United States live in substantial amity with the world, while France, Babylon's Confusion — National. 123 Russia, Germany, Austria and Italy, armed to the teeth and staggering under their equipments, are forever scowling at each other across their frontiers. In them is found the vast magazine of martial spirit and international hatred whose explosion requires but the spark of some trivial incident. Thus when the Empress Augusta recently visited Paris for pleasure her presence alarmed the world, caused prices to fall upon the bourses and exchanges and hurried an earnest and nervous consultation of all European cabinets. A single insult offered to her by the most irresponsible Parisian would have caused her son, the young German Emperor, to draw his sword. It was thus in the power of the idlest street gamin to have shaken the equilibrium of the world. What a frightful commentary upon civilization that the pros¬ perity, and even the lives, of millions of our fellow-beings may depend upon the pacific sentiments of a single man! “No fad 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 be¬ lieve that the European nations must therefore either fight or disarm. Well did the Master predidt: ‘Upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity. . . . Men’s hearts fail¬ ing 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, ’95, shows how some of the present reigning sovereigns of Europe regard the present situation:— “ Kings who want to Retire to Private Life. —Abdi¬ cation seems to be in the air. At no time since the eventful years of 1848-49, when the whole of Europe may be said to have been in open insurredtion against the medievally autocratic tendencies of its rulers, have there been so many reigning sovereigns who are declared to be on the point of abandoning their thrones. In 1848 the monarchs were mostly princes born in the previous century and reared within the influence of its traditions, utterly incapable, therefore, of comprehending such new-fangled notions as 124 The Day of Vengeance. popular government and national constitutions. Sooner than to lend their names to any such subversive ideas, which they regarded as synonymous with sanguinary revo¬ lution of the charadler that "brought Louis xvi. and Marie Antoinette to the scaffold, they preferred to abdicate; and it was during those two eventful years that the thrones of Austria, Sardinia, Bavaria, France and Holland were va¬ cated by their occupants. If to-day, half a century later, their successors desire in their turn to abdicate, it is that they, too, have become firmly convinced that popular legis¬ lation is incompatible with good government—that is, as viewed from the throne—and that it is impossible to recon¬ cile any longer two such diametrically opposed institutions as Crown and Parliament. In this, perhaps, they are not far wrong; for there is no doubt that the development of popular government in the direction of democracy must naturally tend to diminish the power and prestige of the throne. Every new prerogative and right secured by the people or by their constitutional representatives is so much taken away from the monarch; and as time goes by it is becoming more and more apparent that, from a popu¬ lar point of view, kings and emperors are superfluous, an anachronism, mere costly figureheads whose very weak¬ ness and lack of power render them an objedl of ridicule rather than of reverence, or that they constitute serious obstacles to political, commercial and even intelledtual de¬ velopment. Indeed, there seems to be no place left for them in the coming century unless it be that of mere social ar¬ biters, whose power is restridled to the decreeing of the laws of fashion and of conventionality, and whose author¬ ity is exercised not by virtue of any written law, but merely by means of ta< 5 h “Of the sovereigns reported to be on the eve of abdica¬ tion we have in the first place King George of the Hellenes, wdio declares himself sick and tired of his uncomfortable throne, and does not hesitate to declare that, the very at¬ mosphere of Greece having ceased to be congenial to him, he is anxious to surrender as soon as possible his scepter to his son Constantine. He is no longer in touch with his subjedfs, has no friends at Athens save visitors from abroad, and is constantly forced by the somewhat disreputable Babylon's Confusion — National. I2 5 policy of the Cabinets that succeed one another with such rapidity in his dominion to place himself in an awkward and embarrassing position with regard to those foreign courts to which he is bound by ties of close relationship. “ King Oscar is also talking of resigning'his crown to his eldest son. In his case there is not one but there are two Par¬ liaments with which to contend; and as that at Stockholm is always in diredt opposition to that at Christiania, he can¬ not 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 conflidt between the two countries is bound to cul¬ minate 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 violat¬ ing his coronation oath or of stepping down and making way for his son. “Then, too, there is King Christian of Denmark, who, at the age of eighty, finds himself, as the result of the recent general election, face to face with a National Legislature in which the ultra-Radicals and Socialists, hos¬ tile to the throne, possess an overwhelming majority, out¬ numbering the moderate Liberals and the infinitesimal Conservative party combined by three to one. He had been led to believe that the bitter conflidl which has been raging between Crown and Parliament in Denmark for nearly twenty years had come to an end last summer, and that, after he had made many concessions with the objedl of settling all differences, everything would henceforth be plain sailing. Instead of this he now finds arrayed against him an overpowering majority in Parliament, which has already announced its intention of enforcing what it regards as popular rights and of exadting compliance on the part of the Crown with its conception of the terms of the Constitution. Broken by age and infirmity, shaken by the illness of his strong-minded wife, who has been his chief moral support throughout his reign, and deprived, too, of the powerful backing of his son-in-law, the late i 12D The Day of Vengeance. Emperor Alexander of Russia, he feels himself no longer capable of coping with the situation, and announces that he is about to make 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 dis¬ approves 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 awk¬ ward and embarrassing position with regard to all the other courts of the Old World. King Humbert is a very sensi¬ tive 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 Ba¬ varia are each credited with being on the eve of making way for their next of kin. Finally there is Prince Ferdi¬ nand of Bulgaria, who has been strongly urged by his Russophile friends to abdicate, they undertaking to have him reeleCted under Muscovite protection. But he has thus far refrained from yielding to their solicitations, realiz¬ ing 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 recover¬ ing possession thereof. “Thus, taking one thing and another, the cause of the people, from their own point of view, is not likely to be in any way improved or furthered by the impending abdi- Ba jylon ’ s Confusion — National. 127 cations, which, on the contrary, will probably involve a renewal of the struggle of fifty years ago for constitutional rights and parliamentary privileges. ’ ’ Recent demonstrations of Socialism in the German Reichstag, the Belgian Parliament and the French Cham¬ ber 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, recently introduced into 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 Ger¬ man government to combat Socialism, makes an interest¬ ing chapter in the history of a nation with which, despite differences of language and institutions, we ourselves have vnuch in common. “It is now many years since attention began to be at- tradted to the remarkable increase of the Socialistic party in Germany. But it was not until 1878, in which two at¬ tempts 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. “By this time additional legislation was deemed neces¬ sary., and in 1887 Chancellor Bismarck proposed to the 128 The Day of Vengeance. Reichstag a new law which gave the authorities the power to confine the socialistic leaders within a given locality, to deprive them of their rights as citizens, and to expel them from the country. Parliament declined to accept the chancellor’s proposals; it contented itself by renewing the old law. “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 Decem¬ ber, 1894, the emperor intimated that it had been decided to meet with fresh legislation the a6ls of tlyose 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 imprison¬ ment 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, in¬ vented 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 char- adler 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 of¬ fences specified, together with the extent to which the in¬ terpretation of the law was left to police judges, awoke the distrust, even the alarm, of large sections of the peo¬ ple, who saw in its provisions a menace to freedom of speech, freedom of teaching, and freedom of public assembly. “Accordingly, when the Reichstag took up the consider- Babylon's Confusion — National. 129 ation of the measure, a movement began the like of which is not often seen in the fatherland. Petitions from authors, editors, artists, university professors, students and citizens poured into Parliament until, it is asserted, more than a million and a half protesting signatures had been received. “ 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 Ger¬ man universities was recorded against the bill at a mass¬ meeting of delegates held in the capital. “The rejedlion of a measure thus widely opposed was inevitable, and the Socialist party will doubtless make the most of the government defeat. Yet the Reichstag con¬ demned 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 Inde¬ pendent Labor Party, which is the greatest power of organ¬ ized labor in England, is now avowedly a socialistic or¬ ganization. It expedls a bloody revolution to come ere long, which will result in the establishment of a Socialistic republic upon the ruins of the present monarchy. Noting these fadts and tendencies, it is no wonder that we see kings and rulers taking extra precautions to protedl themselves and their interests from the threatening dan¬ gers of revolution and world-wide anarchy. In fear and distress they seek alliance one with another, though so great is their mutual distrust that they have little to hope for in any alliance. The attitude of every nation toward every other nation is that of animosity, jealousy, revenge and hatred, and their communications one with another are based only upon principles of self-interest. Hence their alliances one with another can only be de¬ pended upon so long as their selfish plans and policies seem 9 D 130 The Day of Vengeance. to run parallel. There is no love or benevolence in it; and the daily press is a constant witness to the inability of the nations to strike any line of policy which would bring them all into harmonious cooperation. Vain is the hope, therefore, to be expected from any coalition of the powers. 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 recog¬ nizes) 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. Never¬ theless, the expediency of soliciting the aid of the church is being put to the test. The German Reichstag, for in¬ stance, which, through the influence of Prince Bismarck, banished the Jesuits from Germany in 1870, deeming them inimical to the welfare of Germany, has recently 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 w r ith 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* Babylon's Confusion — National . 131 In the attempted reconciliations of the king and govern¬ ment of Italy with the Church of Rome the motive has evidently been fear of the spread of anarchy and the pros¬ pers of social warfare. With reference to this Premier Crispi, in a notable speech beginning with a historical re¬ view of recent Italian politics, and closing with a declara¬ tion as to the social problems of to-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 a few years ago, by the heads of all the governments of Christendom. Feeling their own incom¬ petency 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. Many acknowledge the claim so earnestly set forth by 'the Roman Catholic Church, that it will be the only re- * 3 2 The Day of Vengeance. liable bulwark against the rising tide of Socialism and Anarchism. In reference to this delusion a former mem¬ ber of the Jesuit order, Count Paul von Hoensbrouck, now a convert to Protestantism, points to Catholic Belgium and the progress of Social Democracy there to show the hopelessness of any help from that quarter. In his article which appeared in the Pi'eussische Jahrbuch , Berlin, 1895, he said:— “ 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 fadlor and force in the life and history of Belgium, and here she has celebrated her great¬ est 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 element¬ ary 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 can¬ didates 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- rnontanes 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, ir- religion 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? ‘ ‘ Catholicism can save the people as little from ‘ Athe¬ istic Liberalism’ as it can from Social Democracy. In the year 1886 a circular letter was sent to representative Babylon 1 s Confusion — National. 133 men in all the different stations in life with questions per¬ taining to the condition of the workingmen. Three fourths of the replies declared that religiously the people 4 deteriorated,’ or ‘ had disappeared altogether,’ or‘Cathol¬ icism was losing its hold more and more.’ Liege, with its thirty-eight churches and thirty-five cloisters returned a hopeless answer; Brussels declared that ‘nine-tenths of the children are illegitimate, and immorality beyond descrip¬ tion.’ And all this is so, although the Belgian Social Democrat, in so far as he has attended a school at all, has been a pupil in the Catholic Ultramontane public schools, and in a country in which each year more than half a million Catholic sermons and catechetical ledtures are de¬ livered. The country which, with right and reason has Deen called the ‘land of cloister and the clergy,’ has be¬ come the Eldorado of Social Revolution.” 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 re¬ serve 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.” In Feb. ’95 the U. S. War Department prepared figures showing the size of the armies of foreign countries as follows: Austro-Hungary, 1,794,175; Belgium, 140,000; Colombia, 30,000; England, 662,000; France, 3,200,000; Germany, 3,700,000; Italy, 3,155,036; Mexico, 162,000; Russia, *34 The Day of \Vengeance . 13,014,865; Spain, 400,000; Switzerland, 486,000. It costs $631,226,825 annually to maintain these troops'. The militia force of the United States, as reported by the Secretary of War to the House of Representatives in 1895, aggregates an organized 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 recent writer 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 held for the sig¬ nal to march against each other. A war in Europe settles only one thing definitely, and that is the necessity for an¬ other 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 Pittsburg Dispatch writes from Washington, D. C.:— “ What a ghastly curiosity shop are the stores of arms and projectiles and warlike models of all kinds in various nooks and corners of the War and Navy Departments! They are scattered and meager by comparison, to be sure, Babylon 1 s Confusion — National. *35 but they are enough to set the most thoughtless a-thinking as to what we are coming to, and what will be the end of the wonderful impetus of invention in the direction of weapons for the destruction of human kind. AH that we possess up to this time, in this our new country, in the way of examples of such invention, would hardly compare in interest or volume with a single room of the vast collection in the old Tower of London, but it is enough to tell the whole story. To look at all this murderous machinery one would think the governors of the world were bent on the extermination of the human race, instead of its improve¬ ment and preservation. 41 Along with the modern inventions which enable one man to kill i,ooo in the twinkling of an eye are the crude weapons of those simpler days when men fought hand to hand in battle. But we need not refer to them to illustrate progress in the art of warfare. Even the machinery used in the very latest of the great wars is now antiquated. Were a new civil war to begin to-morrow in the United States, or were we to become involved in a war with a foreign country, we would as soon think of taking wings and battling in the air as to fight with the weapons of a quarter of a century ago. A few of the guns and ships which came into vogue towards the closing days of the war, remodeled and improved almost out of their original shape, might be employed under some conditions, but the great bulk of the murderous machinery would be supplanted with entirely new inventions, compared with which the best of the old would be weak or wholly powerless. I never was more forcibly reminded of this progress in the domain of the horrific than yesterday when on an errand to the Navy Department I was shown the model and plans of the new Maxim automatic mitrailleuse. It (and the Maxim gun with other names) is certainly the most ingenious and the wickedest of all the curious weapons of warfare recently in¬ vented. It is the intention to manufacture them up to the size of a six-inch cannon, which will automatically fire about 6 oo rounds in a minute. This, of course, has been ex¬ ceeded by the Gatling and other guns, carrying very small projectiles, but these, compared with the Maxim, are cum¬ bersome to operate, require more attendants, are much 136 The Day of Vengeance. heavier and far less accurate. One man can operate the Maxim gun, or one woman, or one child, for that matter, and after setting it going the gunner can stroll away for a quick lunch while his gun is engaged in killing a few hun¬ dred people. The gunner sits on a seat at the rear of the gun behind his bullet proof shield, if he desires to use one. When he wants to mow down an army in a few minutes he simply waits till the aforesaid army gets into a position favorable for his work. Then he pulls a crank which fires the first cartridge, and the work of the automatic machinery begins. The explosion of the first cartridge causes a recoil which throws the empty shell out of the breach, brings an¬ other shell into place and fires it. The recoil of that ex¬ plosion does a similar service, and so on to infinity. It is murder in perpetual motion. “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 1 riot gun ’ can be worked at the rate of ten murderous shots a second, with the gunner all the time concealed, and in perfedt 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 expedted by inventors like Mr. Maxim that modern mobs will stand in the streets to be shot down without adling 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 am¬ munition 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 diredtly above or below the gunner without endangering the life or limb of that devotee of the fine art of murder. “While this is one of the latest and most destructive of Babylon's Confusion — National. 137 the recent inventions, it by no means follows that it is the last or the most effective that will be contrived. It gradu¬ ally dawns on the mind of one whose attention is called to this matter that we are but well begun in this thing. We have been trying to keep pace in the matter of defences with the progress of the means of effective attack, but in vain. No vessel can be constructed to float that will with¬ stand an explosion of the modern torpedo. No nation is rich enough to build forts that cannot be destroyed in a short time with the latest and most villainous form of dy¬ namite projectile. Balloons can now be steered with al¬ most the same facility as a vessel in the water, and will be extensively used, in the wars soon to occur, for the de¬ struction of armies and forts. Death-dealing machinery is being made so simple and inexpensive that one man can destroy an army. If the strong are more fully equipped to destroy the weak, on the other hand the weak may easily be made strong enough to destroy the strongest. On both sides war will mean annihilation. The armies of the land, the monsters of the sea and war cruisers of the air will simply wipe each other out of existence if they come to blows at all.” 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 gun¬ powder expert, have invented a new cannon and tor¬ pedo 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 iscalleddhe ‘ 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 through¬ out the whole length of the gun.’ Patents on the system have been taken out in the United States and European countries. “The special powder employed is almost pure gun cot¬ ton, compounded with such a small per cent, of nitro¬ glycerine as to possess none of the disadvantages of nitro- The Day of Vengeance . 13*5 glycerine powders, and preserved from decomposition through a slight admixture of urea. It is perfe6tly safe to handle, and can be beaten with a heavy hammer on an anvil without exploding. The secret of its remarkable power lies in a single mathematical truth which no one had previously thought of. High explosive powder is now loaded into cannon in the form of strips, small cubes or solid cylindrical rods from one-half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter, several feet in length and looking like a bundle of sticks of dark beeswax. When the powder is touched off the ends and circumference of each rod of powder ignites instantaneously and burn toward the center. “ 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 projec¬ tile shot from the gun, a loss of velocity is the inevitable result. The proje6tile 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 in¬ stantaneously 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 proje6tile therefore leaves the gun with terrific velocity, and each little hole in the rods of the powder does its share toward hurrying it on its mission of destruc¬ tion miles away from the scene. With a big gun the havoc wrought by this new wonder of modern ordnance would be in¬ calculable. This new death-dealing powder has been fired in field-guns and in the heavy coast-defense rifles at Sandy Hook with surprising results. From a ten-inch gun loaded with 128 pounds of this powder, a projectile weighing57i pounds was thrown eight miles out to sea. The pressures on the rods of powder were more uniform than any yet recorded, which is a most important point in deciding tha Babylon's Confusion — National. 139 value of a high explosive powder Without uniform pres¬ sures accuracy of aim is impossible. “The big gun which Messrs. Maxim and Schupphaus propose to construct will be a twenty-inch gun, especiady adapted for coast defense. This gun will show some pe¬ culiarities. 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, con¬ taining 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. Wads¬ worth 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 de¬ struction. 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 dis¬ able a ship.’' Dr. R. J. Gatling, the inventor of the wonderful machine gun that bears his name, says, with reference to the new invention of smokeless powder:— “ People are not yet educated to appreciate the enormous revolution in future warfare caused by the invention cf smokeless powder. Already it has made obsolete between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 of muskets in Europe, that were built to shoot black powder, not to speak of the millions of cartridges, all of which the countries possessing would be willing to sell fora song. Here is a vast sum of wasted capital, but it is the inevitable result of progress. Our army guns in this country will soon be in the obsolete cate¬ gory, for to keep pace with the rest of the world we will have to adopt smokeless powder ; too. A gun loaded with 140 The Day of Vengeance. it will send a bullet just twice as far as the black powder does. Again, the new invention changes military tactics entirely, for in the battles of the future troops will never display themselves en masse to the enemy. Open fighting, as has been customary through all the ages, is a thing of the past, for it would mean utter annihilation. If smoke¬ less powder had been in use during the late civil strife, the war between the States would not have lasted ninety days. “ ‘What is the difference between a rapid firing gun and a machine gun ? ’ “A rapid firing gun doesn’t begin to fire with the rapid¬ ity 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 an¬ other 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 hap¬ pens, 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 en¬ tirely 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,’ Babylon's Confusion — National. 141 “But every power follows on the same policy, which is equivalent to saying that all that formidable, murderous dis¬ play is directed to only proteCt peace from the clutches of war. Though this be the climax of irony, I sincerely be¬ lieve 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 ug¬ liness. But those unrelenting armaments are like an ever-ab¬ sorbing 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 fibs 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 ex¬ plosion occurs, mind this, the entire world will feel the shock, and shudder. Barbarism will exhibit so. much ugli¬ ness 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. ’ ’ As an illustration of the terrors of modern naval war¬ fare read the following incident in the late Chinese war related by the Captain of one of the improved war vessels:— “A layman has no conception of the awful nature of battle in modern naval vessels. Even the cruisers have steel sides, and the air of the inclosed spaces is very confined. The din made by the impaCt of a heavy projectile against these metal sides is awful beyond description. I wore cotton in my ears, but in spite of that am still deaf from that cause. The engineers in the Chen Yuen stuck to their work, even when the temperature of the engine rooms was above two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The skin of their hands and arms was actually roasted off, and every man was blinded for life, the sight being actually seared out. “Late in the aCtion, after my hair had been burned off and my eyes so impaired by injeCted blood that I could only see out of one of them, and then only by lifting the 142 The Day of vengeance. lid with my fingers, I was desirous of seeing how the enemy was delivering his fire. As I groped my way around the protedled deck, a hundred-pound shell pierced the ar¬ mor about 18 inches in front of my hand. In a second my hand touching the steel was so burned that part of the skin was left upon the armor. That shows how intense is the heat engendered by the impadt of a shot, and how rapidly the steel conducts that heat. One shell struck an open gun shield of the Chen Yuen early in the adtion, and, glancing thence, passed through the open port. Seven gunners were killed and fifteen wounded by that shot. Early in the fight the Maxim gun in our foretop was silenced. The holes pierced by a shell could be seen from the deck. After the fight we found the officer and men on duty there all dead and frightfully mangled. That one shot had wrought the havoc. “ The detonations of the heavy cannon and the impadt of hostile projedtiles produce concussions that adtually rend the clothing off. The Chinese soldiers deserve all credit for their courage and obedience in that adtion. No duty was too difficult or dangerous. When the Chen-Yuen’s forecastle was ablaze from Jap shells, I ordered several of¬ ficers to cross the shell-swept space to fight the fire. They shirked that duty, but when I called upon the men to vol¬ unteer to follow me they did it promptly, and the ship was saved. It was while on this duty that a shell passing be¬ tween my legs threw me aloft and let me down upon the deck with such violence that I became unconscious and was out of the fight. All of the officers, however, were not cowards. On my ship were several who had been educated in this country, and they were as brave and devoted as men could be. Others, however, were in the safest place they could find amidships.” The prophecy of Joel (3:9-11) is surely being fulfilled in the wonderful preparations for war now being made among the nations. Prophetically, he voiced the senti¬ ments of these times, saying, “ Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your Babylon's Confusion — National. 143 plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves and come, all ye nations, gather yourselves together round about.” Is not this the world-wide proclamation of the present time? Are not the mighty and the weak all nerving themselves for the coming conflict ? Is not even the professed church of Christ marshalling the young boys and inspiring them with the spirit of war? Are not the men who otherwise would be following the plow and prun¬ ing the trees forging and handling instead the weapons of war? And are not the nations all assembling their mighty hosts and draining their financial resources beyond the powers of long endurance, in order thus to prepare for the exigencies of war—the great trouble which they see fast approaching ? 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 respedt; 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 na¬ tions, as well as individuals, are judged. That the peculiar circumstances of the discovery of this continent and the planting of this nation on its virgin soil, to breathe its free air and develop its wonderful resources, was a step in the course of divine providence, the thought¬ ful and unbiased cannot doubt. The time and circum* 144 The Day of Vengeance. stances all indicate it. Emerson once said, “Our whole history looks like the last effort by Divine Providence in be¬ half of the human race. ’ ’ He would not have said that, how¬ ever, had he understood the divine plan of the ages, in the light of which it is quite clear that it is not a “last effort of divine providence,” but a well defined link in the chain of providential circumstances for the accomplishment of the divine purpose. Here has been afforded a refuge for the oppressed of all lands from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical despotism. Here, separated from the old despotisms by the vast ocean wilderness, the spirit of liberty found a breathing place, and the experiment of popular government became a reality. Under these favoring cir¬ cumstances the great work of the Gospel age—the select¬ ing of the true Church—has been greatly facilitated; and here we have every reason to believe the greatest harvest of the age will be gathered. In no other country could the blessed harvest message— the plan of the ages and its times and seasons and privileges —have been so untrammelled in its proclamation and so widely and freely heralded. And nowhere, except under the free institutions of this favored land, are so many minds sufficiently released from the fetters of super¬ stition and religious dogmatism as to be able to receive the truth now due, and in turn to bear its good tidings abroad. It was, we believe, for this very purpose that the providence of God has been, in a measure, over this country. There was a work to be done here for his people which could not so well be done elsewhere, and therefore when the hand of oppression sought to throttle the spirit of liberty, a Wash¬ ington was raised up to lead the impoverished but daring liberty-lovers on to national independence. And again when disruption threatened the nation, and when the time had come for the liberation of four millions of slaves God Babylon ' 1 s Confusion—National. \ 145 raised up another brave and noble spirit in the person of Abraham Lincoln, who struck off the shackles of the en¬ slaved and preserved the unity of the nation. Yet the nation, as a nation, has not, and never had, any claims upon divine providence. The providential over¬ ruling 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 eledt.” 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. While the conditions of the masses of the population here are much more favorable than those of any other land, there is an appreciation of comfort and of individual rights and privileges here among the poorer classes which does not exist to the same extent in any other land. In this country, from the ranks of its humblest citizens, imbued with the spirit of its institutions—the spirit of liberty, of ambition, of industry and intelligence—have come many of the wisest and best statesmen — presidents, legis¬ lators, lawyers, jurists and distinguished men in every station. No hereditary aristocracy here has enjoyed a monopoly of offices of trust or profit, but the child of the humblest wayfarer might aspire to and win the prizes of honor, wealth and preferment. What Amer¬ ican school-boy has not been pointed to the possibilities of his one day becoming president of the country? In fadt, all the attainments of great men in every rank and station have been viewed as the future possibilities of the American youth. Nothing in the spirit of its institutions has ever checked such ambition; but, on the contrary, it has al¬ io D 146 7 Zie Day of Vengeance . ways been stimulated and encouraged. The influence of these open avenues to the highest and to all the interme¬ diate positions of honor and trust in the nation has been to the elevation of the whole people, from the lowest strata upward. It has stimulated the desire for education and culture, and as well all the demands of education and culture. The free school system has largely met this demand, bringing all classes into intelligent communica¬ tion through the daily press, books, periodicals, etc., thus en¬ abling them, as individuals, to compare notes and to judge for themselves on all questions of interest, and accordingly to wield their influence in national matters by the use of the ballot. A sovereign people, thus dignified and brought to an appreciation of the rights of manhood, is therefore natur¬ ally 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 con¬ ferred upon all classes of the nation, the intelligence of the masses begins to discern influences at work which are destined ere long to bring them into bondage, to de¬ spoil them of their rights as freemen and to deprive them of the blessings of bountiful nature. The American people are being aroused to a sense of danger to their liberties, and to adtion in view of such danger, with the energy which has been their marked charadferistic in every branch of industry and every avenue of trade, though the real causes of their danger are not clearly enough discerned by the masses to diredt their energies wisely. They only see that congested wealth is impoverishing the many, influencing legislation so as to still further amass wealth and power in the hands of the few, and so creating an aristocracy of wealth whose power Babylon's Confusion — National. 147 will in time prove as despotic and relentless as any despot¬ ism of the Old World. While this is, alas! only too true, it is not the only danger. A religious despotism, whose hateful tyranny can best be judged by the records of the past days of its power, also threatens this country. That danger is Romanism.* Yet this danger is not generally dis¬ cerned, because Rome is making her conquests here by cunning art and base flattery. She professes great admira¬ tion for the free institutions and self-government of the United States; she courts and flatters the Protestant “heretics” who form so large a proportion of the intelli¬ gent population, and now calls them her “separated brethren,” for whom she has an “undying affection;” and yet, at the same time, she lays her clammy hand upon the public school system, which she is anxious to turn into* an agent for the further propagation of her dodtrines and the extension of her influence. She is making her in¬ fluence felt in both political and religious circles, and the continuous tide of immigration to this country is largely of her subjedls. 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 peo¬ ple are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Romish clergy. ” Thus from congested wealth, from Roman¬ ism and from immigration, we see great dangers. But alas! the remedy which the masses will eventually apply will be worse than the disease. When the social revolution does come here, it will come with all the turbulence and violence which American energy and love of liberty can throw into it. It is by no means reasonable, therefore, to expedt that this country will escape the fate * Vol. 11., Chapter 10. 148 The Day of Vengeance. of all the nations of Christendom. Like all the rest, it is doomed to disruption, overthrow and anarchy. It also is a part of Babylon. The spirit of liberty fostered here for several generations, already threatens to run riot with a vehemence and speed unequaled in the old world, and un¬ restrained by the more potent agencies of the monarchical governments. 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 follow¬ ing, from The Sentinel , Washington, D. C.^ is an illus¬ tration :— “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 resi¬ dence, 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 cam¬ paign fund, is a foreigner to all intents and purposes, and declares this country unfit for a gentleman to live in.” But in vain will protection and security be sought under any of the kingdoms of this world. All are now trembling with fear and alarm, and realize their inability to cope with the mighty, pent-up forces with which they will have to deal when the terrible crisis arrives. Then indeed “The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low.” “In that day [now so very near—probably within fourteen years] a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold ... to the moles and Babylon ’ s Confusion — National. 149 to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”—Isa. 2:17-21. Then “All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them, and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.” —Ezek. 7:17-19. Of little avail will be the protedlion which any govern¬ ment can provide, when the judgments of the Lord and the fruits of their folly are precipitated upon them all. In their pride of power they have “treasured up wrath against the day of wrath :” they have selfishly sought the aggrandizement of the few, and have been heedless of the cries of the poor and needy, and their cries have entered into the ears of the Lord of armies, and he has espoused their cause; and he declares, “I will punish the world for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.”—Isa. 13:11, 12. Thus we are assured that the Lord’s overruling prov¬ idence in the final catastrophe shall bring deliverance to the oppressed. The lives of multitudes will not then be sacri¬ ficed nor will the inequalities of society that now exist be perpetuated. Truly this is the predicted time of distress of nations with perplexity. The voice of the discontented masses is aptly symbolized by the roaring of the sea, and the hearts The Day of Vengeance. T 5 ° of thinking men are failing them for fear of the dread calamity which all can now see rapidly approaching; for the powers of heaven (the present ruling powers) are being terribly shaken. Indeed some, instrudted by these signs, and calling to mind that Scripture, “Behold, he cometh with clouds,” are already beginning to suggest the presence of the Son of man, although they greatly mis¬ apprehend the subjedt and God’s remedy. Said Prof. Herron in a recent ledlure in San Francisco on “The Christian Revival of the Nation” —“Christ is HERE ! AND THE JUDGMENT IS TO-DAY ! Our Social COn- vidlion 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 so¬ ciety) 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 op¬ pression, and he will firmly establish truth and righteous¬ ness in the earth. THE CRY OF “peace! peace! when there is no peace.” But notwithstanding the manifest judgment of God up¬ on all nations, notwithstanding the fadt that the volume of testimony from multitudes of witnesses is pressing with Babylon's Confusion — National. 151 resistless logic against the whole present order of things, and that the verdidt and penalty are anticipated with an al¬ most universal dread, there are those who illy conceal their fears by cries of “Peace! Peace! ” when there is no peace. Such a proclamation, participated in by all the nations of Christendom was that which recently issued from the great naval display on the occasion of the opening of the Baltic canal. The canal was projedted 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 rep¬ resentative battle-ships (peace makers) to the great Naval Parade through the Baltic Canal on June 20, ’95. In response to that call there came more than a hundred floating steel fortresses, including twenty giant “ battle¬ ships,” technically so called, all fully armed, and all cap¬ able of a speed of at least seventeen miles an hour. “It is difficult,” says the London Spcflator , “ to realize such a concentration of power, which could in a few hours sweep the greatest seaport out of existence, or brush the concen¬ trated commercial fleets of the world to the bottom of the ocean. There is, in fadt, 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 her- self at once unassailable at sea and irresistible. . . . The fleet assembled at Kiel was probably the highest embodi¬ ment possible of power for fighting, provided that the fight shall never last longer than its explosive stores.” 1 5 2 The Day of Vengeance. The cost of the vessels and their armaments amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. One salute, fired simul¬ taneously by 2,500 guns, consumed in an instant thousands of dollars worth of powder; and the entertainment of the distinguished guests cost the German people $2,000,000. The speeches of the German Emperor and foreign repre¬ sentatives 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 wflio refuse it upon their terms, were not interpreted by the people as the fufilment of the prophetic message of “Peace on earth and good will toward men.” It had no soothing effedt 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 un¬ fortunate; 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 think¬ ing people with reference to the display in the following truthful comment: — “The irony of the situation is very keen. It was a grand festival of peace and constructive industry, but its highest glory was the presence of the fleets prepared at great sacrifice of treasure and of energy solely for war and destruction. An ironclad has no meaning, unless it is a mighty engine for slaughter. There is but one phrase which describes fully the grandeur of that ‘ peaceful ’ fleet, and that is that it could in a day destroy any port on earth, dr sink the commercial navies of the world, if gathered Babylon's Confusion—National 153 before it, to the bottom of the sea. And what depths of human hatred were concealed under all that fair show of human amity! One squadron was French, and its officers were panting to avenge on that exultant Emperor the dis¬ memberment of their country. Another was Russian, and its Admirals must have been conscious that their great foe and rival w r as the Power they were so ostentatiously honor¬ ing, and had only the day before broken naval rules to compliment the Emperor’s most persistent and dangerous foe. A third was Austrian, whose master has been driven out of the dominion which has made che canal, and jockeyed out of his half-right in the province through which the canal in its entire length winds its way. And there were ships from Denmark, from which Holstein had been torn by its present owners, and from Holland, where every man fears that some day or other Germany will, by another conquest, acquire at a blow r , colonies, commerce and a transmarine career. The Emperor talked of peace, the Admirals hoped for peace, the newspapers of the world in chorus declare that it is peace, but everything in that show speaks of war just past, or, on seme day not far distant, to arrive. Never was there a ceremonial so grand in this world, or one so penetrated through and through with the taint of insincerity.” 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 a6t of courtesy, but also as a kind of international showing of teeth. The British navy despatches ten of its most power¬ ful 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. T 54 The Day of Vengeance. “An especial air of boujfe 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 sig¬ nificance, 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 trans¬ parent 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, dis¬ playing their weapons while they conceal their enmity be¬ hind 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 contro¬ verts 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 to-day is the fadl that every European nation is prepared for war. “The digging of the Kiel canal was a distindl service to civilization; the manner of its celebration is a tribute to barbarism. It was dug, theoretically, to encourage mari¬ time commerce, and most of the vessels gathered to cele- Babylon's Confusion — National. 155 brate its completion were of the type known as commerce destroyers. ’ ’ According to The St. Taut Globe , royalty and privilege rather than industry, were on exhibition at Kiel. It said:— “What is the place of a fleet of ironclads to-day in the advancement of civilization? What pirate fleets are there to be swept from the high seas? What inferior and savage iiation exists to whom we might convey an illuminating in- luence ct modern civilization by casting upon it the search¬ lights 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 pro¬ vides 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 Minne¬ apolis Times called the Kiel naval pageant, upon which it commented as follows:— “The faCt that the opening of this magnificent water¬ way 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.” The Day of Vengeance. I 5 6 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:— “From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one pradtiseth falsehood. And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people very lightly, saying, Peace! Peace! when there is no peace. They should have been ashamed because they had committed an abomination; but they neither felt the least shame, nor did they know how to blush: therefore shall they fall among those that fall; at the time that I punish theirsin shall theystumble, saith the Lord. ”—Jer. 6113-15. This great international proclamation of peace, bearing on its very face the stamp of insincerity, is a forcible re¬ minder of the words of the poet John G. Whittier which so graphically describe the present peace conditions:— “ ‘ Great peace in Europe ! Order reigns From Tiber’s hills to Danube’s plains! ’ So say her kings and. priests; so say The lying prophets of our day. “Go lay to earth a list’ning ear; The tramp of measured marches ..ear, The rolling of the cannon’s wheel, The shotted musket’s murd’rous peal, The night alarm, the sentry’s call, The quick-eared spy in hut and hall, From polar sea and tropic fen The dying groans of exiled men, The bolted cell, the galley’s chains, The scaffold smoking with its stains ! Order,—the hush of brooding slaves! Peace,—in the dungeon vaults and graves! Speak, Prince and Kaiser, Priest and Czar! If this be peace, pray, what is war ? “ Stern herald of Thy better day, Before Thee to prepare thy way The Baptist shade of Liberty,— Gray, scarred and hairy-robed must press With bleeding feet the wilderness! O that its voice might pierce the ear Of priests and princes while they hear A cry as of the Hebrew seer: Repent! God’s Kingdom draweth near.” STUDY VI. BABYLON BEFORE THE GREAT COURT, HER CONFUSION—ECCLESIASTICAL. The True Church, Known unto the Lord, has no Share in the Judgments of Babylon.—The Religious Situation of Christendom Presents no Hope¬ ful Contrast to the Political Situation.—The Great Confusion.—The Responsibility of Conducting the Defense Devolves upon the Clergy.— The Spirit of the Great Reformation Dead.—Priests and People in the Same Situation.—The Charges Preferred.—The Defense.—A Confeder¬ acy Proposed.—The End Sought.—The Means Adopted.—The General Spirit of Compromise.—The Judgment Going Against the Religious In¬ stitutions of Christendom. “ And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.”—Luke 19:22. HILE we here consider the present judgment of the ’ ’ great nominal Christian church, let us not forget that there is also a real Church of Christ, eledt, precious;— consecrated to God and to his truth in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. They are not known to the world as a compadt body; but as individuals they are known unto the Lord who judges not merely by the sight of the eye and the hearing of the ear, but who discerns and judges the thoughts and intents of the heart. And, however widely they may be scattered, whether standing alone as “wheat,” in the midst of “tares,” or in company with others, God’s eye is always upon them. They, dwell¬ ing in the secret place of the Most High (sandfified, wholly *57 158 The Day of Vengeance. set apart unto God), shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty, while the judgments of the Lord are experienced by the great religious systems that bear his name in unfaith¬ fulness. (Psa. 91 : 1, 14-16.) These have no share in the judgment of great Babylon, but are previously enlightened and called out of her. (Rev. 18:4.) This class is described and blessedly comforted in Psalms 91 and 46. In the midst of much merely formal and sham profession of god¬ liness, the Lord’s watchful eye discerns the true, and he leads them into the green pastures and beside the still waters, and makes their hearts rejoice in his truth and in his love. “ The Lord knoweth them that are his ’ ’ (2 Tim. 2:19); they constitute the true Church in his estimation, the Zion which the Lord hath chosen (Psa. 132:13-16), and of whom it is written, “ Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced, because of thy judgments, O Lord.” (Psa. 97:8.) The Lord will safely lead them as a shepherd leads his sheep. But while we bear in mind that there is such a class—a true Church, every member of which is known and dear to the Lord, whether known or unknown to us, these must be ignored here in considering what professes to be, and what the world recognizes as, the church, and what the prophets refer to under many significant names which designate the great nominal church fallen from grace, and in noting the judgment of God upon her in this harvest time of the Gospel age. If the civil powers of Christendom are in perplexity* and distress of nations is everywhere manifest, the religious situation surely presents no hopeful contrast of peace and security; for modern ecclesiasticism, like the nations, is ensnared in the net of its own weaving. If the nations, having sown to the wind the seeds of unrighteousness, are about to reap an abundant harvest in a whirlwind of afflic¬ tion, the great nominal church, ecclesiastical Christendom, Babylon ’ s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 159 which has shared in the sowing, shall also share in the reaping. The great nominal church has long taught for doctrines the precepts of men ; and, ignoring in great measure the Word of God as the only rule of faith and godly living, it has boldly announced many conflicting and God-dis¬ honoring doctrines, and has been unfaithful to the measure of truth retained. It has failed to cultivate and manifest the spirit of Christ, and has freely imbibed the spirit of the world. It has let down the bars of the sheepfold and called in the goats, and has even encouraged the wolves to enter and do their wicked work. It has been pleased to let the devil sow tares amongst the wheat, and now rejoices in the fruit of his sowing,—in the flourishing field of tares. Of the comparatively few heads of “wheat” that still remain there is little appreciation, and there is almost no effort to prevent their being choked by the “tares. ” The “wheat’ ’ has lost its value in the markets of Christendom, and the humble, faithful child of God finds himself, like his Lord, despised and rejected of men, and wounded in the house of his supposed friends. Forms of godliness take the place of its power, and showy rituals largely supplant heart-worship. Long ago conflicting doctrines divided the church nom¬ inal into numerous antagonistic sects, each claiming to be the one true church which the Lord and the apostles planted, and together they have succeeded in giving to the world such a distorted misrepresentation of our Heavenly Father’s character and plan, that many intelligent men turn away with disgust, and despise their Creator, and even try to disbelieve his existence. The Church of Rome, with assumed infallibility, claims it to be the divine purpose to eternally torment in fire and brimstone all “heretics” who reject her doctrines. An«*> i6o The Day of Vengeance . for others she provides a limited torment called Purgatory, from which a release may be secured by penances, fasts, prayers, holy candles, incense and well-paid-for “sacrifices” of the mass. She thus sets aside the efficacy of the aton¬ ing sacrifice of Christ, and places the eternal destiny of man in the hands of scheming priests, who thus claim power to open heaven or close it to whom they please. She substitutes forms of godliness for its vital power, and erects images and pictures for the adoration of her votaries, in¬ stead of exalting in the heart the invisible God and his dear Son, our Lord and Savior. She exalts a man-ordained priestly class to rulership in the church, in opposition to our Lord’s teaching, “ Be not ye called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 23:8, 9.) In fact, the Papacy presents a most complete counterfeit of the true Christianity, and boldly claims to be the one true church.* The “Reformation” movement discarded some of the false dodtrines of Papacy and led many out of that iniqui¬ tous system. The reformers called attention to the Word of God and affirmed the right of private judgment in its study, and also necessarily recognized the right of every child of God to preach the truth without the authority of popes and bishops, who falsely claimed a succession in authority from the original twelve apostles. But ere long that good work of protest against the iniquitous, antichris- tian, counterfeit church of Rome was overcome by the spirit of the world; and soon the protestants, as they were called, formed new organizations, which, together with the truths they had found, perpetuated many of the old errors and added some new ones; and yet each continued to hold a little truth. The result was a medley of conflicting 3 ' n., Chapter 9 and Vol. ill., Chapter 3. Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 161 creeds, at war with reason, with the Word of God and with one another. And as the investigating energy of the Reformation period soon died out, these quickly became fossilized, and have so remained to the present day. To build up and perpetuate these erroneous doCtrinal systems of what they are pleased to call “Systematic Theol- ogy, ’ ’ time and talent have been freely given. Their learned men have written massive volumes for other men to study instead of the Word of God; for this purpose theo¬ logical seminaries have been established and generously endowed; and from these, young men, instructed in their errors, have gone out to teach and to confirm the peo¬ ple in them. And the people, taught to regard these men as God’s appointed ministers, successors of the apostles, have accepted their diCtum without searching the Scriptures as did the noble Bereans in Paul’s day (ACts 17:11), to see if the things taught them were so. But now the harvest of all this sowing has come, the day of reckoning is here, and great is the confusion and per¬ plexity of the whole nominal church of every denomina¬ tion, and particularly of the clergy, upon whom devolves the responsibility of conducting the defence in this day of judgment in the presence of many accusers and witnesses, and, if possible, of devising some remedy to save from complete destruction what they regard as the true church. Yet in their present confusion, and in the desire of all the seCts from reasons of policy to fellowship one another, they have each almost ceased to regard their own particular seCt as the only true church, and now speak of each other as various “branches” of the one church, notwithstanding their contradictory creeds, which of necessity cannot all be true. In this critical hour it is, alas! a lamentable faCt that >he wholesome spirit of “The Great Reformation” is II D j 62 The Day of Vengeance. dead. Protestantism is no longer a protest against the spirit of antichrist, nor against the world, the flesh or the devil. Its creeds, at war with the Word of God, with reason, and with each other, and inconsistent with them¬ selves, they seek to hide from public scrutiny. Its massive theological works are but fuel for the fire of this day of Christendom’s judgment. Its chief theological semi¬ naries are hotbeds of infidelity, spreading the contagion everywhere. Its great men,—its Bishops, Dodtors of Divinity, Theological Professors, and its most prominent and influential clergymen in the large cities—are becoming the leaders into disguised infidelity. They seek to under¬ mine and destroy the authority and inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, to supplant the plan of salvation there¬ in revealed with the human theory of evolution. They seek a closer affiliation with, and imitation of, the Church of Rome, court her favor, praise her methods, conceal her crimes, and in so doing become confederate with her in spirit. They are also in close and increasing conformity to the spirit of the world in everything, imitating the vain pomp and glory of the world which they claim to have re¬ nounced. Mark the extravagant display in church archi¬ tecture, decorations and furnishments, the heavy indebt¬ edness thereby incurred, and the constant begging and scheming for money thus necessitated. A recent departure on this line is the introduction in the Lindell Avenue Methodist Church of New York city of a work of art entitled, “The Enthronement of the Virgin.” It is sculptured in bas-relief above the altar, the grand organ and the choir loft. The representation spans an arch forty-six feet wide and fifty feet high, and every figure in it is life size. At the highest point of the arch is the figure of the Virgin, standing erect with the infant Jesus in her arms. Flying outward from these two figures Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 163 are shown seraphim with trumpets, proclaiming the en¬ thronement. Ascending either side of the arch are hosts of worshiping angels with outstretched wings. At either base is the figure of an angel, that on the left holding a festooned scroll bearing the inscription: ‘‘Peaceon Earth,” and the similar figure on the right bearing the closing words of the nativity announcement: ‘ ‘ Good Will to Men. ’ ’ Additional effectiveness is given by the faCt that the bas- relief is mounted on a splay at an angle of 45 degrees in¬ clined towards the congregation, thus bringing into bolder relief the high work of the study and deepening the shadows in proportion. What an endorsement, not only of the spirit of extrava¬ gant display, but also of the image worship of the church of Rome! Note, too, the arrangements in connection with some churches of billiard rooms ; and some ministers have even gone so far as to recommend the introduction of light wines; and private theatricals and plays are freely indulged in in some localities. In much of this the masses of church members have be¬ come the willing tools of the clergy; and the clergy in turn have freely pandered to the tastes and preferences of worldly and influential members. The people have sur¬ rendered their right and duty of private judgment, and have ceased to search the Scriptures to prove what is truth, and to meditate upon God’s law to discern what is right¬ eousness. They are indifferent, worldly, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God: they are blinded by the god of this world and willing to be led into any schemes which ministers to present worldly desires and ambitions; and the clergy foster this spirit and pander to it for their own temporal advantage. Should these religious organizations go down, the offices and salaries, the prestige and honors of the self-exalted clergy must all go with them. Thev 164 The Day of Vengeance. are therefore as anxious now to perpetuate the insti- tutions of nominal Christianity as were the Scribes and Pharisees and DoCtors of the law anxious to perpetuate Judaism; and for the same reasons. (John n 147, 48, 53 ; ACts 4:15-18.) And because of their prejudices and worldly ambitions Christians are as blind to the light of the new dispensation now dawning as were the Jews in the days of the Lord’s first advent to the light of the Gospel dispensation then dawning. THE CHARGES PREFERRED AGAINST ECCLESIASTICISM. The charges preferred against the nominal Christian church are the sentiments of the waking world and of waking Christians, both in the midst of Babylon and be¬ yond her territorial limits. Suddenly, within the last five years particularly, the professed Christian church has come into great prominence for criticism, and the scrutin¬ izing gaze of the whole world is turned upon her. This criticism is so prevalent that none can fail to hear it; it is in the very air; it is heard in private conversation, on the streets, the railways, in the work-shops and stores; it floats through the daily press and is a live topic in all the lead¬ ing journals, secular and religious. It is recognized by all the leaders in the church as a matter that portends no good to her institutions; and the necessity is felt of meeting it promptly and wisely (according to their own ideas), if they would preserve their institutions from the danger which threatens them. The nominal Christian church is charged (1) with incon¬ sistency. The wide distinction is marked, even by the world, between her claimed standard of dobtrine, the Bible, and her conflicting, and in many respebts absurd, creeds. The blasphemous doCtrine of eternal torment is scouted, * Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 165 and no longer avails to drive men into the church through fear; and for some time past the Presbyterian and other Calvinistic sedts have been in a very tempest of criti¬ cism of their time-honored creeds, and are terribly shaken. With the long discussions on the subject and the desperate attempts at defence on the part of the clergy, all are acquainted. That the task of defence is most irksome, and one that they would gladly avoid, is very manifest; but they cannot avoid it, and must condudl the defence as best they can. Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage voiced the popu¬ lar sentiment among them when he said: — “I would that this unfortunate controversy about the confession of faith had not been forced upon the church; but now, since it is on, I say, Away with it, and let us have a new creed.’* On another occasion the same gentleman said:— “I declare, once for all, that all this controversy through¬ out Christendom is diabolic and satanical. A most diabol¬ ical attempt is going on to split the church; and if it is not stopped it will gain for the Bible a contempt equal to that for an 1828 almanac that tells what the weather was six months before and in what quarter of the moon it is best to plant turnips. “ What position shall we take in regard to these contro¬ versies? Stay out of them. While these religious riots are abroad, stay at home and attend to business. Why, how do you expedl a man only five or six feet high to wade through an ocean a thousand feet deep? . . . The young men now entering the ministry are being launched into the thickest fog that ever beset a coast. The questions the dodlors are trying to settle won’t be settled until the day after judg¬ ment day. ’ ’ Very true; the day after this judgment day will see all these perplexing questions settled, and truth and righteous- / ness established in the earth. The irksomeness of the task of defence and the dread of the outcome were also very strongly expressed in a i66 The Day of Vengeance. resolution of assembled Presbyterian clergymen in Chicago, not long after the summons to judgment came. The reso¬ lution read as follows — “Resolved, That we regard with sorrow the controversies now distracting our beloved church as injurious to her rep¬ utation, her influence and her usefulness, and as fraught, if pursued, with disaster, not only to the work of our own church, but to our common Christianity. We therefore earnestly counsel our brethren that on the one side they avoid applying new tests of orthodoxy, the harsh use of poAver and the repression of honest and devout search for truth; and on the other side we urgently advise our breth¬ ren against the repetition upon the church of unverified theories, the questions of doubtful disputation, and especi¬ ally where they have, or under any circumstances might have, a tendency to unsettle the faith of the unlearned in the Holy Scriptures. For the sake of our church and all her precious interests and affinities we earnestly request a truce and the cessation of ecclesiastical litigation. ’ * The Presbyterian Banner also published the following doleful reference to it, which contains some remarkable admissions of the unhealthy spiritual condition of the Pres¬ byterian church. It reads: — “A disturbance or alarm in a hospital or asylum might prove fatal to some of its inmates. An elderly gentleman in a benevolent institution amused himself awhile by beat¬ ing a drum before sunrise. The authorities finally requested this ‘lovely brother’ to remove his instrument to a respect¬ ful distance. This illustrates why earnest pastors grow serious when a disturbance arises in the church. The church is like a hospital where are gathered sin-sick persons who, in a spiritual sense, are fevered, leprous, paralytic, wounded and halj dead. A disturbance, like the present cruel distraction which emanates from some Theological Seminaries, may destroy some souls who are now passing * through a crisis. Will Prof. Briggs please walk softly and remove his drum?” The church nominal is charged (2) with a marked lack of that piety and godliness which she professes, though the Babylon ’ s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 167 fact is admitted that a few truly pious souls are found here and there among the obscure ones. Sham and hypocrisy are indeed obtrusive, and wealth and arrogance make very manifest that the poor are not welcome in the earthly temples erected in the name of Christ. The masses of the people have found this out, and have been looking into their Bibles to see if such was the spirit of the great Founder of the church; and there they have learned that one of the proofs which he gave of his Messiahship was that “the poor had the gospel preached unto them;” that he said to his followers, “The poor ye have always with you;” and that they were to show no preferences for the man with the gold ring or the goodly apparel, etc. They have found the golden rule, too, and have been ap¬ plying it to the conduct of the church, collectively and individually. Thus, in the light of the Bible, they are fast arriving at the conclusion that the church is fallen from grace. And so manifest is the conclusion, that her defenders find themselves covered with confusion. The church nominal is charged (3) with failure to accom¬ plish what she has claimed to be her mission; viz., to convert the world to Christianity. How the world has discovered that the time has come -when the work of the church should show some signs of completion seems un¬ accountable; but nevertheless, just as in the end of the Jewish age all men were in expectation of some great change about to take place (Luke 3:15), so now, in the end of the Gospel age, all men are in similar expectation. They realize that we are in a transition period, and the dawn of the twentieth century is anticipated with a kind of premonition of great revolutionary changes. The present unrest was forcefully expressed by Hon. Henry Grady, in an eloquent address before the University Societies, Char¬ lottesville, Va. i68 The Day of Vengeance. His words were:—“We are standing in the day¬ break. . . . The fixed stars are fading from the sky and we are groping in uncertain light. Strange shapes have come with the night. Established ways are lost, new roads perplex, and widening fields stretch beyond the sight. The unrest of dawn impels us to and fro; but Doubt stalks amid the confusion, and even on the beaten paths the shifting crowds are halted, and from the shadows the sentries cry, ‘ Who comes there?’ In the obscurity of the morning tre¬ mendous forces are at work. Nothing is steadfast or ap= proved. The miracles of the present belie the simple truths of the past. The church is besieged from without and betrayed from within. Behind the courts smoulders the rioter’s torch and looms the gibbet of the anarchists. Government is the contention of partisans and the prey of spoilsmen. Trade is restless in the grasp of monopoly, and commerce shackled with limitation. The cities are swollen, and the fields are stripped. Splendor streams from the castle, and squalor crouches in the home. The universal brotherhood is dissolving, and the people are huddling in¬ to classes. The hiss of the Nihilist disturbs the covert and the roar of the mob murmurs along the highway.’* For the church to deny that the end of the age, the day of reckoning, has come, is impossible; for whether she dis¬ cerns the time in the light of prophecy or not, the fadts of judgment are forced upon her, and the issue will be realized before the close of this harvest period. ECCLESIASTICISM TAKES THE STAND AND INDIRECTLY RENDERS UP HER ACCOUNT. The church knows that the eyes of all the world are turned upon her; that somehow it has been discovered that, while she has claimed her commission to be to con¬ vert the world, the time has arrived when, if that be her mission, that work should be almost, if not fully accom¬ plished, and that really she differs little from the world, except in profession. Babylon 1 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 169 Having assumed this to be her present mission, she has lost sight of the real purpose of this Gospel age; viz., to “preach this gospel of the Kingdom in all the world for a witness to all nations,” and to aid in the calling and pre¬ paring of a “little flock” to constitute (with the Lord) that Millennial Kingdom which shall then bless all the families of the earth. (Matt. 24:14; A6ts 15:14-17.) She is confronted with the fa6t that after eighteen centuries she is further from the results which her claims would de¬ mand than she was at the close of the first century. Con¬ sequently apologies, excuses, a figuring over and reexamin¬ ing of accounts, the re-dressing of fadts, and extravagant prognostications of great achievements in the very near future, are now the order of the day, as, forced by the spirit of inquiry and cross-questioning of these times, she endeavors to speak in self-defence before her numerous accusers. To meet the charge of inconsistency of dodtrine with her recognized standard, the Bible, we see her in great per¬ plexity; for she cannot deny the conflidt of her creeds. So, various methods are resorted to, which thinking people are not slow to mark as evidences of her great confusion. There is much anxiety on the part of each denomination to hold on to the old creeds because they are the cords by which they have been bound together in distindl organizations; and to destroy these suddenly would be to dissolve the organizations; yet the clergy specially are quite content to say as little about them as possible, for they are heartily ashamed of them in the searching light of this day of judgment. Some are so ashamed of them that, forgetting their worldly prudence, they favor discarding them altogether. Others are more conservative, and think it more prudent to Jet them go gradually, and in their place, by degrees, to The Day of Vengeance. 170 insert new dodh'ines, to amend, revise, etc. With the long discussions on Presbyteriancreed-revision every one is fam¬ iliar. So also the attempts of self-styled higher critics to undermine the authority and inspiration of the sacred Scriptures, and to suggest a nineteenth-century-inspiration, and a theory of evolution wholly subversive of the divine plan of salvation from an Adamic fall which the Bible af¬ firms, but which they deny. Then there is another and a large class of clergymen who favor an ecledtic, or compro¬ mise, theology, which must of necessity be very brief and very liberal, its objedt being to waive all objedtions of all religionists, Christian and heathen, and, if possible, to “ bring them all into one camp/’ as some have expressed it. There is a general boasting on the part of a large class, of the great things about to be accomplished through in¬ strumentalities recently set in operation, of which Christian union or cooperation is the central idea; and when this is secured—as we are assured it soon will be—then the world’s conversion to Christianity, it is assumed, will quickly follow. The charge of lack of piety and godly living is also met with boastings—boasting of “many wonderful works,” which often suggest the reproving words of the Lord re¬ corded in Matt. 7:22, 23. But these boastings avail very little to the interests of Babylon, because the lack of the spirit of God’s law of love is, alas! too painfully manifest to be concealed. The defence, on the whole, only makes the more manifest the deplorable condition of the fallen church. If this great ecclesiasticism were really the true Church of God, how manifest would be the failure of the divine plan to choose out a people for his name ! But while these various excuses, apologies, promises and boasts are made by the church, her leaders see very clearly that they will not long serve to preserve her in her present Babylon's Co?fusion — Ecclesiastical. 171 divided, distracted and confused condition. They see that disintegration and overthrow are sure to follow soon unless some mighty effort shall unite her seCts and thus give her not only a better standing before the world, but also increased power to enforce her authority. We there¬ fore hear much talk of Christian Union; and every step in the direction of its accomplishment is proclaimed as evi¬ dence of growth in the spirit of love and Christian fellow¬ ship. The movement, however, is not begotten of increasing love and Christian fellowship, but of fear. The foretold storm of indignation and wrath is seen to be fast approach¬ ing, and the various seCts seriously doubt their ability to stand alone in the tempest shock. Consequently all the seCts favor union; but how to ac¬ complish it in view of their conflicting creeds, is the per¬ plexing problem. Various methods are suggested. One is to endeavor first to unite those seCts which are most alike in doCtrine, as, for instance, the various branches of the same families—Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Catho¬ lics, etc.,—preparatory to the proposed larger union. An¬ other is to cultivate in the people a desire for union, and a disposition to ignore doCtrine, and to extend a generous fellowship to all morally disposed people and seek their cooperation in what they call Christian work. This senti¬ ment finds its most earnest supporters among the young and middle-aged. The ignoring in late years of many of the disputed doc¬ trines of the past has assisted in the development of a class of young people in the church who largely represent the 1 ‘union’ ’sentiment of Christendom. Ignorant of the sectarian battles of the past, these are unencumbered with the con¬ fusion prevalent among their seniors respecting foreordina¬ tion, election, free grace, etc. But they still have, from the teachings of childhood (originally from Rome and the The Day of Vengeance. 172 dark ages), the blighting dodtrine of the everlasting tor¬ ment of all who do not hear and accept the gospel in the present age; and the theory that the mission of the gospel is to convert the world in the present age, and thus save them from that torment. These are banded under various names,—Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Asso¬ ciations, Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, King’s Daughters and Salvation Armies. Many of these have indeed “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ’ ’ True to their erroneous, -unscriptural views, these plan a “social uplift of the world,” to take place at once. It is commendable that their efforts are not for evil, but for good. Their great mistake is in pursuing their own plans, which however benevolent or wise in human estimation, must of necessity fall short of the divine wisdom and the divine plan, which alone will be crowned with success. All others are doomed to failure. It would be greatly to the blessing of the true ones among them if they could see the divine plan; viz., the selection (“ eledtion ”) of a sanc¬ tified “ little flock” now, and by and by the world’s uplift by that little flock when complete and highly exalted and reigning with Christ as his Millennial Kingdom joint- heirs. Could they see this, it would or should have the effedt of sandtifying all the true ones among them—though of course this would be a small minority; for the majority who join such societies evidently do so for various reasons other than entire consecration and devotion to God and his service—“even unto death.” These Christian young people, untaught in the lessons of church history, and ignorant of dodtrines, readily fall in with the idea of “Union.” They decide,—“The fault of the past has been dodtrines which caused divisions! Let us now have union and ignore dodtrines! ” They fail Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 173 to appreciate the fa6t that in the past all Christians were anxious for union, too, just as anxious as people of to-day, but they wanted union on the basis of the truth, or else no unionatall. Theirruleof condudt was, “Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints;” “Have no fel¬ lowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. ’ ’ (Jude 3; Eph. 5:11.) Many to-day fail to see that certain doBrines are all-important to true union among true Christians,—a union pleasing to God,—that the fault of the past was that Christians were too greatly prejudiced in favor of their own human creeds to prove and correhl them and all doctrines by the Word of God. Hence the union or confederacy proposed and sought, being one which ignores Bible do< 5 lrine, but holds firmly to human dodlrines respedling eternal torment, natural im¬ mortality, etc., and which is dominated merely by human judgment as to objedl and methods, is the most danger¬ ous thing that could happen. It is sure to run into extreme error, because it rejedfs the “dodtrines of Christ” and “the wisdom from above,” and instead relies upon the wis¬ dom of its own wise men ; —which is foolishness when op¬ posed to the divine counsel and methods. “The wisdom of their wise men shall perish.”—Isa. 29:14. Then, too, there are many ideas set afloat by progress¬ ive (?) clergymen and others as to what should be the character and mission of the church in the near future, their proposition being to bring it down, even closer than at present, to the ideas of the world. Its work, it appears, is to be to draw the unregenerate world into it and to se¬ cure a liberal financial patronage; and to do this enter¬ tainment and pleasure must be provided. What true Christian has not been shocked by the tendencies in this direction, both as he observes them at home and reads of them elsewhere. 3 74 The Day of Vengeance. What stronger evidence could we have of the decline of real godliness than the following, from the pen of a Method¬ ist clergyman, and published in a Methodist journal— The Northwestern Christian Advocate —and called by the Editor a “ friendly satire on existing Methodist conditions ,’ * thus admitting the conditions. Whether meant as an en¬ dorsement, or as a satire, it matters not; fadts are fadts by whomsoever told, though doubly forcible when in the nature of a confession by an interested minister in his own church journal. We give the article entire as follows, the italics being ours :— “SOME FEATURES OF AMERICAN METHODISM. “The revival of religion in the eighteenth century un¬ der the leadership of the Wesleys and Whitefield purified the moral tone of the Anglo-Saxon race and put in opera¬ tion new forces for the elevation of the unevangelized. Secular historians, both English and American, have united in crediting the movement originated by these remarkable men with much in modern church machinery and statement of dodtrine which tends to spread and plant our civiliza¬ tion. The dodtrine of Tree will’ preached by them and their successors has, with the evolution of modern experi¬ ments in secular government, been one of the most popular dogmas engaging the thoughts of men. Among our Amer¬ ican fore-fathers this dodtrine was peculiarly contagious. Throwing off the yoke of kings, and disgusted with a nation¬ alized and priest-ridden church, what could be more en¬ chanting and more in harmony with their political aspira¬ tions than the do< 5 trine that every man is free to make or mar his own destiny here and hereafter? “The dodtrine of the Tew birth’ upon which the Methodists insisted, and the preaching of which by White- field in New England was like the telling of a fresh and unheard story, likewise produced effedts upon which the secular and even the unreligious looked with approbation. For this dodtrine not only demanded a ‘change of heart/ but Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 175 also such a change in the daily life as to make the Methodist easily distinguished from the man of the world by his be¬ havior. The great purpose for which the church existed was to ‘spread scriptural holiness over these lands.’ This was the legend on her banner—with this war-cry she conquered. “Another reason for the phenomenal success of Method¬ ism in this country is to be found in the fa6t that to its simple, popular service the common people were gladly welcomed. Only those who have been untrained in ritual can appreciate this apparently insignificant but really very important fadt. To know that you may enter a church where you can take part in the service without the risk of displaying your ignorance of form and ceremonies is of greatest concern if you have no desire to make yourself conspicuous. Thus the plain, unstudied service of the early American Methodist church was exadtly suited to the people who had but lately abandoned the pomp of Old World religions. Lawn sleeves, holy hats, diadems, crowns and robes were repugnant to their rough and simple tastes. The religion that taught them that they could make their appeals to the Almighty without an intermediator of any kind emphasized the dignity and greatness of their man¬ hood and appealed to their love of independence. “The marked triumphs of this church may also be attri¬ buted in part to the fa6t that she had not then laid down the Master’s whip of small cords. There was in those early days, from time to time, a cleansing of the church from pretenders and the unworthy which had a most wholesome effedl, not only on the church itself, but also upon the sur¬ rounding community. For after the storms which often accompanied the ‘ turning out ’ of the faithless, the moral atmosphere of the whole neighborhood would be purified, and even the scoffer would see that church-membership meant something. “A fadlor also assisting in the success of which I write was the pure itinerancy of the ministry which then obtained. Without doubt there were heroes and moral giants in those days. The influence of a strong, manly man, possessed by the idea that here he had ‘no continuing city,’ making no provision for his old age, requiring no contract to se¬ cure his support or salary, denying himself the very things 176 The Day of Vengeance. the people were most greedy to obtain, and flaming with a zeal that must soon consume him, must have been abiding and beneficent wherever it was felt. “No mean part in achieving her commanding position in this country was played by the singing of the old-time Methodists. Serious, sensible words, full of dodfrine, joined to tunes that still live and rule, there was in such singing not only a musical attraction, but a theological training whereby the people, uncouth though they might have been, were indoctrinated in the cardinal tenets of the church. The singing of a truth into the soul of child or man puts it there with a much more abiding power than can be found in any Kindergarten or Quincy method of instruction. Thus, without debate, doCtrines were fixed in the minds of children or of converts so that no subsequent controversy could shake them. It remains now to show that “these elements of success have become antiquated, AND THAT A NEW STANDARD OF SUCCESS HAS BEEN SET UP IN THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. “Let me not assume the role of boaster, but rather be the annalist of open faCts, a reciter of recent history. So far as the standard of doCtrine is concerned, there is no change in the position held by the church, but the tone and spirit which obtain in almost all her affairs show at once the presence of modern progress and light-giving innovations. The temper and complexion of this mighty church have so far changed that all who are interested in the religious welfare of America must study that change with no common concern. “The dodtrine of the new birth—‘Ye must be born again’—remains intadf, but modern progress has moved the church away from the old-time stridfness that prevented many good people from entering her fold, because they could not subscribe to that dodtrine, and because they never had what once was called ‘experimental religion.’ Now Universalists and Unitarians are often found in full fellow¬ ship bravely doing their duty. “ The ministry of the present day , polished and cultured as it is in the leading churches , is too well bred to insist on ‘holiness,' as the fathers saw that grace, but preach that Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 177 broader holiness that thinketh no evil even in a man not wholly sanctified. To espouse this doctrine as it was in the old narrow way would make one not altogether agreeable in the Chautauqua circles and Epworth leagues of the present. “The old-time, simple service still lingers among the rural populations, but in those cultured circles, where cor¬ rect tastes in music, art and literature obtain—among the city churches—in many instances an elaborate and elegant ritual takes the place of the voluntary and impetuous pray¬ ing and shouting which once characterized the fathers. To challenge the desirability of this change is to question the superiority of culture to the uncouth and ill-bred. “When the church was in an experimental stage, it possibly might have been wise to be as strict as her leaders then were. There was little to be lost then. But now wise, discreet and prudent men refuse to hazard the welfare of a wealthy and influential church by a bigoted administration of the law, such as will offend the rich and intellectual. If the people are not flexible, the gospel surely is. The church was made to save men, not to turn them out and discourage them. So our broader and modern ideas have crowded out and overgrown the contracted and egotistical notion that we are better than other people, who should be excluded from our fellowship. “ The love-feast, with its dogmatic prejudices, and the class-meeting, which was to many minds almost as bad as the confessional, have been largely abandoned for Epworth Leagues and Endeavor Societies. “ The present cultured ministry, more than ever in the history of the church, conforms to the Master’s injunction to be ( wise as serpents and harmless as doves. ’ Who among them would have the folly of the old-time preachers to tell his richest official member who is rolling in luxury to sell all for God and humanity and take up his cross and follow Christ ? He might go away sorrowing—the minister, I mean. “While evolution is the law, and progress the watch¬ word, rashness and radicalism are ever to be deplored, and the modern Methodist minister is seldom guilty of either. The rude, rough preacher who used to accuse the God of love of being wrathful has stepped down and out to give place to his successor, who is careful in style, elegant in 12 D 178 The Day of Vengeance. diCtion, and whose thoughts, emotions and sentiments are poetical and inoffensive. “The ‘time limit,’ whereby a minister may remain in one charge five years, will be abandoned at the next Gen¬ eral Conference in 1896. In the beginning he could serve one charge but six months; the time was afterward extend¬ ed to one year, then to two years, then to three, and lately to five. But the ruling , cultured circles of the church see that if her social success and standing are to compare favor¬ ably with other churches , her pastorate must be fixed so that her strong preachers may become the centers of social and literary circles. For it must be remembered that the preacher’s business is not now as it often was—to hold pro¬ tracted meetings and be an evangelist. No one sees this more clearly than the preachers themselves. Great reviv¬ alists used to be the desirable preachers sought after by the churches, and at the annual conferences the preachers were wont to report the number of conversions during the year. Now, however, a less enthusiastic and eccentric idea rules people and priest alike. The greater churches desire those ministers that can feed the aesthetic nature, that can parry the blows of modern skepticism and attraCt the intellectual and polished, while at the annual conference the emphasized thing in the report of the preacher is his missionary collec¬ tion. The modern Methodist preacher is an excellent col¬ lector of money, thereby entering the very heart of his people as he could not by any old-fashioned exhortation or appeal. “How great the lesson that has been so well learned by these leaders of Christian thought; viz., that the gospel should never offend the cultured and polite taste. To a church that can so flexibly conform to the times the gates of the future open wide with a cheery greeting. What more fitting motto can be found for her than the herald angels sang: ‘Peace on earth, good will to men.’ — Rev. Chas. A. Crane. ’ ’ The following, by Bishop R. S. Foster, of the M. E. Church, we clip from the Gospel Trwnpet. It bears the same testimony, though in different language; a little too plainly perhaps for some, as the bishop has since been retired against his wish and despite his tears. Babylon 7 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 179 BISHOP FOSTER SAID: “The church of God is to-day courting the world. Its members are trying to bring it down to the level of the un¬ godly. The ball, the theater, nude and lewd art, social luxuries, with all their loose moralities, are making inroads into the secret enclosure of the church; and as a satisfac¬ tion for all this worldliness, Christians are making a great deal of Lent and Easter and Good Friday and church ornamentations. It is the old trick of Satan. The Jew¬ ish church struck on that rock; the Romish church was wrecked on the same, and the Protestant church is fast reaching the same doom. “Our great dangers, as we see them, are assimilation to the world, negledl of the poor, substitution of the form for the fadl of godliness, abandonment of discipline, a hireling ministry, an impure gospel—which, summed up, is a fashionable church. That Methodists should be liable to such an outcome and that there should be signs of it in a hundred years from the 1 sail loft ’ seems almost the miracle of history; but who that looks about him to-day can fail to see the fadt ? “Do not Methodists, in violation of God’s Word and their own discipline, dress as extravagantly and as fashion¬ ably as any other class? Do not the ladies, and often the wives and daughters of the ministry, put on ‘ gold and pearls and costly array?’ Would not the plain dress insisted upon by John Wesley, Bishop Asbury, and worn by Hester Ann Rogers, Lady Huntington, and many others equally distin¬ guished, be now regarded in Methodist circles as fanaticism? Can any one going into the Methodist church in any of our chief cities distinguish the attire of the communicants from that of the theater or ball goers? Is not worldliness seen in the music? Elaborately dressed and ornamented choirs, who in many cases make no profession of religion and are often sneering skeptics, go through a cold artistic or oper¬ atic performance, which is as much in harmony with spiritual worship as an opera or theater. Under such worldly performance spirituality is frozen to death. “Formerly every Methodist attended “class” and gave testimony of experimental religion. Now the class meet- 180 The Day of Vengeance. ing is attended by very few, and in many churches it is abandoned. Seldom do the stewards, trustees and leaders of the church attend class. Formerly nearly every Methodist prayed, testified or exhorted in prayer meeting. Now but very few are heard. Formerly shouts and praises were heard: now such demonstrations of holy enthusiasm and joy are regarded as fanaticism. “Worldly socials, fairs, festivals, concerts and such like have taken the place of the religious gatherings, revival meetings, class and prayer meetings of earlier days. “ How true that the Methodist discipline is a dead letter. Its rules forbid the wearing of gold or pearls or costly array; yet no one ever thinks of disciplining its members for violating them. They forbid the reading of such books and the taking of such diversions as do not minister to godliness, yet the church itself goes to shows and frolics and festivals and fairs, which destroy the spiritual life of the young as well as the old. The extent to which this is now carried on is appalling. “ The early Methodist ministers went forth to sacrifice and suffer for Christ. They sought not places of affluence and ease, but of privation and suffering. They gloried not in their big salaries, fine parsonages and refined con¬ gregations, but in the souls that had been won for Jesus. Oh, how changed ! A hireling ministry will be a feeble, timid, truckling, time-serving ministry, without faith, en¬ durance and holy power. Methodism formerly dealt in the great central truth. Now the pulpits deal largely in generalities and in popular ledlures. The glorious dodtrine of entire sandlification is rarely heard and seldom wit¬ nessed in the pulpits.” While special efforts are being made to enlist the sympathies and cooperation of the young people of the churches in the interests of religious union, by bringing them together socially and avoiding religious controversy and dodlrinal teaching, still more diredt efforts are being made to bring the adult membership into sympathy with the union movement. For this the leaders in all denomina¬ tions are scheming and working; and many minor efforts Babylon ’ s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 18 > culminated in the great Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in the summer of 1893. The objedt of the Par¬ liament was very definite in the minds of the leaders, and. found very definite expression; but the masses of the church membership followed the leaders seemingly without the least consideration of the principle involved,—that it was a grand compromise of Christianity with everything unchristian. And now that there is a projected extension of the (Chicago) World’s Parliament of Religions on a large scale, proposed to be held in the year 1900, and in view of the fadt that Christian Union is being adtively pushed along this line of compromise, let those who desire to remain loyal to God mark well the expressed principles of these religious leaders. Rev. J. H. Barrows, D. D., the leading spirit of the (Chi¬ cago) World’s Parliament of Religions, and adtively engaged in promoting its extension, is reported by a San Francisco journal as having expressed himself to its representative with reference to his special work of bringing about relig¬ ious unity, as follows:— “The union of the religions,” he said in brief, “will come about in one of two ways. First, those churches which are most nearly on common ground of faith and doc¬ trine must unite—the various branches of Methodism and Presbyterianism, for instance. Then when the sedts are united among themselves Protestantism in general will draw together. In the progress of education Catholics and Protestants will discover that the differences between them are not really cardinal, and will broach reunion. This ac¬ complished, the union with other different religions [that is, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Brahminism, Confucian¬ ism,etc.,—heathen religions] is only a question of time. “Second — The religions and churches may join in civil unity on an ethical basis, as advocated by Mr. Stead [an English editor, a Spiritualist]. The religious organizations have common interests and common duties in the com¬ munities in which they exist, and it is possible that they will federate for the promotion and accomplishment of these ends. Hie Day of Vengeance. 182 I, myself, am disposed to look for the union to come through the first process. However that may be, the con¬ gresses of religion are beginning to take shape. Rev. Theo. E. Seward reports a greatly augmented success of his ‘Brotherhood of Christian Unity’ in New York, while very recently there has been organized in Chicago, under the leadership of C. C. Bonney, a large and vigorous ‘ As¬ sociation for the Promotion of Religious Unity.’ ” THE GREAT PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. The Chicago He?'aid, commenting favorably upon the proceedings of the Parliament (Italics are ours), said:— “ Never since the confusion at Babel have so many relig¬ ions, so many creeds, stood side by side, hand in hand, and almost heart to heart, as in that great amphitheater last night. Never since written history began has varied man¬ kind been so bound about with Love’s golden chain. The nations of the earth, the creeds of Christendom, Buddhist and Baptist, Mohammedan and Methodist, Catholic and Confucian, Brahmin and Unitarian, Shinto and Episco¬ palian, Presbyterian and Pantheist, Monotheist and Poly¬ theist, representing all shades of thought and conditions of men, have at last met together in the common bonds of sympathy, humanity and respedt. ’ ’ How significant is the fadt that the mind of even this enthusiastic approver of the great Parliament should be carried away back to the memorable confusion of tongues at Babel! Was it not, indeed, that instindtively he recog¬ nized in the Parliament a remarkable antitype? The Rev. Barrows, above quoted, spoke enthusiastic¬ ally of the friendly relations manifested among Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis and, in fadl, the leaders of all religions extant, by their correspondence in reference to the great Chicago Parliament. He said:— “ The old idea, that the religion to which I belong is the only true one, is out of date. There is something to be learned from all religions, and no man is worthy of the Babylon' s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 183 religion he represents unless he is willing to grasp any man by the hand as his brother. Some one has said that the time is now ripe for the best religion to co?ne to the front. The time for a man to put on any airs of superiority about his particular religion is past. Here will meet the wise man, the scholar and the prince of the East in friendly relation with the archbishop, the rabbi, the missionary, the preacher and the priest. They will sit together in congress for the first time. This, it is hoped, will help to break down the barriers of creed.” Rev. T. Chalmers, of the Disciples church, said:— “This first Parliament of Religions seems to be the har¬ binger of a still larger fraternity—a fraternity that will com¬ bine into one world-religion what is best, not in one alone, but in all of the great historic faiths. It may be that, under the guidance of this larger hope, we shall need to revise our phraseology and speak more of Religious unity , than of Christian unity. I rejoice that all the great cults are to be brought into touch with each other, and that Jesus will take his place in the companionship of Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster. ’ ’ The New York Sun , in an editorial on this subject, said:— “We cannot make out exadlly what the Parliament pro¬ poses to accomplish. ... It is possible, however, that the Chicago scheme is to get up some sort of a new and com¬ pound religion , which shall include and satisfy every variety of religious and irreligious opinion. It is a big job to get up a new and ecledtic religion satisfactory all around; but Chicago is confident.” It would indeed be strange if the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world would suddenly prove to be in har¬ mony, that those filled with the opposite spirits should see eye to eye. But such is not the case. It is still true that the spirit of the world is enmity to God (James 4:4); that its theories and philosophies are vain and foolish; and that the one divine revelation contained in the inspired Script¬ ures of the apostles and prophets is the only divinely Jm? spired truth. The Day of Vengeance. 184 One of the stated objects of the Parliament, according to its president, Mr. Bonney, was to bring together the world’s religions in an assembly “in which their common aims and common grounds of union may be set forth, and the marvelous religious progress of the nineteenth century be reviewed.” The real and only objedt of that review evidently was to answer the inquiring spirit of these times—of this judgment hour—to make as good a showing as possible of the church’s progress, and to inspire the hope that, after all the seeming failure of Christianity, the church is just on the eve of a mighty vidtory; that soon, very soon, her claimed mission will be accomplished in the world’s con¬ version. Now mark how she proposes to do it, and observe that it is to be done, not by the spirit of truth and right¬ eousness, but by the spirit of compromise, of hypocrisy and deceit. The stated objedt of the Parliament was fra¬ ternization and religious union; and anxiety to secure it on any terms was prominently manifest. They were even willing, as above stated, to revise their phraseology to ac¬ commodate the heathen religionists, and call it religious unity, .dropping the obnoxious name Christian, and quite contented to have Jesus step down from his superiority and take his place humbly by the side of the heathen sages, Gautama, Confucius and Zoroaster. The spirit of doubt and perplexity, and of compromise and general faithless¬ ness, on the part of Protestant Christians, and the spirit of boastfulness and of counsel and authority on the part of Roman Catholics and all other religionists, were the most prominent features of the great Parliament. Its first ses¬ sion was opened with the prayer of a Roman Catholic— Cardinal Gibbons—and its last session was closed with the benedidtion of a Roman Catholic—Bishop Keane. And during the last session a Shinto priest of Japan invoked Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 185 upon the motley assembly the blessing of eight million deities. Rev. Barrows had for two years previous been in corres- pondence with the representative heathen of other lands, sending the Macedonian cry around the world to all its heathen priests and apostles, to “ Come over and help us! " That the call should thus issue representatively from the Pres¬ byterian church, which for several years past had been under¬ going a fiery ordeal of judgment, was also a fadl significant of the confusion and unrest which prevail in that denomi¬ nation, and in all Christendom. And all Christendom was ready for the great convocation. For seventeen days representative Christians of all de¬ nominations sat together in counsel with the representatives of all the various heathen religions, who were repeatedly referred to in a complimentary way by the Christian orators as “ wise men from the east" —borrowing the expression from the Scriptures, where it was applied to a very differ¬ ent class—to a few devout believers in the God of Israel and in the prophets of Israel who foretold the advent of Jehovah’s Anointed, and who were patiently waiting and watching for his coming, and giving no heed to the seduc¬ ing spirits of worldly wisdom which knew not God. To such truly wise ones, humble though they were, God re¬ vealed his blessed message of peace and hope. The theme announced for the last day of the Parliament was “ The Religious U?iio?i of the Whole Human Family when would be considered “The elements of perfect religion as recognized and set forth in the different faiths with a view to determining “ the characteristics of the ultimate religion" and “ the center of the coming religious miity of mankind.' ’ Is it possible that thus, by their own confession, Chris¬ tian (?) ministers are unable, at this late day, to determine what should be the center of religious unity, or the char- 1 86 The Day of Vengeance. adteristics of perfedt religion? Are they indeed so anxious for a “ world-religion ” that they are willing to sacrifice any or all of the principles of true Christianity, and even the name “Christian,” if necessary, to obtain it? Even so, they confess. “ Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked and slothful servant,” saith the Lord. The preceding days of the conference were devoted to the set¬ ting forth of the various religions b their respective rep¬ resentatives. The scheme was a bold and hazardous one, but it should have opened the eyes of every true child of God to several facts that were very manifest; namely: (i) that the nominal Christian church has reached its last extremity of hope in its ability to stand, under the searching judgments of this day when “the Lord hath a controversy with his people,” nominal spiritual Israel (Micah 6:1, 2); (2) that in¬ stead of repenting of their backslidings and lack of faith and zeal and godliness, and thus seeking a return of divine favor, they are endeavoring, by a certain kind of union and cooperation, to support one another, and to call in the aid of the heathen world to help them to withstand the the judgments of the Lord in exposing the errors of their human creeds and their misrepresentations of his worthy character; (3) that they are willing to compromise Christ and his gospel, for the sake of gaining the friendship of the world and its emoluments of power and influence; (4) that their blindness is such that they are unable to distinguish truth from error, or the spirit of the truth from the spirit of the world; and (5) that they have already lost sight of the dodtrines of Christ. Doubtless temporary aid will come from the sources whence it is so enthusiastically sought; but it will be only a preparatory step which will involve the whole world in the impending doom of Babylon, causing the kings and Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 187 merchants and traders of the whole earth to mourn and lament for this great city.—Rev. 18:9, n, 17-19. In viewing the proceedings of the great Parliament our attention is forcibly drawn to several remarkable features: —(1) To the doubting and compromising spirit and atti¬ tude of nominal Christianity, with the exceptions of the •>f the Roman and Greek Catholic churches. (2) To the „anfident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and of all other religions. (3) To the clean-cut distinctions, observed by the heathen sages, between the Christianity taught in the Bible, and that taught by the Christian missionaries of the various seCts of Christendom, who, along with the Bible, carried their unreasonable and conflicting creeds to foreign lands. (4) To the heathen estimate of missionary ef¬ fort, and its future prospeCts in their lands. (5) To the influ¬ ence of the Bible upon many in foreign lands, notwithstand¬ ing its misinterpretations by those who carried it abroad. (6) To the present influence and probable results of the great Parliament. (7) To its general aspeCt as viewed from the prophetic standpoint. COMPROMISING THE TRUTH. The great religious Parliament was called together by Christians—Protestant Christians; it was held in a professedly Protestant Christian land; and was under the leading and direction of Protestant Christians, so that Protestants may be considered as responsible for all its proceedings. Be it ob¬ served, then, that the present spirit of Protestantism is that of compromise and faithlessness. This Parliament was will¬ ing to compromise Christ and his gospel for the sake of the friendship of antichrist and heathendom. It gave the honors of both opening and closing its deliberations to representatives of papacy. And it is noteworthy that, while 188 The Day of Vengeance. the faiths of the various heathen nations were elaborately set forth by their representatives, there was no sys¬ tematic presentation of Christianity in any of its phases, although various themes were discoursed upon by Chris¬ tians. How strange it seems that such an opportunity to preach the gospel of Christ to representative, intelligent and influential heathen should be overlooked and ignored by such an assemblage! Were the professed representa¬ tives of Christ’s gospel ashamed of the gospel of Christ ? (Rom. i: 16.) In the discourses Roman Catholics had by far the largest showing, being represented no less than sixteen times in the sessions of the Parliament. And not only so, but there were those there, professing Christianity, who earnestly busied themselves in tearing down its fundamental dodtrines—who told the representa¬ tive heathen of their doubts as to the inerrancy of the Christian Scriptures; that the Bible accounts must be received with a large degree of allowance for fallibility; and that their teachings must be supplemented with human reason and philosophy, and only accepted to the extent that they accord with these. There were those there, pro¬ fessing to be Orthodox Christians, who repudiated the doc¬ trine of the ransom, which is the only foundation of true Christian faith, others, denying the fall of man, proclaimed the opposite theory of evolution,—that man never was created perfedl, that he never fell, and that consequently he needed no redeemer; that since his creation in some very low condition, far removed from the “ Image of God,’ * he has been gradually coming up, and is still in the process of an evolution whose law is the survival of the fittest. And this, the very opposite of the Bible dodtrine of ran¬ som and restitution, was the most popular view. Below we give a few brief extradts indicating the com¬ promising spirit of Protestant Christianity, both in its at- Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 189 titude towards that great antichristian system, the Church of Rome, and also towards the non-Christian faiths. Hear Dr. Chas. A. Briggs, Professor in a Presbyterian Theological Seminary, delaim against the sacred Scriptures. The gentleman was introduced by the President, Dr. Barrows, as “one whose learning, courage and faithfulness to his convictions have given him a high place in the church universal, ’ ’ and was received with loud applause. He said:— “All that we can claim for the Bible is inspiration and accuracy for that which suggests the religious lessons to be imparted. God is true, he cannot lie; he cannot mislead or deceive his creatures. But when the infinite God speaks to finite man, must he speak words which are not error? [How absurd the question! If God does not speak the truth, then of course he is not true.] This depends not only upon God’s speaking, but on man’s hearing, and also on the means of communication between God and man. It is necessary to show the capacity of man to receive the word, before we can be sure that he transmitted it corredlly. [This “learned and reverend” (?) theological professor should bear in mind that God was able to choose proper instruments for conveying his truth, as well as to express it to them; and that he did so is very manifest to every sincere student of his Word. Such an argument to under¬ mine the validity of the Sacred Scriptures is a mere subter¬ fuge, and was an insult to the intelligence of an enlightened audience.] The inspiration of the holy Scriptures does not carry with it inerrancy in every particular.” Hear Rev. Theodore Munger, of New Haven, dethrone Christ and exalt poor fallen humanity to his place. He said:— “Christ is more than a Judean slain on Calvary. Christ is humanity as it is evolving under the power and grace of God , and any book touched by the inspiration of this fail [not that Jesus was the anointed Son of God, but that the evolved humanity as a whole constitute the Christ, the Anointed] belongs to Christian literature.” He instanced Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Emerson and others, and then added:— 1 *90 The Day of Vengeance. “Literature with few exceptions —all inspired literature —stands squarely upon humanity and insists upon it on ethical grounds and for ethical ends, and this is es¬ sential Christianity. ... A theology that insists on a transcendent God, who sits above the world and spins the thread of its affairs, does not command the assent of those minds which express themselves in literature; the poet, the man of genius, the broad and universal thinker pass it by; they stand too near God to be deceived by such renderings of his truth.” Said the Rev. Dr. Rexford of Boston (Universalist):— “ I would that we might all confess that a sincere worship, anywhere and everywhere in the world, is a true worship, . . . The unwritten but dominant creed of this hour I as¬ sume to be that, whatever worshiper in all the world bends before The Best he knows, and walks true to the purest light that shines for him, has access to the highest blessings of heaven.” He surely did strike the key-note of the present domi¬ nant religious sentiment; but did the Apostle Paul so ad¬ dress the worshipers of “ The Unknown God ” on Mars Hill? or did Elijah thus defend the priests of Baal? Paul de¬ clares that the only access to God is through faith in Christ’s sacrifice for our sins; and Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. A< 5 ts 4:12; 17:23-31; 1 Kings 18:21, 22. Hear the Rev. Lyman Abbot, Pastor of the Plymouth Congregational church, Brooklyn, N. Y., claim for all the church that divine inspiration which, through Christ and the twelve apostles, gave us the New Testament, that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished. (2 Tim. 3:17.) He said:— “We do not think that God has spoken only in Palestine, and to the few in that narrow province. We do not think he has been vocal in Christendom and dumb everywhere else. No! we believe that he is a speaking God in all times and in all ages.” Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 191 But how did he speak to the Prophets of Baal ? He has not revealed himself except to his chosen people—to fleshly Israel in the Jewish age, and to spiritual Israel in the Gospel age. “ You only have I known of all the families of the earth.”—Amos 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:6-10. A letter from Lady Somerset (England), read with com¬ plimentary introduction by President Barrows, made the following concessions to the Church of Rome: — “ I am in sympathy with every effort by which men may be induced to think together along the lines of their agree¬ ment, rather than of their antagonism. . . . The only way to unite is never to mention subjects on which we are ir¬ revocably opposed. Perhaps the chief of these is the his¬ toric episcopate, but the fact that he believes in this while I do not, would not hinder that great and good prelate, Archbishop Ireland, from giving his hearty help to me, not as a Protestant woman, but as a temperance worker. The same was true in England of that lamented leader, Cardinal Manning, and is true to-day of Mgr. Nugent, of Liverpool, a priest of the people, universally revered and loved. A concensus of opinion on the practical outline of the golden rule, declared negatively by Confucius and posi¬ tively by Christ, will bring us all into one camp. ’ ’ The doctrine of a vicarious atonement was seldom re¬ ferred to, and by many was freely set aside as a relic of the past and unworthy of this enlightened nineteenth century. Only a few voices were raised in its defence, and these were not only a very small minority in the Parliament, but their views were evidently at a discount. Rev. Joseph Cook was one of this small minority, and his remarks were afterward criticised and roundly denounced from a Chicago pulpit. In his address Mr. Cook said that the Christian religion was the only true religion, and the acceptance of it the only means of securing happiness after death. Refer¬ ring for illustration of the efficacy of the atonement to purge even the foulest sins, to one of Shakespeare’s char» acters, he said:— 192 The Day of Vengeance. “Here is Lady Macbeth. What religion can wash Lady Macbeth’s red right hand? That is the question I propose to the four continents and the isles of the sea. Unless you can answer that you have not come with a serious purpose to the Parliament of religions. I turn to Mohammedan¬ ism. Can you wash her red right hand? I turn to Confucian¬ ism and Buddhism. Can you wash her red right hand?” -In replying to this after the Parliament Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Pastor of All Soul’s church, Chicago, and one enthusiastically interested in the Parliament, said:— “In order that we may discover the immorality of the vicarious atonement—this ‘ look-to-Jesus-and-be-saved * kind of a scheme with which the great Boston orator un¬ dertook to browbeat out of countenance the representa¬ tives of other faiths and forms of thought at the Parliament —let us study closely the character of the deed, the tem¬ per of the woman to whom he promised such swift im¬ munity if she would only ‘look on the cross.’ This cham¬ pion of orthodoxy indignantly flung into the faces of the representatives of all the religions of the world the asser¬ tion that it is ‘impossible in the very nature of things for one to enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born again’ through this Christ atonement, this supernatural vicariousness that washes her red hand white and makes the murderess a saint. All I have to say to such Christianity is this: I am glad I do not believe in it; and I call up¬ on all lovers of morality, all friends of justice, all believers in an infinite God whose will is redlitude, whose provi¬ dence makes for righteousness, to deny it. Such a ‘scheme of salvation ’ is not only unreasonable but it is immoral. It is demoralizing, it is a delusion and a snare in this world, however it may be in the next. ... I turn from Calvary if my vision there leaves me selfish enough to ask for a salvation that leaves Prince Sidartha outside of a heaven in which Lady Macbeth or any other red-handed soul is eternally included.” Subsequently an “oriental platform meeting” was held in the same church, when the same reverend (?) gentleman read seledt sayings from Zoroaster, Moses, Confucius, Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 193 ! Buddha, Socrates and Christ, all tending to show the uni¬ versality of religion, which was followed by the address of an Armenian Catholic. After this address, said the reporter for the public press:— “Mr. Jones said that he had had the temerity to ask Bishop Keane, of the Catholic University of Washington, if he would attend this meeting and stand on such a radical platform. The Bishop had replied with a smile that he would be in Dubuque or he might be tempted to come. ‘ I then asked him,’said Mr Jones, ‘if he could suggest any one.’ The Bishop replied, ‘You must not be in too much of a hurry. We are getting along very fast. It may not be a long time before I shall be able to do so.’ * “‘The Roman Catholic Church,’ continued Mr Jones, ‘under the .eadership of such men as Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Spalding, is getting along, and these men are forcing the laggards to work. People tell us that we have given up the Parliament of religions to the Catholics on one hand and the Pagans on the other. We will hear from our Pagan friends now. That word pagan does not have the same meaning as it did, and I thank God for it.’ ” Prof. Henry Drummond was on the program of the Parlia¬ ment for an address on Christianity and Evolution, but, as he failed to arrive, his paper was read by Dr. Bristol. In it he said that a better understanding of the genesis and nature of sin might at least modify some of the attempts made to get rid of it,—referring disparagingly to the doc¬ trine of atonement, which his dodtrineof Evolution would render null and void. * However, Rome has since concluded that the Chicago Parliament was neither a credit to her, nor popular with her supporters, and has announced that papists will have nothing to do with such promiscuous Parliaments in the future. And distindt marks of papal disapprobation are not lacking as against those Roman prelates who took so prominent a part in the Chicago Parliament. Protestants may have all the glory! 13 o 19 d i he Day of Vengeance. A FEW DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH. In the midst of this compromising spirit, so bold and outspoken, it was indeed refreshing to find a very few rep- resentatives of Protestant Christianity who had the moral courage, in the face of so much opposition, both latent and expressed, to defend the faith once delivered to the saints; though even these show signs of perplexity, because they do not see the divine plan of the ages and the important relationship of the fundamental dodlrines of Christianity to the whole marvelous system of divine truth. Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, of the Chicago University, spoke on “The Attitude of Christianity toward Other Relig¬ ions.” He directed his hearers to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments for an exposition of Christianity, to the hostile attitude of Christianity toward all other relig¬ ions, which must of necessity be false if it be true, and to our Lord’s exclusive claim of power to save, as manifested in such expressions as: — “No man cometh unto the Father [that is, no man can be saved] but by me.” “I am the bread of life.” “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the door of the sheep.” “All that came before me are thieves and robbers.” “I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” “Such,” said he, “are a few specimens of the expres¬ sions from Jesus’ own lips of the sole, exclusive claim to be himself alone the Savior of man. “It may be answered, ‘But Jesus also said, ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me;’ and we are hence warranted in believing, of many souls involved in alien religions, that, drawn consciously or unconsciously to Jesus, they are saved, notwithstanding the misfortune of their *=elie;ious environment. 4.—J Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical, 195 “To this, of course, I agree. I am grateful that such seems indeed to be the teaching of Christianity. [But this hope flows from a generous heart rather than from a knowledge of the divine plan of salvation. Prof. W. did not then see that the drawing of the world to Christ belongs to the Millennial age, that only the drawing of the Church is now in progress, and that knowledge of the Lord, the drawing power now, will be the power then; “ For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”—Hab. 2:14.] I simply ask to have it borne steadily in mind that it is not at all the extension of the benefits flowing from the exclusive power of Jesus to save, that we are at present discussing, but stridtly this question: Does Christianity recognize any share of saving efficacy as inherent in the non-Christian religions? In other words, is it anywhere in Scripture represented that Jesus exerts his saving power, in some degree, greater or less, through religions not his own? If there is any hint, any shadow of hint, in the Bible, Old Testament or New, looking in the diredlion of an affirmative answer to that question, I confess I never have found it. Hints far from shadowy I have found, and in abundance, to the contrary. “I feel the need of begging you to observe that what I say in this paper is not to be misunderstood as under¬ taking on behalf of Christianity to derogate anything whatever from the merit of individual men among the na¬ tions, who have risen to great ethical heights without aid from historic Christianity in either its New Testament or its Old Testament form. But it is not of persons, either the mass or the exceptions, that I task myself here to speak. I am leading you to consider only the attitude assumed by Christianity toward the non-Christian religions. “Let us advance from weighing the immediate utter¬ ances of Jesus to take some account of those upon whom, as his representatives, Jesus, according to the New Testa¬ ment, conferred the right to speak with an authority equal to his own. Speaking of the adherents generally of the Gentile religions, he uses this language: ‘ Professing them¬ selves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glo>y of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of 196 The Day of Vengeance. corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.’ “ Man, bird, beast, reptile—these four specifications in their ladder of descent seem to indicate every different j form of Gentile religion with which Christianity, ancient or modern, came into historic contadt. The consequences penally visited by the offended jealous God of Hebrew and of Christian, for such degradation of the innate worship¬ ing instinbt, such profanation of the idea, once pure in human hearts, of God the incorruptible, are described by Paul in words whose mordant, flagrant, caustic, branding power has made them famous and familiar: 4 Wherefore God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, unto unclean¬ ness, that their bodies should be dishonored among them¬ selves; for that they exchanged the truth of God fora lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.’ “I arrest the quotation unfinished. The remainder of the passage descends into particulars of blame well known, and well known to be truly charged against the ancient pagan world. No hint of exceptions here in favor of points defectively good, or at least not so bad, in the religions condemned; no qualification, no mitigation of sentence suggested. Everywhere heavy shotted, point blank denunciation. No idea submitted of there being in some cases true and acceptable worship hidden away, dis¬ guised and unconscious, under false forms. No possibility glanced at of there being a distinction made by some idol¬ aters, if made only by a very few discerning among them, between the idol served and the one incorruptible jealous God as meant by such exceptional idolaters to be merely symbolized in the idol ostensibly worshiped by them. Re¬ serve none on behalf of certain initiated, illuminated souls seeking and finding purer religion in esoteric ‘mysteries’ that were shut out from the profane vulgar. Christianity leaves no loophole of escape for the judged and reprobate anti-Christian religions with which it comes in contact It shows instead only indiscriminate damnation f condemna¬ tion] leaping out like forked lightning from the glory of his power upon those incorrigibly guilty of the sin referred to, the sin of worship paid tc gods other than God. Babylon’s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 197 “There is no pleasing alleviation anywhere introduced in the way of assurance, or even of possible hope, that a benign God will graciously receive into his ear the ascrip¬ tions formally given to another as virtually, though mis- conceivingly, intended for himself. That idea, whether just or not, is not scriptural. It is indeed, anti-scriptural, therefore anti-Christian. Christianity does not deserve the praise of any such liberality. As concerns the sole, the ex¬ clusive, the incommunicable prerogatives of God, Chris¬ tianity is, let it be frankly admitted, a narrow, a stridl, 2. severe, a jealous religion. Socrates, dying, may have been forgiven his proposal of a cock to be offered in sacrifice to udisculapius; but Christianity, the Christianity of the Bible, gives us no shadow of reason for supposing that such idola¬ trous a6l on his part was translated by God into worship acceptable to himself. “Peter said, ‘Of a truth I perceive that God is no re- spedler of persons, but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him.’ “ To fear God first, and then also to work righteousness, these are the traits charadterizing ever and everywhere the man acceptable to God. But evidently to fear God is not, in the idea of Christianity, to worship another than he. It will accordingly be in degree as a man escapes the ethnic relig¬ ion dominant about him, and rises—not by means of it, but in spite of it—into the transcending element of the true divine worship, that he will be acceptable to God. “Of any ethnic religion, therefore, can it be said that it is a true religion, only not perfedl? Christianity says, No. Christianity speaks words of undefined, unlimited hope concerning those, some of those, who shall never have heard of Christ. These words Christians, of course, will hold and cherish according to their inestimable value. But let us not mistake them as intended to bear any relation what¬ ever to the erring religions of mankind. Those religions the Bible nowhere represents as pathetic and partly success¬ ful gropings after God. They are one and all represented as groping downward, not groping upward. According to Christianity they hinder, they do not help. Their adher¬ ents’ hold on them is like the blind grasping of drowning men on roots and rocks that only tend to keep them to the 198 The Day of Vengeance. bottom of the river. The truth that is in the false religion may help, but it will be the truth, not the false religion. “According to Christianity the false religion exerts all its force to choke and to kill the truth that is in it. Hence the historic degeneration represented in the first chapter of Romans as affedting false religions in general. If they were upward Teachings they would grow better and better. If, as Paul teaches, they in fadt grow worse and worse, it must be because they are downward Teachings. “The attitude, therefore, of Christianity toward religions other than itself is an attitude of universal, absolute, eter¬ nal, unappeasable hostility, while toward all men every¬ where, the adherents of the false religions by no means ex¬ cepted, its attitude is an attitude of grace, mercy, peace for whosoever will [receive it]. How many will be found that will [receive it], is a problem which Christianity leaves unsolved.” The Rev. James Devine, of New York City, also spoke on the message of Christianity to other religions, clearly pre¬ senting the dodtrine of redemption through the precious blood of Christ. He said:— “We are brought now to another fundamental truth in Christian teaching—the mysterious dodtrine of atonement. Sin is a fadt which is indisputable. It is universally rec¬ ognized and acknowledged. It is its own evidence. It is, moreover, a barrier between man and his God. The di¬ vine holiness and sin, with its loathsomeness, its rebellion, its horrid degradation and its hopeless ruin, cannot coalesce in any system of moral government. God cannot tolerate sin or temporize with it or make a place for it in his pres¬ ence. He cannot parley with it; he must punish it. He cannot treat with it; he must try it at the bar. He cannot overlook it; he must overcome it. He cannot give it a moral status; he must visit it with the condemnation it deserves. “Atonement is God’s marvelous method of vindicating, once for all, before the universe, his eternal attitude toward sin, by the voluntary self-assumption, in the spirit of sacri¬ fice, of its penalty. This he does in the person of Jesus Christ. The fadts of Christ’s birth, life, death and resur- Babylon''s Confusion — Ecclesiastical* 199 region take their place in the realm of veritable history, and the moral value and propitiatory efficacy of his perfect obedience and sacrificial death become a mysterious element of limitless worth in the process of readjusting the relation of the sinner to his God. “ Christ is recognized by God as a substitute. The merit of his obedience and the exalted dignity of his sacrifice are both available to faith. The sinner, humble, penitent, and conscious of unworthiness, accepts Christ as his re¬ deemer, his intercessor, his savior, and simply believes in him, trusting in his assurances and promises, based as they are upon his atoning intervention, and receives from God, as the gift of sovereign love, all the benefits of Christ’s mediatorial work. This is God’s way of reaching the goal of pardon and reconciliation. It is his way of being him¬ self just and yet accomplishing the justification of the sinner. Here again we have the mystery of wisdom in its most august exemplification. “ This is the heart of the gospel. It throbs with mys¬ terious love; it pulsates with ineffable throes of divine heal¬ ing ; it bears a vital relation to the whole scheme of gov¬ ernment; it is in its hidden activities beyond the scrutiny of human reason; but it sends the life-blood coursing through history and it gives to Christianity its superb vital¬ ity and its undying vigor. It is because Christianity elim¬ inates sin from the problem that its solution is complete and final. “Christianity must speak in the name of God. To him it owes its existence, and the deep secret of its dignity and power is that it reveals him. It would be effrontery for it to speak simply upon its own responsibility, or even in the name of reason. It has no philosophy of evolution to propound. It has a message from God to deliver. It is not itself a philosophy; it is a religion. It is not earth- born; it is God-wrought. It comes not from man, but from God, and is intensely alive with his power, alert with his love, benign with his goodness, radiant with his light, charged with his truth, sent with his message, inspired with his energy, pregnant with his wisdom, instinCl with the gift of spiritual healing and mighty with supreme authority. “It has a mission among men, whenever or wherever it 200 The Day of Vengeance. finds them, which is as sublime as creation, as marvelous as spiritual existence and as full of mysterious meaning as eternity. It finds its focus, and as well its radiating center, in the personality of its great revealer and teacher, to whom, before his advent, all the fingers of light pointed, and from whom, since his incarnation, all the brightness of the day has shone. “Its spirit is full of simple sincerity, exalted dignity and sweet unselfishness. It aims to impart a blessing rather than to challenge a comparison, It is not so anxious to vindicate itself as to confer its benefits. It is not so solic¬ itous to secure supreme honor for itself as to win its way to the heart. It does not seek to taunt, to disparage or humiliate its rival, but rather to subdue by love, attradl by its own excellence and supplant by virtue of its own in¬ comparable superiority. It is itself incapable of a spirit of rivalry, because of its own indisputable right to reign. It has no use for a sneer, it can dispense with contempt, it carries no weapon of violence, it is not given to argument, it is incapable of trickery or deceit, and it repudiates cant. It relies ever upon its own intrinsic merit, and bases all its claims on its right to be heard and honored. “Its miraculous evidence is rather an exception than a rule. It was a sign to help weak faith. It was a conces¬ sion made in the spirit of condescension. Miracles suggest mercy quite as much as they announce majesty. When we consider the unlimited sources of divine power, and the ease with which signs and wonders might have been multiplied in bewildering variety and impressiveness, we are con¬ scious of a rigid conservation of power and a distindl re¬ pudiation of the spedlacular. The mystery of Christian history is the sparing way in which Christianity has used its resources. It is a tax upon faith, which is often pain¬ fully severe, to note the apparent lack of energy and dash and resistless force in the seemingly slow advances of our holy religion. [It must of necessity be so to those who have not yet come to an understanding of the divine plan of the ages.] “Doubtless God had his reasons, but in the meantime we cannot but recognize in Christianity a spirit of mysteri¬ ous reserve, of marvelous patience, of subdued undertone, Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 20r of purposeful restraint. It does not ‘cry, nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the street.’ Centuries come and go and Christianity touches only portions of the earth, but wherever it touches it transfigures. It seems to despise material adjundts, and counts only those victories worth having which are won through spiritual contadl with the individual soul. Its relation to other religions has been characterized by singular reserve, and its progress has been marked by an unostentatious dignity which is in harmony with the majestic attitude of God, its author. “ We are right, then, in speaking of the spirit of this message as wholly free from the commonplace sentiment of rivalry, entirely above the use of spedtacular or meretri¬ cious methods, infinitely removed from all mere devices or dramatic efiedt, wholly free from cant or doublefaced- ness, with no anxiety for alliance with worldly power or social eclat, caring more for a place of influence in a humble heart than for a seat of power on a royal throne, wholly intent on claiming the loving allegiance of the soul and securing the moral transformation of charadter, in order that its own spirit and principles may sway the spirit¬ ual life of men. “It speaks, then, to other religions with unqualified frankness and plainness, based on its own incontrovertible claim to a hearing. It acknowledges the undoubted sincerity of personal conviction and the intense earnestness of moral struggle in the case of many serious souls who, like the Athenians of old, ‘worship m ignorance;’ it warns, and persuades, and commands, as is its right; it speaks as Paul did in the presence of cultured heathenism on Mars hill, of that appointed day in which the world must be judged, and of ‘that man’ by whom it is to be judged; it echoes and reechoes its invariable and inflexible call to repentance; it requires acceptance of its moral standards; it exadts sub¬ mission, loyalty, reverence and humility. “All this it does with a superb and unwavering tone of quiet insistence. It often presses its claim with argument, appeal and tender urgency; yet in it all and through it all should be recognized a clear, resonant, predominant tone of uncompromising insistence, revealing that supreme per¬ sonal will which originated Christianity, and in whose 202 The Day of Vengeance. name it ever speaks. It delivers its message with an air of untroubled confidence and quiet mastery. There is no anxiety about precedence, no undue care for externals, no possibility of being patronized, no undignified spirit of competition. It speaks, rather, with the consciousness of that simple, natural, incomparable, measureless supremacy which quickly disarms rivalry, and in the end challenges the admiration and compels the submission of hearts free from malice and guile.” Among these noble utterances in defence of the truth was also that of Count Bernstorff, of Germany. He said :— “ I trust that nobody is here who thinks lightly of his own religion [though he certainly learned to the contrary before the Parliament closed. This was said at its beginning.] I for myself declare that I am here as an individual evan¬ gelical Christian, and that I should never have set my foot in this Parliament if I thought that it signified anything like a consent that all religions are equal, and that it is only necessary to be sincere and upright. I can consent to nothing of this kind. I believe only the Bible to be true, and Protestant Christianity the only true religion. I wish no co?npro 7 nise of any kind. “We cannot deny that we who meet in this Parliament are separated by great and important principles. We ad¬ mit that these differences cannot be bridged over; but we meet, believing everybody has the right to his faith. You invite everybody to come here as a sincere defender of his own faith. I, for my part, stand before you with the same wish that prompted Paul when he stood before the repre¬ sentatives of the Roman Court and Agrippa, the Jewish king. I would to God that all that hear me to-day were both almost, and altogether, such I am. I cannot say ‘except these bonds.’ I thank God I am free; except for all these faults and deficiencies which are in me and which prevent me embracing my creed as I should like to do. “But what do we then meet for, if we cannot show tol¬ erance? Well, the word tolerance is used in different ways. If the words of King Frederick of Prussia—‘In my country everybody can go to heaven after his own fashion ’ —are used as a maxim of statesmanship , we cannot approve Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 203 of it too highly. What bloodshed, what cruelty would have been spared in the world if it had been adopted. But if it is the expression of the religious indifference prevalent during this last century and at the court of the monarch who was the friend of Voltaire, then we must not accept it. “St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, rejedls every other dodtrine, even if it were taught by an angel from heaven. We Christians are servants of our Master, the living Savior. We have no right to compromise the truth he intrusted to us; either to think lightly of it, or to with¬ hold the message he has given us for humanity. But we meet together, each one wishing to gain the others to his own creed. Will this not be a Parliament of war instead of peace? Will it take us further from, instead of bring¬ ing us nearer to, each other? I think not, if we hold fast the truth that our great vital dodtrines can only be de¬ fended and propagated by spiritual means. An honest fight with spiritual weapons need not estrange the combatants \ on the contrary, it often brings them nearer. “I think this conference will have done enough to engrave its memory forever on the leaves of history if this great prin¬ ciple [religious liberty] finds general adoption. One light is dawning in every heart, and the nineteenth century has brought 11s much progress in this respedt; yet we risk to enter the twentieth century before the great principle of religious liberty has found universal acceptance.” In marked contrast with the general spirit of the Parliament was also the discourse of Mr. Grant, of Canada. He said:— “It seems to me that we should begin this Parliament of Religions, not with a consciousness that we are doing a great thing, but with an humble and lowly confession of sin and failure. Why have not the inhabitants of the world fallen before the truth? The fault is ours. The Apostle Paul, looking back on centuries of marvelous, God-guided history, saw as the key to all its maxims this: that Jehovah had stretched out his hands all day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people; that, although there was always a remnant of the righteous, Israel as a nation did not under¬ stand Jehovah, and therefore failed to understand her own marvelous mission. 204 The Day of Vengeance. “If St. Paul were here to-day would he not utter the same sad confession with regard to the nineteenth century of Christendom? Would he not have to say that we have been proud of our Christianity, instead of allowing our Christianity to humble and crucify us; that we have boasted of Christianity as something we possessed, instead of allow¬ ing it to possess us; that we have divorced it from the moral and spiritual order of the world, instead of seeing that it is that which interpenetrates, interprets, completes and veri¬ fies that order; and that so we have hidden its glories and obscured its power. All day long our Savior has been saying, ‘ I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.’ But the only one indispensable condition of success is that we recognize the cause of our failure, that we confess it, with humble, lowly, penitent and obedient minds, and that with quenchless Western courage and faith we now go forth and do otherwise.” Would that these sentiments had found an echo in the great Parliament!—but they did not. On the other hand, it was charadferized by great boastfulness as to the “ mar¬ velous religious progress of the nineteenth century;” and Count Bernstorff’s first impression, that it meant a bold compromise of Christian principles and dodfrine, was the corredt one, as the subsequent sessions of the Parliament proved. THE CONTRASTED ATTITUDES OF CATHOLICISM, HEATHENISM AND PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY. The confident and assertive attitude of Catholicism and the various heathen religions was in marked contrast with the skepticism of Protestant Christianity. Not a sentence was uttered by any of them against the authority of their sacred books; they praised and commended their religions, while they listened with surprise to the skeptical and infidel discourses of Protestant Christians against the Christian religion and against the Bible, for which even the heathen showed greater respedt. Babylon * s Cotifusion — Ecclesiastical. 205 As evidence of the surprise of the foreigners on learn¬ ing of this state of things among Christians, we quote the following from the published address of one of the delegates from Japan at a great meeting held in Yokohama to welcome their return and to hear their report. The speaker said:— “When we received the invitation to attend the Parlia¬ ment of Religions, our Buddhist organization would not send us as representatives of the body. The great majority believed that it was a shrewd move on the part of Chris¬ tians to get us there and then hold us up to ridicule or try to convert us. We accordingly went as individuals. But it was a wonderful surprise which awaited us. Our ideas were all mistaken. The Parliament was called because the Western nations have come to realize the weakness and folly of Christianity, and they really wished to hear from us of our religion, and to learn what the best religion is. There is no better place in the world to propagate the teachings of Buddhism than America. Christianity is merely an adornment of society in America. It is deeply believed by very few. The great majority of Christians drink and commit various gross sins, and live very dissolute lives, al¬ though it is a very common belief and serves as a social adornment. Its lack of power proves its weakness. The meetings showed the great superiority of Buddhism over Christianity, and the mere fa< 5 t of calling the meetings showed that the Americans and other Western people had lost their faith in Christianity and were ready to accept the teachings of our superior religion.” It is no wonder that a Japanese Christian said, at the close of the addresses, “Plow could American Christians make so great a mistake as to hold such a meeting and in jure Christianity as these meetings will do in Japan?” Those who are posted in history know something of the charadler of that great antichristian power, the Church of Rome, with which affiliation is so earnestly sought by Protestants; and those who are keeping open eyes on her present operations know that her heart and character are still unchanged. Those who are at all informed know well 206 The Day of Vengeance. that the Greek Catholic Church has supported and approved, if indeed it has not been the instigator of, the Russian persecution of the Jews, “Stundists” and all other Chris¬ tians who, awaking from the blindness and supersti¬ tion of the Greek Church, are seeking and finding God and truth through the study of his Word. The persecution in¬ cited by the Greek Catholic priests and prosecuted by the police are of the most cruel and revolting nature. But, nevertheless, union and cooperation with both these systems, the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, is most earnestly sought, as also with all the forms of heathen superstition and ignorance. THE GROSS DARKNESS OF THE HEATHENISM WITH WHICH CHRISTIANS DESIRE AND SEEK ALLIANCE. Of the gross darkness of the heathenism with which co¬ operation and sympathy are now craved by Christians, we may gain some idea from the following indignant retort of Dr. Pentecost against the critical tone which some of the foreigners assumed toward Christianity and Christian mis¬ sions. He said: — “I think it is a pity that anything should tend to de¬ generate the discussions of this Parliament into a series of criminations and recriminations; nevertheless, we Chris¬ tians have been sitting patiently and listening to a series of criticisms upon the results of Christianity from certain representatives of the Eastern religions. For instance, the slums of Chicago and New York, the nameless wickedness palpable to the eye even of the strangers who are our guests; the licentiousness, the drunkenness, the brawls, the mur¬ ders, and the crimes of the criminal classes have been scored up against us. The shortcomings of Congress and govern¬ ment both in England and America have been charged to Christianity. The opium trade, the rum traffic, the breach of treaties, the inhuman and barbarous laws against the Chinaman, etc., have all been charged upon the Christian Babylon ’ s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 207 church. [But if Christians claim that these are Christian nations, can they reasonably blame these heathen repre¬ sentatives for thinking and judging them accordingly?] “ It seems almost needless to say that all these things, the immoralities, drunkenness, crimes, unbrotherliness, and the selfish greed of these various destructive traffics which have been carried from our countries to the Orient lie out¬ side the pale of Christianity. [No, not if these are Chris¬ tian nations. In making this claim, the church is charge¬ able with the sins of the nations, and theyare justly charged against her.] The Church of Christ is laboring night and day to corredt and abolish these crimes. The unanimous voice of the Christian Church condemns the opium traffic, the liquor traffic, the Chinese adls of oppression, and all forms of vice and greed of which our friends from the East complain. “We are willing to be criticised; but when I recall the faCt that these criticisms are in part from gentlemen who represent a system of religion whose temples, manned by the highest castes of Brahmanical priesthood, are tire author¬ ized and appointed cloisters of a system of immorality and debauchery the parallel of which is not known in any Western country, I feel that silence gives consent. I could take you to ten thousand temples, more or less—more rather than less—in every part of India, to which are attached from two to four hundred priestesses, whose lives are not all they should be. “I have seen this with my own eyes, and nobody denies it in India. If you talk to the Brahmans about it, they will say it is part of their system for the common people. Bear in mind this system is the authorized institution of the Hindoo religion. One needs only to look at the abom¬ inable carvings upon the temples, both of the Hindoos and Buddhists, the hideous symbols of the ancient Phallic systems, which are the most popular objedls worshiped in India, to be impressed with the corruption of the religions Bear in mind, these are not only tolerated, but instituted, directed and controlled by the priests of religion. Only the shameless paintings and portraiture of ancient Pompeii equal in obscenity the things that are openly seen in and about the entrances to the temples of India. 208 The Day of Vengeance. “It seems a little hard that we should bear the criticism which these representatives of Hindooism make upon the godless portion of Western countries, when they are living in such enormous glass houses as these, every one of them eredled, protected and defended by the leaders of their own religion. u We have heard a good deal about the ‘ fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,’ as being one of the essential dodtrines of the religions of the East. As a mat¬ ter of fa 61 , I have never been able to find—and I have challenged the produdtion all over India—a single text in any of the Hindoo sacred literature that justifies or even suggests the dodtrine of the ‘ fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.’ This is a pure plagiarism from Christianity. We rejoice that they have adopted and in¬ corporated it. How can a Brahman, who looks upon all low-caste men, and especially upon the poor pariahs, with a spirit of loathing, and regards them as a different order of beings, sprung from monkeys and devils, presume to tell us that he believes in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? If a Brahman believes in the brotherhood of man, why will he refuse the social ameni¬ ties and common hospitalities to men of other castes, as well as to his Western brethren, whom he so beautifully enfolds in the condescending arms of his newly found dodtrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? “If there is any brotherhood of man in India the most careless observer need not hesitate to say that there is no sisterhood recognized by them. Let the nameless horrors of which the Hindoo women of India are the subjects an¬ swer to this statement. “ Until the English government put down with a strong hand the ancient religious Hindoo institution of Suttee, hundreds of Hindoo widows every year gladly flew to the funeral pyres of their dead husbands, thus embracing the flames that burned their bodies rather than to deliver them¬ selves to the nameless horrors and living hell of Hindoo widowhood. Let our Hindoo friends tell us what their religion has done for the Hindoo widow, and especially the child widow, with her head shaved like a criminal, Babylon 1 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 209 stripped of her ornaments, clothed in rags, reduced to a position of slavery worse than we can conceive, made the common drudge and scavenger of the family, and not in¬ frequently put to even worse and nameless uses. To this state and condition the poor widow is reduced under the sanction of Hindooism. Only two years ago the British government was appealed to to pass a new and stringent law ‘raising the age of consent’ to twelve years, at which it was lawful for the Hindoo to consummate the marriage relation with his child wife. The Christian hospitals, filled with abused little girls barely out of their babyhood, be¬ came so outrageous a fa< 5 t that the government had to step in and stop these crimes, which were perpetrated in the name of religion. So great was the excitement in India over this that it was feared that a religious revolution which would almost lead to a new mutiny was imminent. “We have been criticized by our Oriental friends for judging with an ignorant and prejudiced judgment, be¬ cause at a recent challenge in the early part of this Parlia¬ ment only five persons were able to say that they had read the Bible of Buddha; so it was taken for granted that our judgment was ignorant and unjust. The same challenge might have been made in Burmah or Ceylon, and outside of the priesthood it is almost fair to say that not so many would have been able to say they had read their own script¬ ures. The Badas of the Hindoos are objedts of worship. None but a Brahman may teach, much less read them. Be¬ fore the Christian missionary went to India, the Sanskrit was practically a dead language. If the Indian Scriptures have at last been translated into the vernacular or given to the Western nations, it is because the Christian missionary and Western scholars have rediscovered them, unearthed them, translated them and brought them forth to the light of day. The amount of the Sanskrit Scriptures known by the ordinary Indian who has secured a Western education is only those portions which have been translated into English or the vernacular by European or Western scholars. The common people, ninety-nine one-hundreths of all, know only tradition. Let us contrast this dead exclusive¬ ness on the part of these Indian religions with the fad that the Christian has translated his Bible into more than 14 D 210 The Day of Vengeance. three hundred languagesand dialedts, and has sent it broad¬ cast by hundreds of millions among all the nations and tongues and peoples of the earth. We court the light, but it would seem that the Bibles of the East love the dark¬ ness rather than light, because they will not bear the light of universal publication. '•'The new and better Hindooism of to-day is a develop¬ ment under the influence of a Christian environment, but it has not yet attained to that ethical standard which gives it right to read the Christian Church a lesson in morals. Until India purges her temples of worse than Augean filth, and her pundits and priests disown and denounce the awful adfs and deeds done in the name of religion, let her be modest in proclaiming morals to other nations and people.” HEATHEN REFORMERS FEELING AFTER GOD. While Christendom stood representatively before the representative heathen world, boastful of its religious prog¬ ress, and knowing not that it was “p° or and blind and miserable and naked” (Rev. 3:17), the contrast of an evi¬ dent feeling after God on the part of some in heathen lands was very marked; and the keenness with which they per¬ ceived and indiredlly criticised the inconsistencies of Chris¬ tians is worthy of special note. In two able addresses by representative Hindoos, we have set before us a remarkable movement in India which gives some idea of the darkness of heathen lands, and also of the influence of our Bible, which the missionaries carried there. The Bible has been doing a work which the conflidt- ing creeds that accompanied it, and claimed to interpret it, have hindered, but have not destroyed. From Japan also we hear of similar conditions. Below we append extradts from three addresses remarkable for their evident sincerity, thought and clear expression, and showing the very serious attitude of heathen reformers who are feeling after God, if haply they might find him. Babylon 1 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 211 A VOICE FROM NEW INDIA. Mr. Mozoomdar addressed the assembly as follows:— “Mr. President, Representatives of Nations and Religions: —The Brahmo Somaj of India, which I have the honor to represent, is a new society; our religion is a new religion, but it comes from far, far antiquity, from the very roots of our national life, hundreds of centuries ago. “ Sixty-three years ago the whole land of India was full of a mighty clamor. The great jarring noise of a hetero¬ geneous polytheism rent the stillness of the sky. The cry of widows; nay, far more lamentable, the cry of those miserable women who had to be burned on the funeral pyres of thsir dead husbands, desecrated the holiness of God’s earth. We had the Buddhist goddess of the country, the mother of the people, ten handed, hold¬ ing in each hand the weapons for the defense of her children. We had the white goddess of learning, play¬ ing on her Vena, a stringed instrument of music, the strings of wisdom. The goddess of good fortune, hold¬ ing in her arms, not the horn, but the basket of plenty, blessing the nations of India, was there; and the god with the head of an elephant; and the god who rides on a peacock, and the thirty-three millions of gods and goddesses besides. I have my theory about the mythology of Hindooism, but this is not the time to take it up. “Amid the din and clash of this polytheism and so¬ cial evil, amid all the darkness of the times, there arose a man, a Brahman, pure bred and pure born, whose name was Raja Ram Dohan Roy. Before he became a man he wrote a book proving the falsehood of all polytheism and the truth of the existence of the living God. This brought upon his head persecution. In 1830 this man founded a society known as the Brahmo-Somaj—the society of the worshipers of the one living God. “The Brahmo-Somaj founded this monotheism upon the inspiration of the old Hindoo Scriptures, the Vedas and the Upanishads. “In the course of time, as the movement grew, the members began to doubt whether the Hindoo Scriptures 212 The Day of Vengeance. . > were really infallible. In their souls they thought they heard a voice which here and there, at first in feeble accents, contradidled the Vedas and the Upanishads. What shall be our theological principles? Upon what principles shall our religion stand? The small accents in which the ques¬ tion first was asked became louder and louder, and were more and more echoed in the rising religious society, until it became the most pradlical of all problems—upon what book shall all true religion stand? “Briefly they found that it was impossible that the Hin¬ doo scriptures should be the only record of true religion. They found that although there were truths in the Hindoo scriptures, they could not recognize them as the only in¬ fallible standard of spiritual reality. So twenty-one years after the founding of the Brahmo-Somaj the dodlrine of the infallibility of the Hindoo scriptures was given up. “ Then a further question came. Are there not other scriptures also? Did I not tell you the other day, that on the imperial throne of India Christianity now sat with the Gospel of Peace in one hand and the scepter of civilization in the other? The Bible has penetrated into India. The Bible is the book which mankind shall not ignore. Rec¬ ognizing therefore, on the one hand, the great inspiration of the Hindoo scriptures, we could not but on the other hand recognize the inspiration and the authority of the Bible. And in 1861 we published a book in which extradls from all scriptures were given as the book which was to be read in the course of our devotions. It was not the Chris¬ tian missionary that drew our attention to the Bible; it was not the Mohammedan priests who showed us the excellent passages in the Koran; it was no Zoroastrian who preached to us the greatness of his Zend-Avesta; but there was in our hearts the God of infinite reality, the source of inspi¬ ration of all the books, of the Bible, of the Koran, of the Zend-Avesta, who drew our attention to the excellencies as revealed in the record of holy experience everywhere. By his leading and by his light it was that we recognized these fadts, and upon the rock of everlasting and eternal reality our theological basis was laid. “Was it theology without morality? What is the in¬ spiration of this book or the authority of that prophet with- Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 213 out personal holiness—the cleanliness of this God-made temple? Soon after we had got through our theology, the fa6t stared us in the face that we w r ere not good men, pure minded, holy men, and that there were innumerable evils about us, in our houses, in our national usages, in the organization of our society. The Brahmo-Somaj, there¬ fore, next turned its hand to the reformation of society. In 1851 the first intermarriage was celebrated. Intermar¬ riage in India means the marriage of persons belonging to different castes. Caste is a sort of Chinese wall that sur¬ rounds every household and every little community, and bevond the limits of which no audacious man or woman shall stray. In the Brahmo-Somaj we asked, ‘ Shall this Chinese wall disgrace the freedom of God’s children for¬ ever?’ No! Break it down; down with it, and away. “Next, my honored leader and friend, Keshub Chunder Sen, so arranged that marriage between different castes should take place. The Brahmans were offended. Wise¬ acres shook their heads; even leaders of the Brahmo Soma) shrugged up their shoulders and put their hands in their pockets. ‘These young firebrands,’ they said, ‘are going to set fire to the whole of society.’ But intermarriage took place, and widow-marriage took place. “Do you know what the widows of India are? A little girl of ten or twelve years happens to lose her husband be¬ fore she knows his features very well, and from that tender age to her dying day she shall go through penances and austerities and miseries and loneliness and disgrace which you tremble to hear of. I do not approve of or under¬ stand the condudl of a woman who marries a first time and then a second time and then a third time and a fourth time —who marries as many times as there are seasons in the year. I do not understand the conduct of such men and women. But I think that when a little child of eleven loses what men call her husband, to put her to the wretch¬ edness of a lifelong widowhood and inflidl upon her miseries which would disgrace a criminal, is a piece of inhumanity which cannot too soon be done away with. Hence, inter¬ marriages and widow marriages. Our hands were thus laid upon the problem of social and domestic improvement, and the result of that was that very soon a rupture took place 214 The Day of Vengeance . in the Brahmo-Somaj. We young men had to go—we, with all our social reform—and shift for ourselves as we best might. When these social reforms were partially com¬ pleted, there came another question. “We had married the widow; we had prevented the burning of widows; what about our personal purity, the sanctification of our own consciences, the regeneration of our own souls ? What about our acceptance before the awful tribunal of the God of infinite justice? Social reform and the doing of public good is itself only legitimate when it develops into the all-embracing principle of personal purity and the holiness of the soul. “My friends, I am often afraid, I confess, when I con¬ template the condition of European and American society, where your activities are so manifold, your work is so ex¬ tensive that you are drowned in it, and you have little time to consider the great questions of regeneration, of personal sandtification, of trial and judgment and of acceptance before God. That is the question of all questions. “After the end of the work of our social reform, we were therefore led into the great subjeCt, How shall this unregenerate nature be regenerated; this defiled temple, what waters shall wash it into a new and pure condition? All these motives and desires and evil impulses, the animal inspirations, what will put an end to them all, and make man what he was, the immaculate child of God, as Christ was, as all regenerated men were? Theological principle first, moral principle next; and in the third place the spiritual of the Brahmo-Somaj—devotions, repentance, prayer, praise, faith; throwing ourselves entirely and ab¬ solutely upon the spirit of God and upon his saving love. [This heathen philosopher sees to only a partial extent what sin is, as is indicated by his expression, “an im¬ maculate child of God. ... as all regenerated meii were. ” He does not see that even the best of the fallen race are far from being actually spotless, immaculate, perfeCt; hence that they all need the merit of Christ’s perfection and sin- sacrifice to justify them. He speaks of prayers, faith, etc., and the mercy of God, but he has not yet learned that justice Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical . 215 is the foundation underlying all of God’s dealings; and that only through the merit of Christ’s sacrifice can God be just, and yet the justifier of sinners believing in Christ, and thus covered by his great atonement for sin, made eighteen centuries ago—once for all—to be testified to all in due time.] “Moral aspirations do not mean holiness; a desire to be good, does not mean to be good. The bullock that carries on his back hundredweights of sugar does not taste a grain of sweetness because of his unbearable load. And all our aspirations, and all our fine wishes, and all our fine dreams, and fine sermons, either hearing or speaking them -—going to sleep over them or listening to them intently— these will never make life perfedt. Devotion only, prayer, diredt perception of God’s spirit, communion with him, absolute self-abasement before his majesty, devotional fer¬ vor, devotional excitement, spiritual absorption, living ana moving in God—that is the secret of personal holiness. And in the third stage of our career, therefore, spiritual excitement, long devotions, intense fervor, contemplation, endless self-abasement, not merely before God but before man, became the rule of our lives. God is unseen; it does not harm anybody or make him appear less respedt- able if he says to God: ‘ I am a sinner; forgive me.’ But to make your confessions before man, to abase yourselves before your brothers and sisters, to take the dust off the feet of holy men, to feel that you are a miserable, wretched objedt in God’s holy congregation—that requires a little self humiliation, a little moral courage. “The last principle I have to take up is the progressive¬ ness of the Brahmo-Somaj. “Christianity declares the glory of God; Hindooism speaks about his infinite and eternal excellence; Moham¬ medanism, with fire and sword, proves the almightiness of his will; Buddhism says how peaceful and joyful he is. He is the God of all religions, of all denominations, of all lands, of all scriptures, and our progress lay in harmoniz¬ ing these various systems, these various prophecies and de¬ velopments into one great system. Hence the new system of religion in the Brahmo-Somaj is called the New Dispen- 2 10 The Day of Vengeance. sation. The Christian speaks in terms of admiration of Christianity; so does the Hebrew of Judaism; so does the Mohammedan of the Koran; so does the Zoroastrian of the Zend-Avesta. The Christian admires his principles of spiritual culture; the Hindoo does the same; the Moham¬ medan does the same. “But the Brahmo-Somaj accepts and harmonizes all these precepts, systems, principles, teachings and disciplines and makes them into one system, and that is his religion. For a whole decade, my friend, Keshub Chunder Sen, myself and other apostles of the Brahmo-Somaj have traveled from village to village, from province to province, from conti¬ nent to continent, declaring this new dispensation and the harmony of all religious prophecies and systems unto the glory of the one true, living God. But we are a subjedt race; we are uneducated; we are incapable; we have not the resources of money to get men to listen to our message. In the fulness of time you have called this august Parlia¬ ment of religions, and the message that we could not propagate you have taken into your hands to propagate. “I do not come to the sessions of this Parliament as a mere student, nor as one who has to justify his own system. I come as a disciple, as a follower, as a brother. May your labors be blessed with prosperity, and not only shall your Christianity and your America be exalted, but the Brahmo- Somaj will feel most exalted: and this poor man who has come such a long distance to crave your sympathy and your kindness shall feel himself amply rewarded. “ May the spread of the New Dispensation rest with you and make you our brothers and sisters. Representa¬ tives of all religions, may all your religions merge into the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, that Christ’s prophecy may be fulfilled, the world’s hope may be fulfilled, and mankind may become one kingdom with God, our Father.” Here we have a clear statement of the objedt and hopes of these visiting philosophers; and who shall say that they failed to use their opportunities? If we heard much be¬ fore the Parliament of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of unregenerated men,—with no recognized Babylon' s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 217 need of a Savior, a Redeemer, to make reconciliation for iniquity and to open up “a new and living way [of return to God’s family] through the vail, that is to say, his flesh,” —we have heard much more of the same thing since. If we heard before the Parliament of society’s redemption by moral reforms, as in opposition to redemption by the precious blood, we have heard still more of this Christless religion since. It is the final stage of the falling away of these last days of the Gospel age. It will continue and increase: the Scriptures declare that “a thousand shall fall at thy side;” and the Apostle Paul urges, “Take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand in that evil day;” and John the Revelator significantly inquires, “Who shall be able to stand?” The entire tenor of Scripture indicates that it is God’s will that a great test should now come upon all who have named the name of Christ, and that all the great mass of “ tare’’-professors should fall away from all profession of faith in the ra?i- som-sacrifice made once for all by our Lord Jesus;— because they never received this truth in the love of it.— 2 Thes. 2 :10-12. A VOICE FROM JAPAN. When Kinza Ringe M. Harai, the learned Japanese Buddhist, read his paper on “The Real Position of Japan toward Christianity,” the brows of some of the Christian missionaries on the platform contradled and their heads shook in disapproval. But the Buddhist directed his sting¬ ing rebukes at the false Christians who have done so much to impede the work of spreading the gospel in Japan. The paper follows: “ There are very few countries in the world so misun¬ derstood as Japan. Among the innumerable unfair judg¬ ments, the religious thought of my countrymen is especially misrepresented, and the whole nation is condemned as 2 l8 The Day of Vengeance. heathen. Be they heathen,, pagan, or something else, it is a fadt that from the beginning of our history japan has received all teachings with open mind; and also that the instructions which came from outside have commingled with the native religion in entire harmony, as is seen by so many temples built in the name of truth with a mixed ap¬ pellation of Buddhism and Shintoism; as is seen by the affinity among the teachers of Confucianism and Taoism, or other isms, and the Buddhists and Shinto priests; as is seen by the individual Japanese, who pays his respeCts to all teachings mentioned above; as is seen by the peculiar construction of the Japanese houses, which have generally two rooms, one for a miniature Buddhist temple and the other for a small Shinto shrine, before which the family Study* the respective scriptures of the two religions. In reality Synthetic religion is the Japanese specialty, and I will not hesitate to call it Japanism. ‘ ‘ But you will protest and say: ‘ Why, then, is Chris¬ tianity not so warmly accepted by your nation as other re¬ ligions? This is the pointwhichl wish especially to present )efore you. There are two causes why Christianity is not so cordially received. This great religion was widely spread in our country, but in 1637 the Christian missionaries, combined with the converts, caused a tragic and bloody rebellion against the country, and it was understood that those missionaries intended to subjugate Japan to their own mother country. This shocked Japan, and it took the government of the Sho-gun a year to suppress this ter¬ rible and intrusive commotion. To those who accuse us that our mother country prohibited Christianity, not now, but in a past age, I will reply that it was not from religious or racial antipathy, but to prevent such another insurrec¬ tion ; and to protedi our independence we were obliged to prohibit the promulgation of the gospels. “If our history had had no such record of foreign de¬ vastation under the disguise of religion, and if our people had had no hereditary horror and prejudice against the name of Christianity, it might have been eagerly embraced by the whole nation. But this incident has passed, and we may forget it. Yet it is not entirely unreasonable that the terrified suspicion, or you may say superstition, that Chris- Babylon ’ s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 219 tianity is the instrument of depredation, should have been avoidably or unavoidably aroused in the oriental mind, when it is an admitted fa6t that some of the powerful na¬ tions of Christendom are gradually encroaching upon the Orient, and when the following circumstance is daily im¬ pressed upon our mind, reviving a vivid memory of the past historical occurrence. The circumstance of which I am about to speak is the present experience of ourselves, to which I especially call the attention of this Parliament, and not only this Parliament, but also the whole of Chris¬ tendom. “Since 1853, when Commodore Perry came to Japan as the ambassador of the President of the United States of America, our country began to be better known by all western nations, the new ports were widely opened and the prohibition of the gospels was abolished, as it was be¬ fore the Christian rebellion. By the convention at Yeddo, now Tokio, in 1858, the treaty was stipulated between America and Japan and also with the European powers. It was the time when our country was yet under the feudal government; and on account of our having been secluded for over two centuries since the Christian rebellion of 1637, diplomacy was quite a new experience to the feudal officers, who put their full confidence upon western nations, and, without any alteration, accepted every article of the treaty presented from the foreign governments. According to the treaty we are in a very disadvantageous situation; and amongst the others there are two prominent articles, which deprive us of our rights and advantages. One is the ex¬ territoriality of western nations in Japan, by which all cases in regard to right, whether of property or person, arising between the subjedts of the western nations in my country as well as between them and the Japanese are sub¬ jected to the jurisdiction of the authorities of the western nations. Another regards the tariff, which, with the ex¬ ception of 5 per cent, ad valorem, we have no right to impose where it might properly be done. “ It is also stipulated that either of the contracting parties to this treaty, on giving one year’s previous notice to the other, may demand a revision thereof on or after the 1st of July, 1872. Therefore in 1871 our government demanded 220 The Day of Vengeance. a revision, and since then we have been constantly re¬ questing it, but foreign governments have simply ignored our requests, making many excuses. One part of the treaty between the United States of America and Japan concern¬ ing the tariff was annulled, for which we thank with sincere gratitude the kind-hearted American nation; but I am sorry to say that, as no European power has followed in the wake of America in this respedt, our tariff right remains in the same condition as it was before. “ We have no judicial power over the foreigners in Japan, and as a natural consequence we are receiving injuries, legal and moral, the accounts of which are seen constantly in our native newspapers. As the western people live far from us they do not know the exadt circumstances. Proba¬ bly they hear now and then the reports of the missionaries and their friends in Japan. I do not deny that their reports are true; but if any person wants to obtain any unmistak¬ able information in regard to his friend he ought to hear the opinions about him from many sides. If you closely examine with your unbiased mind what injuries we receive, you will be astonished. Among many kinds of wrongs there are some which were utterly unknown before and en¬ tirely new to us ‘heathen/ none of whom would dare to speak of them even in private conversation. “One of the excuses offered by foreign nations is that our country is not yet civilized. Is it the principle of civil¬ ized law that the rights and profits of so-called uncivilized or the weaker should be sacrificed? As I understand it, the spirit and the necessity of law is to protedt the rights and welfare of the weaker against the aggression of the stronger; but I have never learned in my shallow studies of law that the weaker should be sacrificed for the stronger. Another kind of apology comes from the religious source, and the claim is made that the Japanese are idolaters and heathen. Whether our people are idolaters or not you will know at once if you will investigate our religious views without prejudice from authentic Japanese sources. “But admitting, for the sake of the argument, that we are idolaters and heathen, is it Christian morality to trample upon the rights and advantages of a non-christian nation, coloring all their natural happiness with the dark stain of Babylon ’ s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 221 injustice? I read in the Bible, ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also; ’ but I cannot discover there any passage which says, 4 Whoso¬ ever shall demand justice of thee smite his right cheek, and when he turns smite the other also.’ Again, I read in the Bible, ‘ If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also;’ but I cannot dis¬ cover there any passage which says, ‘If thou shalt sue any man at the law, and take away his coat, let him give thee his cloak also.’ “You send your missionaries to Japan, and they advise us to be moral and believe Christianity. We like to be moral, we know that Christianity is good, and we are very thankful for this kindness. But at the same time our peo¬ ple are rather perplexed and very much in doubt about this advice when we think that the treaty stipulated in the time of feudalism, when we were yet in our youth, is still clung to by the powerful nations of Christendom; when we find that every year a good many western vessels engaged in the seal fishery are smuggled into our seas; when legal cases are always decided by the foreign authorities in Japan unfa¬ vorably to us; when some years ago a Japanese was not al¬ lowed to enter a university on the Pacific coast of America because of his being of a different race; when a few months ago the school board of San Francisco enadted a regulation that no Japanese should be allowed to enter the public schools there; when last year the Japanese were driven out in wholesale from one of the territories in the United States of America; when our business men in San Fran¬ cisco were compelled by some union not to employ the Japanese assistants or laborers, but the Americans; when there are some in the same city who speak on the platform against those of us who are already here; when there are many men who go in processions hoisting lanterns marked ‘ Jap must go;’ when the Japanese in the Hawaiian islands are deprived of their suffrage; when we see some western peo¬ ple in Japan who eredt before the entrance to their houses a special post upon which is the notice, ‘ No Japanese is al¬ lowed to enter here,’ just like a board upon which is written, ‘No dogs allowed;’ when we are in such a situation, is it unreasonable—notwithstanding the kindness of the western 222 The Day of Vengeance. nations, from one point of view, who send their mission¬ aries to us—for us intelligent ‘ heathen ’ to be embarrassed and hesitate to swallow the sweet and warm liquid of the heaven of Christianity? If such be the Christian ethics, well, we are perfectly satisfied to be heathen. 4 ‘ If any person should claim that there are many people in Japan who speak and write against Christianity, I am not a hypocrite, and I will frankly state that I was the first in my country who ever publicly attacked Christianity— no, not real Christianity , but false Christianity , the wrongs done toward us by the people of Christendom. If any reprove the Japanese because they have had strong anti- Christian societies, I will honestly declare that I was the first in Japan who ever organized a society against Chris¬ tianity— no , not against real Christianity , but to protect our¬ selves from false Christianity , and the injustice which we receive from the people of Christendom. Do not think that I took such a stand on account of my being a Budd¬ hist, for this was my position many years before I entered the Buddhist Temple. But at the same time I will proudly state that if any one discussed the affinity of all religions before the public, under the title of Synthetic Religion, it was I. I say this to you because I do not wish to be under¬ stood as a bigoted Buddhist sedlarian. “ Really there is no sectarian in my country. Our peo¬ ple well know what abstradl truth is in Christianity, and we, or at least I, do not care about the names if I speak from the point of teaching. Whether Buddhism is called Christianity or Christianity is named Buddhism, whether we are called Confucianists or Shintoists, we are not par¬ ticular; but we are particular about the truth taught and its consistent application. Whether Christ saves us or drives us into hell, whether Gautama Buddha was a real person or there never was such a man, it is not a matter of consideration to us, but the consistency of dodtrine and condudt is the point on which we put the greater importance. Therefore, unless the inconsistency which we observe is re¬ nounced, and especially the unjust treaty by which we are entailed is revised upon an equitable basis, our people will never cast away their prejudices about Christianity, in spite of the eloquent orator who speaks its truth from the pulpit. Babylon ’ s Confusion — Eccle ■» *astical. 223 We are very often called ‘barbarians,’ and I have heard and read that Japanese are stubborn and cannot understand the truth of the Bible. I will admit that this is true in some sense, for, though they admire the eloquence of the orator and wonder at his courage, though they approve his logical argument, yet they are very stubborn and will not join Christianity as long as they think it is a western morality to preach one thing and practice another. . . . “If any religion teaches injustice to humanity, I will oppose it, as I ever have opposed it, with my blood and soul. I will be the bitterest dissenter from Christianity, or I will be the warmest admirer of its gospel. To the Pro¬ moters of the Parliament and the ladies and gentlemen of the world who are assembled here, I pronounce that your aim is the realization of the Religious Union, not nomin¬ ally, but pradlically. We, the forty million souls of Japan, standing firmly and persistently upon the basis of interna¬ tional justice, await still further manifestations as to the morality of Christianity.” What a comment is this upon the causes of Christen¬ dom’s failure to convert the world to truth and righteous¬ ness ! And how it calls for humiliation and repentance, rather than boasting! A voice from the young men of the Orient was sounded by Herant M. Kiretchjian, of Constantinople, as follows: — “ Brethren from the Sunrising of all lands:—I stand here to represent the young men of the Orient, in particular from the land of the pyramids to the icefields of Siberia, and in general from the shores of the ^Egean to the waters of Japan. But on this wonderful platform of the Parlia¬ ment of Religions, where I find myself with the sons of the Orient facing the American public, my first thought is to tell you that you have unwittingly called together a council of your creditors. We have not come to wind up your affairs, but to unwind your hearts. Turn to your books, and see if our claim is not right. We have given you science, philosophy, theology, music and poetry, and have made history for you at tremendous expense. And moreover, out of the light that shone upon our lands from heaven, there have gone forth those who shall forever be 224 The Day of Vengeance. your cloud of witnesses and your inspiration—saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs. And with that rich capital you have amassed a stupendous fortune, so that your assets hide away from your eyes your liabilities. We do not want to share your wealth, but it is right that we should have our dividend, and, as usual, it is a young man who presents the vouchers. You cannot pay this dividend with money. Your gold you want yourselves. Your silver has fallen from grace. We want you to give us a rich dividend in the full sympathy of your hearts. And, like the artisan who, judging by their weight, throws into his crucible nuggets of different shape and color, and, after fire and flux have done their work, pours it out and behold, it flows pure gold, so, hav¬ ing called together the children of men from the ends of the earth, and having them here before you in the crucible of earnest thought and honest search after truth, you find, when this Parliament is over, that out of prejudice of race and dogma, and out of the variety of custom and worship, there flows out before your eyes nothing but the pure gold of humanity; and henceforth you think of us, not as strangers in foreign lands, but as your brothers, in China, Japan and India, your sisters in the Isles of Greece and the hills and valleys of Armenia, and you shall have paid us such a dividend out of your hearts, and received yourselves withal such a blessing, that this will be a Beulah land of prophecy for future times, and send forth the echo of that sweet song that once was heard in our land of “ Peace on earth and good will toward men.’ “ There has been so much spoken to you here, by men of wisdom and experience of the religious life of the great east, that you would not expedt me to add anything thereto. Nor would I have stood here presuming to give you any more information about the religions of the world. But there is a new race of men that have risen up out of all the great past whose influence will undoubtedly be a most im¬ portant fadtor in the work of humanity in the coming cen¬ tury. They are the result of all the past, coming in con- tadl with the new life of the present—I mean the young men of the Orient; they who are preparing to take poses- sion of the earth with their brothers of the great west. Babylon 1 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 225 “I bring you a philosophy from the shores of the Bos¬ phorus and a religion from the city of Constantine. All my firm convidtions and deductions that have grown up within me for years past have, under the influence of this Parliament, been shaken to their roots. But I find to-day those roots yet deeper in my heart, and the branches reach¬ ing higher into the skies. I cannot presume to bring you anything new, but if all the dedudtions appear to you to be logical from premises which human intelligence can ac¬ cept, then I feel confident that you will give us credit for honest purpose and allow us the right as intelligent beings to hold fast to that which I present before you. “When the young men of to-day were children, they heard and saw every day of their lives nothing but enmity and separation between men of different religions and nationalities. I need not stop to tell you of the influence of such a life upon the lives of young men, who found them¬ selves separated and in camps pitched for battle against their brother men with whom they had to come in contadt in the daily avocations of life. And as the light of edu¬ cation and ideas of liberty began to spread over the whole Orient with the latter part of this century, this yoke be¬ came more galling upon the necks of the young men of the Orient, and the burden too heavy to bear. “Young men of all the nationalities I have mentioned, who for the past thirty years have received their education in the universities of Paris, Heidelberg, Berlin and other cities of Europe, as well as the Imperial Lyceum of Con¬ stantinople, have been consciously or unconsciously, pas¬ sively or aggressively, weaving the fabric of their religion, so that to the thousand young men, for whom their voice is an oracle, it has come like a boon, and enlisted their heart and mind. “They find their brothers in large numbers in all the cities of tne Orient where European civilization has found the least entrance, and there is scarcely any city that will not have felt their influence before the end of the century. Their religion is the newest of all religions, and I should not have brought it upon this platform were it not for the fadt that it is one of'the most potent influences adting in the Orient and with which we religious young men of the east 2 2 0 The Day of Vengeance. have to cope efficiently, if we are to have the least influence with the peoples of our respective lands. “For, remember, there are men of intelligence, men of excellent parts, men who, with all the young men of the Orient, have proved that in all arts and sciences, in the marts of the civilized world, in the armies of the nations and at the right hand of kings they are the equal of any race of men, from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof. They are men, moreover, for the most part, of the best intentions and most sincere convictions, and, when you hear their opinion of religion and think of the posi¬ tion they hold, you cannot, I am sure, as members of the Religious Parliament, feel anything but the greatest con¬ cern for them and the lands in which they dwell. “I represent, personally, the religious young men of the Orient; but let me, by proxy, for the young men of the newest religion, speak before you to the apostles of all re¬ ligions: ‘ You come to us in the name of religion to bring us what we already have. We believe that man is sufficient unto himself, if, as you say, a perfect God has created him. If you will let him alone, he will be all that he should be. Educate him, train him, don’t bind him hand and foot, and he will be a perfect man, worthy to be the brother of any other man. Nature has sufficiently endowed man, and you should use all that is given you in your intelligence before you trouble God to give you more. Moreover, no one has found God. We have all the inspiration we want in sweet poetry and enchanting music, and in the compan¬ ionship of refined and cultured men and women. If we are to listen to it, we would like Handel to tell us of the Messiah, and if the heavens resound, it is enough to have Beethoven’s interpretation. “ GVe have nothing against you Christians, but as to all religions, we must say that you have done the greatest pos¬ sible harm to humanity by raising men against men and nation against nation. And now, to make a bad thing worse, in this day of superlative common sense you come to fill the minds of men with impossible things and burden their brains with endless discussions of a thousand sects. For there are many I have heard before you, and I know how many could follow. We consider you the ones of all Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 227 men to be avoided, for your philosophy and your dodtrines are breeding pessimism over the land.’ “Then, with a religious instindt and innate respedt that all orientals have, I have to say suddenly; ‘But, see here, we are not infidels or atheists or skeptics. We simply have no time for such things. We are full of the inspiration for the highest life, and desire freedom for all young men of the world. We have a religion that unites all men of all lands, and fills the earth with gladness. It supplies every human need, and, therefore, we know that it is the true religion, especially because it produces peace and the greatest har¬ mony. So, we do not want any of your ‘isms’ nor any other system or dodtrine. We are not materialists, socialists, rationalists or pessimists, and we are not idealists. Our re¬ ligion is the first that was, and it is also the newest of the new—we are gentlemen. In the name of peace and human¬ ity, can you not let us alone? If you invite us again in the name of religion, we shall have a previous engagement, and if you call again to preach, we are not at home.’ “This is the Oriental young man, like the green bay tree. And where one passes away, so that you do not find him in his place, there are twenty to fill the gap. Believe me, I have not exaggerated; for word for word, and ten times more than this, I have heard from intelligent men of the army and navy, men in commerce and men of the bars of justice in conversation and deep argument, in the streets of Constantinople, in the boats of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, in Roumania and Bulgaria, as well as in Paris and New York and the Auditorium of Chicago, from Turk and Armenian, from Greek and Hebrew, as well as Bulgarian and Servian, and I can tell you that this newest substitute for religion, keeping the gates of commerce and literature, science and law, through Europe and the Orient, is a most potent force in shaping the destinies of the na¬ tions of the east, and has to be accounted for intelligently in thinking of the future of religion, and has to be met with an argument as powerful in the eyes of the young men of the Orient, as that which science and literature have put in the hands of the great army of the new gentle¬ men class. “There is another class of young men in the Orient, who 228 The Day of Vengeance. call themselves the religious young men, and who hold to the ancient faith of their fathers. Allow me to claim for these young men, also, honesty of purpose, intelligence of mind, as well as a firm persuasion. For them also I come to speak to you, and in speaking for them I speak also for myself. You will naturally see that we have to be from earliest days in contadl with the New Religion;—so let me call it for convenience. We have to be in colleges and universities with those same young men. We have to go hand in hand with them in all science and history, litera¬ ture, music and poetry, and naturally with them we share in the firm belief in all scientific dedudlion and hold fast to every principle of human liberty. “First, all the young men of the Orient who have the deepest religious convidtions stand for the dignity of man. I regret that I should have to commence here; but, out of the combined voices and arguments of philosophies and theologies, there comes before us such an -unavoidable in¬ ference of an imperfedl humanity that we have to come out before we can speak on any religion for ourselves and say: ‘We believe that we are men.’ For us it is a libel on hu¬ manity, and an impeachment of the God who created man, to say that man is not sufficient within himself, and that he needs religion to come and make him perfedt. [Note how the natural man accuses and excuses himself in the same breath. Imperfedtion cannot be denied; but power to make ourselves perfedt in time is claimed, and thus the necessity for the “precious blood” of the “sin- offering,” which God has provided, is ignored by the heathen as it is now being denied by the worldly-wise of Christendom.] “It is libeling humanity to look upon this or that family of man and to say that they show conceptions of good¬ ness and truth and high ideals and a life above simple ani¬ mal desires, because they have had religious teaching by this or that man, or a revelation from heaven. We believe that if man is man he has it all in himself, just as he has all his bodily capacities. Will you tell me that a cauliflower that I plant in the fields grows up in beauty and perfedtion Babylon's Confusion—Ecclesiastical 229 of its convolutions, and that my brain, which the same God has created a hundred thousand times more delicate and perfedt, cannot develop its convolutions and do the work that God intended I should do and have the highest conceptions that he intended I should have; that a help¬ less pollywog will develop, and become a frog with perfect, clastic limbs and a heaving chest, and that frogs will keep together in contentment and croak in unity, and that men need religion and help from outside in order that they may develop into the perfection of men in body and soul and recognize the brotherhood of man and live upon God’s earth in peace? I say it is an impeachment of God, who created man, to promulgate and acquiesce in any such dodlrine. “Nor do we accept the unwarranted conclusions of sci¬ ence. We have nothing to do with the monkeys. If they want to speak to us, they will have to come up tons. There is a western spirit of creating difficulties which we cannot understand. One of my first experiences in the United States was taking part in a meeting of young ladies and gentlemen in the City of Philadelphia. The subjedl of the evening was whether animals had souls, and the cat came out prominently. Very serious and erudite papers were read. But the conclusion was that, not knowing just what a cat is and what a soul is, they could not decide the matter, but it still was a serious matter bearing upon re¬ ligion. Now suppose an Armenian girl should ask her mother if cats had souls. She would settle the question in parenthesis and say, for example: ‘My sweet one, you must go down and see if the water is boiling (What put the question into your head? Of course cats have souls. Cats have cats’ souls and men have men’s souls.). Now go down.’ And the child would go down rejoicing in her humanity. And if my Armenian lady should one day be confronted with the missing link of which we hear so much, still her equanimity would remain unperturbed and she would still glory in humanity by informing you that the missing link had the soul of a missing link and man had the soul of a man. “So far we come with young men of the gentlemen class, hand in hand upon the common plane of humanity. But 230 The Day of Vengeance. here is a corner where we part, and take widely diverging paths. We cry, ‘Let us alone, and we will expand and rise up to the height of our destiny;’ and, behold, we find an invisible power that will not let us alone. We find that we can do almost everything in the ways of science and art. But when it comes to following our conception of that which is high and noble, that which is right and nec¬ essary for our development, we are wanting in strength and power to advance toward it. I put this in the simplest form, for I cannot enlarge upon it here. But the fabt for us is as real as the dignity of man, that there is a power which diverts men and women from the path of redlitude and honor, in which they know they should walk. You can¬ not say it is inherent in man, for we feel it does not belong to us. And if it did not belong to us, and it was the right conception of man to go down into degradation and misery, rapacity, and the desire of crushing down his fellow man, we would say, ‘ Let him alone, and let him do that which God meant that he should do.’ “So, briefly, I say to any one here who is preparing to boil down his creed, put this in it before it reaches the boil¬ ing point: ‘ And I believe in the devil, the arch-enemy of God, the accuser of God to man.’ One devil for the whole universe? We care not. A legion of demons besieging each soul? It matters not to us. We know this, that there is a power outside of man which draws him aside mightily. And no power on earth can resist it. “And so, here comes our religion. If you have a re¬ ligion to bring to the young men of the Orient, it must come with a power that will balance, yea, counterbalance the power of evil in the world. Then will man be free to grow up and be that which God intended he should be. We want God. We want the spirit of God. And the religion that comes to us, in any name or form, must bring that, or else, for us, it is no religion. And we believe in God, not the God of protoplasms, that hides between molecules of matter, but God whose children we are. “So we place as the third item of our philosophy and pro¬ test the dignity of God. Is chivalry dead? Has all concep¬ tion of a high and noble life, of sterling integrity, departed from the hearts of men, that we cannot aspire to knight- Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 231 nood and princeship in the courts of our God ? We know we are his children, for we aie doing his works and think¬ ing his thoughts. What we want to do is to be like him. Oh, is it true that I can cross land and sea and reach the heart of my mother, and feel her arms clasping me, but that I, a child of God, standing helpless in the universe, against a power that I cannot overcome, cannot lift up my hands to him, and cry to him, that I may have his spirit in my soul and feel his everlasting arms supporting me in my weakness ? “And here comes the preacher from ancient days, and the modern church, and tells us of one who did overcome the world, and that he came down from above. We need not to be told that he came from above, for no man born of woman did any such thing. But we are persuaded tna'i by the means of grace and the path which he shows us to walk in, the spirit of God does come into the hearts of men, and that I can feel it in my heart fighting with me against sin and strengthening my heart to hold resolutely to that which I know to be right by the divine in me. “And so with a trembling hand but firm convidtion, with much sadness with humanity but joy of eternal tri¬ umph, I come with you all to the golden gates of the twentieth century, where the elders of the coming commonwealth of humanity are sitting to pass judgment upon the religion that shall enter those gates to the support of the human heart. I place there by the side of ancient Oriental Confucian¬ ism and modern Theosophy, ancient Oriental Buddhism and modern Spiritualism, and every faith of ancient days and modern materialism, rationalism and idealism—there I place ancient Oriental Christianity with its Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God; and its cross, still radiant in the love of God, “‘Towering o’er the wrecks of time.’” This speaker, although not a delegated representative of the Armenian Catholic Church, evidently presents matters from the standpoint of the Armenian Christians, whom the Turks have lately persecuted in a most barbarous manner. His address makes many excellent points; but it must not 2 32 The Day of Vengeance . be thought that he is a fair sample of the young men of the Orient; he is a long way in advance of those for whom he spoke. Neither does his address afford a true view of Armenian Catholicism, with its prayers for the dead; its worship of pictures and of saints and of the Virgin Mary; its confessionals; and its blasphemous dodlrine of the Mass;*—all closely resembling the devices of Antichrist. Those who sacrifice the “abomination ” of the Mass there¬ by show that they have little knowledge and appreciation of the real cross and its one sacrifice, “once for all.” The “'Oriental Christianity” to which this young man points us is not the one which we respedt, nor after which we> would pattern: we go back to the Christianity declared and illustrated by Christ, our Lord and Redeemer, and by his apostles, and as set forth in the Scriptures:—not Oriental, nor Occidental, nor Catholic (/. the image be effaced from memory. “I think we should agree that there is no hope for man in the non-Christian world. It has nothing to give us, not a ray, not a crumb. It hangs as a ponderous weight about the neck of the race, sinking it deeper and deeper ini# night, death. Its very breath is contagious. Its touch is death. Its presence appals us as some gigantic spedler from the realm of night, towering and swaying through the centuries and darkening all ages. “I raise no question about whether these countless mill¬ ions can be saved in the world to come. I do not affirm 25 ° The Day of Vengeance. that giving them the gospel will improve their prospers or at all increase their chance in that direction. Possibly as many of them will be saved without the gospel as with it. That question does not come into the problem which I am discussing—the outlook of the world—by which I mean the outlook for time, not for eternity. If the awful thought could once take possession of my mind that the whole world must, of necessity, be lost forever, simply because they are heathen, I would not send them a Gospel which reveals such a God. That grim thought alone would shut out all hope for the world, and make eternity itself a dungeon, no difference who might be saved. For how could any rational creature enjoy even a heaven with a God whose govern¬ ment could permit such a stain of shame and dishonor, of cruelty and injustice? Convince men that there is a God at the head of the universe, who, without fault of theirs, or any chance of escape, will damn the dead, the living, and the yet-to-live millions of heathenism, and at the same time turn earth into a gigantic terror, where ghastly hor¬ rors will admit of no relief, and you make it forever im¬ possible that he should be worshiped by any but devils, and by them only because he becomes their chief.” The Bishop also mentions the fadt that, while the popu- , lation of the world is estimated at 1,450,000,000, nearly 1,100,000,000 are non-Christian; and that many (yes, nearly all) of the nominally Christian are either heathen or anti-Christian. Then in vi*ew of the church’s failure to convert the world in eighteen hundred years, and of the hopelessness of the task, he attempts to relieve the church of the responsibility she has assumed by suggesting that these heathen millions must be saved without faith in Christ And by way of relieving God from the responsibility 0/ the present distress among men, he says, “God is doing the best he can with the power he has got.” The Church Times a few months ago published an article by a Maori, of which the following extradfs are very sug¬ gestive of the cause of the church’s failure to enlighten the world to any considerable degree. The letter originally ap- Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 251 peared in a New Zealand newspaper, and runs as follows:— “You published a few days ago the account of what took place at a meeting of Maoris, convened by the Bishop of Christ church. I was present at the meeting, and wish you to give me an opportunity of answering one of the questions put to us by the Bishop, namely: * Why is the fire of Christian faith so low among the Maori people in my diocese?’ I will tell you what I believe is the reason. We Maoris are confused and bewildered in our minds by the extraordinary way in which you Europeans treat your re¬ ligion. Nobody amongst you seems to be sure whether it means anything or nothing. At the bidding of the early missionaries we substituted what they told us was a true religion for that of our forefathers, which they called false. We accepted the Book containing the history and precepts of the ‘True Religion’ as being really the Word of God binding upon us, his creatures. We offered daily, morning and evening, worship to the Creator in every pah and vil¬ lage throughout New Zealand. We kept the seventh day holy, abstaining from every kind of work out of respedt to the divine command, and for the same reason abolished slavery and polygamy, though by doing so we completely disorganized our social system and reduced our gentry to poverty and inflidted much pain on those who were forced to sever .some of the tenderest ties of human relationship, just when we were beginning to train up our children to know and to obey God as manifested in Jesus Christ, Europeans came in great numbers to this country. They visited our villages and appeared very friendly, but we noticed that they did not pay the same respedt to the Bible as we novices did. The Roman Catholics told us they alone knew the corredt interpretation, and that unless we joined them our souls would be lost. The Baptists fol¬ lowed, who ridiculed our presenting our children to Christ in baptism, and told us that as we had not been immersed we were not baptized Christians at all. Then came the Presbyterians, who said the office of a Bishop was un- scriptural, and that in submitting to be confirmed by Bishop Selwyn we had gone through a meaningless ceremony. Lastly came the Plymouth Brethren, who told us that Christ never instituted a visible church or ministry at all, but that 252 The Day of Vengeance. everybody ought to be his own minister and make his own creed. “ Besides the confusion in our minds caused by the god¬ less example of the majority of Europeans^ and the con- tradidtory teaching given by ministers of religion, we were puzzled by the behavior of the government, which, while professing to be bound by the moral law contained in the Bible, did not hesitate, when we became powerless, to break solemn promises made to us when we were more numerous and strong than the Europeans. Great w r as our surprise when the Parliament, composed not of ignorant, low-born men, but of European gentlemen, and professing Christians, put the Bible out of the schools, and, while diredting the teachers to diligently instrudt the children of New Zealand in all kinds of knowledge, told them on no account to teach them anything about the Christian religion, anything about God and his laws. My heathen master taught me to fear and reverence the Unseen Powers, and my parents taught me to order every adtion of my life in obedience to the Atuas, who would punish me if I offended them. But my children are not taught now in the schools of this Christian country to reverence any being above a police¬ man, or to fear any judge of their adtions above a Resident Magistrate. “ I think, when the Bishop of Christ church asked us the other day the question I have already referred to, we might fairly have asked him to tell us first why the fire of faith burns so low among his own people. We might have quoted apt words from that Book which English people want every¬ one but themselves to take for their rule of life, and rever¬ ence as the Word of the living God: ‘Physician, heal thyself. ’ “ Can ignorant Maoris be blamed for lukewarmness in the service of God, whose existence one of his ordained ministers tells them no man in Christendom can prove? I sometimes think, sir, that my children would have had a better chance of developing into honorable men and women, and would have had a better prospedt of happiness when the time comes for them to enter the unseen world and meet their Maker, if, like the first Maori king (Potatu), I had refused to make an open profession of your religion Babylon ’ s Confusion—Ecclesiastical. r rr* *> ~ J sj till, as he said: ‘You had settled among yourselves what religion really is. ’ Better, I think, the real belief in the unseen spiritual world which sustained my forefathers than the make-believe which the European people have asked us to substitute for it. Yours, etc., “Tangata Maori.” The following extradt from an article in the North Amer¬ ican Review by Wong Chin Foo, an educated China¬ man, a graduate of one of our New England colleges, gives similarly suggestive reasons for preferring the religion of his fathers to Christianity. Wong Chin Foo said:— “Born and raised a heathen, I learned and practiced its moral and religious code; and adling thereupon I was use¬ ful to myself and many others. My conscience was clear, and my hopes as to future life were undimmed by distradt- ing doubt. But, when about seventeen, I was transferred to the midst of your showy Christian civilization, and at this impressible period of life Christianity presented itself to me at first under its most alluring aspedts; kind Chris¬ tian friends became particularly solicitous for my material and religious welfare, and I was only too willing to know the truth. Then I was persuaded to devote my life to the cause of Christian missions. But before entering this high mission, the Christian dodtrine I would teach had to be learned, and here on the threshold I was bewildered by the multiplicity of Christian sedls, each one claiming a mon¬ opoly of the only and narrow road to heaven. “I looked into Presbyterianism only to retreat shudder - ingly from a belief in a merciless God who had long fore¬ ordained most of the helpless human race to an eternal hell. To preach such a dodtrine to intelligent heathen would only raise in their minds doubts of my sanity, if they did not believe I was lying. Then I dipped into Baptist doc¬ trines, but found so many sedts therein of different ‘shells,* warring over the merits of cold-water initiation and the method and time of using it, that I became disgusted with such trivialities; and the question of close communion or not only impressed me that some were very stingy and ex¬ clusive with their bit of bread and wine, and others a little less so. Methodism struck me as a thunder-and-lightning 254 The Day of Vengeance. religion—all profession and noise. You struck it, or it struck you, like a spasm,—and so you 4 experienced ’ relig¬ ion. The Congregationalists deterred me with their starchi¬ ness and self-conscious true-goodness, and their desire for only high-toned affiliates. Unitarianism seemed all doubt, doubting even itself. A number of other Protestant seels based on some novelty or eccentricity—like Quakerism— I found not worth a serious study by the non-Christian. But on one point this mass of Protestant dissension cordi¬ ally agreed, and that was in a united hatred of Catholicism, the older form of Christianity. And Catholicism returned with interest this animosity. It haughtily declared itself the only true church, outside of which there was no salva¬ tion—for Protestants especially; that its chief prelate was the personal representative of God on earth; and that he was infallible. Here was religious unity, power and authority with a vengeance. But, in chorus, my solicitous Protest¬ ant friends besought me not to touch Catholicism, declar¬ ing it was worse than heathenism—in which I agreed; but the same line of argument also convinced me that Protest¬ antism stood in the same category. In fabt, the more I studied Christianity in its various phases, and listened to the animadversions of one se< 5 t upon another, the more it seemed to me 4 sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.’ 4 4 Callus heathen if you will, the Chinese are still superior in social administration and social order. Among four hundred millions of Chinese there are fewer murders and robberies in a year than there are in New York State. True, China supports a luxurious monarch whose every whim must be gratified; yet. withal, its people are the most lightly taxed in the world, having nothing to pay but from tilled soil, rice and salt; and yet she has not a single dollar of national debt. . . . 44 Christians are continually fussing about religion; they build great churches and make long prayers, and yet there is more wickedness in the neighborhood of a single church distridl of one thousand people in New York, than among one million heathen, churchless and unsermonized. Chris¬ tian talk is long and loud about how to be good and to a6l charitably. It is all charity and no fraternity—• 4 There, dog, take your crust and be thankful! ’ And is it* Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 255 therefore, any wonder that there is more heart-breaking and suicides in the single state of New York in a year than in all China? “The difference between the heathen and the Christian is that the heathen does good for the sake of doing good. With the Christian, what little good he does he does it for immediate honor and for future reward; he lends to the Lord and wants compound interest. In fa6t, the Christian is the worthy heir of his religious ancestors. The heathen does much and says little about it, the Christian does little good, but when he does he wants it in the papers and on his tombstone. Love men for the good they do you is a pradlical Christian idea, not for the good you should do them as a matter of human duty. So Christians love the heathen; yes, the heathen’s possessions; and in proportion to these the Christian’s love grows in intensity. When the English wanted the Chinaman’s gold and trade, they said they wanted ‘to open China for their mission¬ aries.’ And opium was the chief, in fa< 5 t the only, mis¬ sionary they looked after when they forced the ports open. And this infamous Christian introduction among China¬ men has done more injury, social and moral, in China, than all the humanitarian agencies of Christianity could remedy in two hundred years. And on you, Christians, and on your greed of gold, we lay the burden of the cri?ne resulting; of tens of millions of honest, useful men and women sent thereby to premature death after a short, miserable life, besides the physical and moral prostration it entails even where it does not prematurely kill! And this great national curse was thrust on us at the point of Christian bayonets. And you wonder why we are heathen? The only positive point Christians have impressed on heathenism is that they would sacrifice religion, honor, principle, as they do life, for—gold. And they sandlimoniously tell the poor heathen: ‘You must save your soul by believing as we do ! ... “ ‘Do unto others as you wish they would do unto you,’ or ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ is the great divine law which Christians and heathen alike hold, but which the Christians ignore. This is what keeps me the heathen I am! And I earnestly invite the Christians of America to Confucius.’* 2$6 The Day of Vengeance. The following similar instance was reported by the press, of a woman from India,—Pundita Ramabai,—who visited Boston a few years ago and was preparing to return to India to engage in teaching the high caste women of India. She did not find it easy to tell to what denomination of Chris¬ tians she belonged. A reporter asked the question, and she answered:— “I belong to the universal church of Christ. I meet good Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and each one tells me something about the Bible. So it. seems to me better to go there myself and find the best I can. [A wise decision.] And there I find Christ the Savior of the world, and to him I give my heart. I was baptized when in England, and I commune with all Chris¬ tian people who allow me to do so. I do not profess to be of any particular denomination, for I would go back to India simply as a Christian. To my mind it appears that the New Testam ent, and especially the words of our Savior, are a sufficiently elaborate creed. I believe as the Savior has told us, and his message through John has come to us, that God is a spirit, is light and love; that he created, il¬ luminates and pervades the universe; that Jesus, his Son and Servant, the apostle of our faith, was sent by him to be the savior and leader of his children; that as many as believe on him have the right to be the sons of God; and that the holy spirit is our guide and comforter, the great gift of God through Christ; that there is but one Church, and that all who acknowledge Jesus as their Savior are members of that Church. I believe that whatever is needed for my salvation will be given me, and I pray earnestly that God may grant me grace to be a seeker and follower of truth and a doer of his will. In Boston they said I was a Unitarian; I told them I was not. Neither am I a Trini¬ tarian. I do not understand these modern inventions at all. I am simply a Christian, and the New Testament teaches me my religion.” The Japanese converts to Christianity manifested a sim¬ ilar spirit, their noble course being both a severe rebuke to the nominal churches and their creeds and a beautiful Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 257 commentary on the power of the Word of God. Of their opinions of the creeds of Christendom, and of their de¬ termination to stand by the Bible alone, we have the fol¬ lowing published account: — “When the Japanese Empire was thrown open to American commerce, the American churches were zealous to proselyte that country to their several confessions of faith. The missionaries sent out found that their division would be an effectual barrier to success, and agreed to conceal their dif- fe rences and work together for souls alone, simply present¬ ing one God, and Christ crucified for sinners, until they should obtain a foothold. The dissimulation succeeded so well that in 1873, * n respe< 5 h to the clamor for sectarian har¬ vests on the part of home Boards, it was agreed that the converts were sufficiently numerous to warrant a division of the spoil. “But when the deceit was carefully exposed to the con¬ verts from heathenism, an unexpected difficulty arose. These Japanese Christians assembled and drew up a peti¬ tion, setting forth the joy and peace and righteousness they had found in Christ Jesus, and objecting to being divided, contrary to the Word and spirit of God, and urging the missionaries, since they had confessed such a deplorable state of things in their own country, to return to America and leave the further evangelization of Japan to them. “Copies of this petition were forwarded to the various Boards by which the missionaries were supported and con¬ trolled, and agents were sent out to investigate and report. One of these agents, whose letter was published in The Inde- pendent (N. Y.), says that to these minds, just brought from the darkness of heathenism, ‘the simple joys of salvation overshadow all other considerations/ and ‘it will be many years before they can be indoctrinated into the nice dis¬ tinctions which divide Christendom.’ Nevertheless, these whose ‘other considerations’ overshadowed the ‘joys of salvation ’ and shut out the love of God, persevered in the work of dividing. The spirit of God, as it always does, prompted these honest souls to meet in the name of Jesus only. The most difficult thing in the work of the sec¬ tarian missionary is to ‘indoctrinate the convert into the 17 n 258 The Day of Vengeance nice distinctions which divide Christendom.” Very few of the adherents of any se< 5 t in America are so indoctrin¬ ated. They are prejudiced and overcome by other con¬ siderations than real convictions. A very small per cent, have anything like intelligent consciences about profes¬ sions of faith and the distinctions by which they are separ¬ ated from other seCts.” Such are the sentiments of intelligent heathen, bewildered and confused by the misrepresentations of the divine char¬ acter and doCtrines. But we rejoice to know that, not¬ withstanding the conflict of creeds and the unchristian conduCt of multitudes of professed Christians, and of the so-called Christian nations, all Christian missionary effort among the heathen peoples has not been in vain, but that here and there the seeds of divine truth have dropped into good and honest hearts and brought forth the fruits of right¬ eousness and true Christian character. Such fruits, how¬ ever, cannot be credited to the creeds, but to the Word and spirit of God, despite the confusion of human creeds. The Lord refers to the Old and New Testament Scriptures as 4 ‘ My two witnesses” (Rev. 11:3), and faithfully they have borne their testimony to every nation. As to whether the heathen religionists will have any dis¬ position to affiliate with nominal Christianity, we have no affirmative indications. On the contrary, their represent¬ atives at the World’s Parliament of Religions were impressed chiefly with the inferiority of the Christian religion to their estimate of their own; but the “sure word of prophecy” indicates very clearly that the various Protestant seCts will form a cooperative union or federacy, and that Catholicism and Protestantism will affiliate, neither losing its identity. These are the two ends of the ecclesiastical heavens which, as their confusion increases, shall roll together as a scroll (Isa. 34:4; Rev. 6:14) for self-proteCfion,—as distinCl and separate rolls, yet in close proximity to each other. Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 259 For this desired end Protestants show themselves ready to make almost any compromise, while Papacy has assumed a most conciliatory attitude. Every intelligent observer is aware of these fadts; and every reader of history knows the baneful charadfer of that great antichristian system that now sees, in the great confusion of Protestantism, its op¬ portunity for readvancing to power. And, though realizing in itself a strength superior to that of divided Protestant¬ ism, the great Papal system also fears the approaching crisis, and hence desires most anxiously the union of Chris¬ tendom, Papal and Protestant, civil and religious. The following extradl from a paper by the noted “Paulist father,’’ Walter Elliot, of New York city, read at the Columbian Catholic Congress of 1893, shows the purpose of the church of Rome to take advantage of the present confusion of Protestantism. He said:— ‘ 1 The collapse of dogmatic..Protestantism is our opportun¬ ity. Denominations, and ‘creeds,’ and ‘schools,’ and ‘ confessions ’ are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built them, and little men can demolish them. This new nation cannot but regard with disdain institutions [Protestant] hardly double its own short life, and yet ut¬ terly decrepit; cannot but regard with awe an institution [the Roman Catholic Church] in whose life the great re¬ public could have gone through its career nearly a score of times. I tell you that the vigor of national youth must be amazed at the freshness of perennial [Roman Catholic] religion, and must soon salute it as divine. The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people’s minds, or are being thrust out.” The Pope, in a recent encyclical, offered Roman Catholics a premium to have them pray for the conversion of Protest¬ ants to the church of Rome, the premium being release for a time from the pains of purgatory. From his address to Protestants, which formed a portion of the encyclical, we quote the following words:— 26 o The Day of Vengeance . “ It is with burning charity that we now turn towards those people, who in a more recent age under the influence of exceptional convulsions, temporal and material, left the bosom of the Roman church. Forgetful of past vicissitudes, let them raise their spirits above human things, and, thirst¬ ing only for truth and salvation, consider the church founded by Jesus Christ. If they will then compare their own churches with this church and see to what a pass religion has come with them, they will admit readily that, having forgotten the primitive traditions in several important points, the ebb and flow of variety has made them slip into new things. And they will not deny that of the truths which the authors of this new state of things had taken with them when they seceded hardly any certain and authoritative formula remains. . . . “We know full well how many long and painful labors are necessary to bring about the order of things which we would see restored, and some may think perhaps that we are too hopeful, pursuing an ideal rather to be desired than expedted. But we place all our hope and trust in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, remembering the great things which were accomplished once by the so-called mad¬ ness of the cross and of its preaching to the wise world, which looked on stupefied and confounded. Especially do we implore princes and rulers, in the name of their political foresight and solicitude for the interests of their peoples, to weigh our designs equitably, and second them by their favor and authority. Were only a part of the fruits that we expedl to ripen, the benefit would not be small amid the present rapid downfall of all things, and when to the pre¬ vailing unrest is joined fear of the future. “The last century left Europe wearied by disasters and still trembling from the. convulsions by which she had been shaken. Might not the century which now wears to its end hand down as a heritage to the human race some few pledges of concord and the hope of the great benefits held out by the unity of Christian faith?” That the trend of Protestantism is Romeward cannot be denied. That was the real significance of the prominent part given to Roman Catholics in the great Religious Par- Babylon 1 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical . 2b i liament; and it is the expressed anxiety of all interested in the Protestant Union movement to secure alliance, if not union, with the Church of Rome. One of the items in the Presbyterian creed now considered obnoxious, and which it is proposed shall be changed, is that referring to the Papacy as Antichrist. The following letter of a Methodist clergyman not long since addressed to Cardinal Gibbons, strongly indicates this tendency amongst Protestants: — Taunton , Mass. “Dear Cardinal:—You are, without doubt, familiar with and interested in the fadl that there is a movement among the Protestant churches toward reunion. If such a reunion is to take place, why may it not include the Roman Cath¬ olic church? Has not the Roman church some foundation to propose upon which we may all stand? Cannot she meet us with concessions which may be temporary, if she believes us wrong, until we learn of Christ and his plans more perfedtly? “ Of one thing I feel sure, that personally I have a grow¬ ing tendency to look more and more carefully for the good in all branches of the Christian church, and I apprehend that I am not alone in this. Sincerely yours, Geo. W. King , Pastor First M. E. Church . ’ ’ To this the Cardinal replied as follows:— Cardinal 1 s Residence , Baltimore. “Rev. Geo. W. King, Dear Sir:—In reply to your favor I beg to say that your aspirations for the reunion of Chris¬ tendom are worthy of all praise. “This reunion would be only fragmentary if the Cath¬ olic Church were excluded. It would also be impossible; for there can be no union possible without a solid Scriptural basis, and that is found in the recognition of Peter and his successor as the visible head of the church. “There can be no stable government without a head, either in civil, military or ecclesiastical life. Every State must have its governor, and every town must have its mayor or municipal chief with some title. If the churches of the world look for a head, where will they find one with the 262 The Day of Vengeance. standard of authority or prescription except the Bishop of Rome?—not in Canterbury or Constantinople. “As for the terms of reunion, they would be easier than is commonly imagined. The Catholic church holds to all the positive dodtrines of all the Protestant churches, and the acknowledgment of the Pope’s judicial supremacy would make the way easy for accepting her other dodtrines. You are nearer to us than you imagine. Many dodtrines are ascribed to the church which she repudiates. Faithfully yours in Christ, J. Card. Gibbons .” To this the following was sent in reply, and by consent of both gentlemen the letters were made public in the in¬ terest of the union desired. “Dear Cardinal:—Your reply has been read with much interest. May I not now inquire if it would not be a wise and valuable thing for the Catholic church to set forth to the Protestant churches a possible basis of union (describ¬ ing the matter in sufficient detail) somewhat after the order of the Chicago-Lambeth propositions of the Episcopal church? I know how much the Methodist church, and in¬ deed the entire Christian church, is misunderstood by many, and I conceive it more than possible, inevitably, that the Catholic church should likewise be misunderstood and mis¬ judged in many things. Cannot the Catholic church corredt this misunderstanding on the part of Protestants to a large degree at least, and would not this hasten the desired reunion? “I believe the present divided condition of Christen¬ dom to be full of folly, shame and disgrace, and have no objedtion to a central authority under certain conditions of limitation or restraint. Sincerely yours, Geo. IV. King.” The sentiments of the popular Young People’s So¬ ciety of Christian Endeavor toward the Church of Rome were very clearly indicated at its annual convention in Montreal in 1893. Among the delegates at the convention was a noted Hindoo from Bombay, India, Rev. Mr. Kar- markar, a convert to Protestant Christianity. In his re¬ marks before the Society he stated that Romanism was a Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 263 hindrance to missionary work in India. The statement met with very manifest disapproval in the convention; but when the French Romanist dailies took up the matter and published what the Hindoo had said, commenting angrily upon it, and in consequence a subsequent session of the convention was disturbed by a mob of Roman ' Catholics, the presiding officer of the convention endeav¬ ored to appease their wrath by rising in the midst of the assembly and declaring that he and the delegates were not responsible for Mr. Karmarkar, thus leaving their guest alone to bear the brunt of their wrath, for thus courage¬ ously testifying to the truth. Evidently Mr. Karmarkar was tne only Protestant at that convention,—the only one who neither feared, sympathized with, nor worshiped the beast. (Rev. 20:4.) The following were his words as reported by The American Sentinel , Aug., 1S93:— “There is a remarkable correspondence between Romish worship and Hindoo worship. Romanism is but a new label on the old bottles of paganism containing the deadly poison of idolatry. Often the Hindoos ask us, when see¬ ing the Romish worship, ‘ What is the difference between Christianity and Hindooism?’ In India we have not only to contend with the hydra-headed monster of Idolatry, but also the odlopus of Romanism.” Among the few voices raised in opposition to this a&ion of the Christian Endeavor Society were the following res¬ olutions presented at a patriotic meeting of the citizens of Boston, and unanimously adopted by two thousand people “ Whereas, At the Christian Endeavor convention now in session at Montreal, Rev. S. V. Karmarkar clearly and truthfully stated the hindrances to the progress of Chris¬ tianity in India, mentioning the demoralizing influences of the Roman Catholic church, thereby arousing the animosity of French Roman Catholics, who endeavored to prevent free speech in a Protestant convention by riotous a< 5 ts; therefore 264 The Day of Vengeance. “ Resolved , That' we, Protestant citizens of Boston, fully endorse Rev. S. V. Karmarkar in boldly stating fadts; and we deeply regret that a company of Christians sought to pacify Romanists by a rising vote (which was loudly ap¬ plauded), apparently censuring a man of God for telling the truth, “Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the daily and patriotic papers, and forwarded to Rev. S. V. Karmarkar. ’ * Another popular Protestant institution, the Chautauqua Literary Circle, at one of its recent annual conventions, sent the following message to a similar assembly of Roman Catholics, more recently instituted and located on Lake Champlain. The message was adopted by unanimous vote and with great enthusiasm, and read thus:— “ Chautauqua sends greeting and best wishes to the Cath¬ olic Summer School. ” In reply Chancellor Vincent re¬ ceived the following from Dr. Thomas J. Conarty, head of the Catholic Summer School at Plattsburgh, Lake Cham¬ plain: “The scholars of the Catholic Summer School of America are deeply grateful for Chautauqua’s cordial greefc ings, and send best wishes to Chautauqua in return.” Another company of Protestants, chiefly Covenanters, is very solicitous to have this nation (which, from the beginning of its life has repudiated the dodtrine of the di¬ vine right of kings, and which has never acknowledged the right of any man to rule as “king by the grace of God”) put on the garb of Christian profession, however greatly it might dishonor that profession. One of the chief ob« jedls of this National Reform Movement, as it is called, if to enforce upon all the stridl observance of Sunday as a day of worship. And in hope of securing their ends by a majority vote of the people, they are very solicitous to have their influence augmented by the Roman Catholic vote. Hence they express their willingness to make almost any Babylon 1 s Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 265 concessions, even to sell their religious liberty, bought with the blood of the martyrs, to gain the cooperation of the Church of Rome. Hear their proposition expressed by the chief organ of the denomination, The Christian States - man, thus:— “ Whenever they [the Roman Catholic Church] are willing to cooperate in resisting the progress of political atheism, we will gladly join hands with them.” Again, u We may be subjedted to some rebuffs in our first proffers; for the time is not yet come when the Roman Church will consent to strike hands with other churches, as such; but the time has come to make repeated advances, and gladly accept cooperation in any form in which they may be willing to exhibit it. It is one of the necessities of the situation .” —Rev. S. F. Scovel (Presbyterian). The same journal also marked the duty of the United States’ government as follows:—“ Our remedy for all these malific influences is to have the government simply set up the moral law and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religioii that does not co?form to it . 11 Yes, “ the necessities of the situation ” are indeed forcing the religious powers of Christendom into peculiar posi¬ tions, and it does not require a very keen observation to note the backward turn of the wheels of religious progress; nor to surmise where religious liberty will be brought to an abrupt end. Said an Episcopal clergyman, Rev. F. H. Hopkins, in an article published in The Century Magazine :— “Of one thing I am certain: If at the time of any of the great separations among Christians in the past, the con¬ dition of the church had been what it is to-day, and if the mind and temper of those who became separatists then had been the same as that of their representatives now, no separation would have taken place at all. [Very true!] This change on both sides is a proof, to me, that the God of unity and love is, in his own time and way, bringing us all together again in him. [But to those not intoxicated 266 The Day of Vengeance. with the spirit or wine of great Babylon (Rev. 17 12) it is proof of the decline of vital godliness and love of the truth; and an evidence that the spirit of that noble movement. The Great Reformation, is dead.]” Hear, further, the more sober testimony of Archdeacon Farrar. On resigning his position as editor of The Review of the Churches , he made this remarkable statement:— “The whole cause of the Reformation is going by de¬ fault, and if the alienated laity do not awake in time and assert their rights as sharers in the common priesthood of all Christians, they will awake too late, to find themselves members of a church which has become widely popish in all but name.” While we see that, in this country, the church nominal, both Papal and Protestant, is seeking the protection and cooperation of the state, that the various sects are asso¬ ciating themselves together for mutual cooperation and defence, ignoring their doctrinal differences and emphasiz¬ ing their points of agreement, and that all are anxious for a speedy union at any price which will not affect their policy, in Europe the case is somewhat reversed. There the civil powers feel their insecurity and danger most, and they consequently look to the ecclesiastical powers for what assistance they may be able to render. Here the languish¬ ing eye of the church looks imploringly to the state, while there the tottering thrones seek props from the church. Such is the unhappy condition of that great system which is now brought to judgment before the assembled world—that system which proudly styles itself Christendom (Christ’s Kingdom), but which Christ promptly and em¬ phatically disowns, and most appropriately names “Baby¬ lon.” How manifest the absurdity of applying the name Christendom to the kingdoms of this world! Do the prophets portray any such condition of things in the glori¬ ous Kingdom of God? Will the great Prince of Peace go Babylon's Confusion — Ecclesiastical. 267 about imploring the nations to recognize his authority and grant him his rights—of territory, of wealth, or of domim ion? Will he beg a pittance from the poorest peasant or court the favor of the affluent? Or will he implore his subjects to bestir themselves and exert their dying energies to support his tottering throne? Oh, no; with dignity and authority, when the appointed time comes, he will take un¬ to himself his great power and begin his glorious reign ; and who shall hinder or obstruct his way? Thus there is a general banding together of the powers that be, both civil and ecclesiastical, and a mutual depend¬ ence one upon another; and with these are bound up the interests of all the rich, the great and the mighty—the interests of kings and emperors and statesmen and lords and ladies and titled officials and priests and bishops, and the clergy of every grade, great capitalists, bankers, mon¬ opolistic corporations, etc., etc. The present status of the conflict is but a clashing of ideas and a general prepara¬ tion for the impending crisis. The ecclesiastical powers, referred to in the Scriptures as the powers of the heavens (the nominal spiritual powers), are approaching each other, and truly, “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll;” but “while they be folden together as thorns for there can be no peaceful and comfortable affiliation of liberty-loving Protestants and the tyrannical spirit of Papacy], and while they are drunken as drunkards [intoxicated with the spirit of the world, the wine of Babylon], they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry” (Nahum 1:10), in the great cataclysm of trouble and anarchy predicted in the Word of God as the introduction of the Millennial Kingdom. * . * * We would not be understood as including all Christians as “Babylonians.” Quite to the contrary. As the Lord recognizes some in Babylon as true to him and addresses z 263 The Day of Vengeance. them now, saying,—“Come out of her, my people ” (Rev. 18:4), so do we; and we rejoice to believe that there are to-day thousands who have not bowed the knee to the Baal of our day—Mammon, Pride and Ambition. Some of these have already obediently “Come out of her,” and the remainder are now being tested on this point, before the plagues are poured out upon Babylon. Those who love self, popularity, worldly prosperity, honor of men more than they love the Lord, and who reverence human theories and systems more than the Word of the Lord, will not come out until Babylon falls and they come through the “great tribulation.” (Rev. 7:9, 14.) But such shall not be accounted worthy to share the Kingdom. Compare Rev. 2:26; 3:21; Matt. 10:37; Mark 8:34, 35; Luke 14:26, 27. * . * * “ The time of trouble nears, ‘ It hastetli greatly; ’ E’en now its ripples span the world-wide seaj O when its waves are swollen to mountains stately, Will the resistless billows sweep o’er me? “ Or, terror-stricken, will I then discover A wondrous presence standing in glory by, Treading the waters!—Immanuel—Life-giver, With words of cheer,—Be not afraid,—’tis I.’ { 5 Yes, a hand, strong, yet tender as a mother’s, Will from the surging billows lift me out. With soft rebuke, more loving than a brother’s: 6 Of little faith! O, wherefore didst thou doubt?*** t STUDY VII THE NATIONS ASSEMBLED AND THE PREPARATION OF THE ELEMENTS FOR THE GREAT FIRE OF GOD’S INDIGNATION. How and Why the Nations are Assembled.—The Social Elements Prepar¬ ing for the Fire.—The Heaping of Treasures.—The Increase of Pov>- erty.—Social Friction Nearing Combustion.—A Word from the President of the American Federation of Labor.—The Rich sometimes too Severe¬ ly Condemned.—Selfishness and Liberty in Combination.—Independence as Viewed by the Rich and by the Poor.—Why Present Conditions Cannot Continue.—Machinery an Important Factor in Preparing for theGreat Fire.—Female Competition.—Labor's View of the Situation, Reasonable and Unreasonable.—The Law of Supply and Demand In¬ exorable upon all.—The Outlook for Foreign Industrial Compe¬ tition appalling.— Mr. Justin McCarthy’s Fears for England.—Kier Hardie, M. P., on the Labor Outlook in England.—Hon. Jos. Cham¬ berlain’s Prophetic Words to British Workmen.—National Aggression as Related to Industrial Interests.—Hf.rr Liebknecht on the Social and Industrial War in Germany.—Resolutions of the International Trades Union Congress.—Giants in These Days.—List of Trusts and Combines.—Barbaric Slavery vs. Civilized Bondage.—The Masses Be¬ tween the Upper and Nether Millstones.—The Conditions Universal and Beyond Human Power to Regulate. ITT"AIT ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to VY the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy [wrath]. For then will I turn to the people a pure lan¬ guage, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent,”—Zeph, 3: 8, 9. 269 270 The Day of Vengeance. The gathering of the nations in these last days, in fulfil¬ ment of the above prophecy, is very notable. Modern dis¬ covery and invention have indeed made the remotest ends of the earth neighbors to each other. Travel, mailing facilities, the telegraph, the telephone, commerce, the multiplication of books and newspapers, etc., have brought all the world to a considerable extent into a community of thought and adtion hitherto unknown. This condition of things has already made necessary international laws and regulations that each of the nations must respedt. Their representatives meet in Councils, and each nation has in every other nation its ministers or representatives. Inter¬ national Exhibitions have also been called forth as results of this neighboring of nations. There can no more be that exclusi veness on the part of any nation which would bar every other nation from its ports. The gates of all are nec¬ essarily thrown open, and must remain so; and even the barriers of diverse languages are being easily surmounted. The civilized peoples are no longer strangers in any part of the earth. Their splendid sea equipments carry their business representatives, their political envoys and their curious pleasure-seekers to the remotest quarters with ease and comfort. Magnificent railway coaches introduce them to the interior lands, and they return home laden with in¬ formation, and with new ideas, and awakened to new pro- jedts and enterprises. Even the dull heathen nations are arousing themselves from the dreams of centuries and look¬ ing with wonder and amazement at their visitors from abroad and learning of their marvelous achievements. And they in turn are now sending their representatives abroad that they may profit by their new acquaintances. In the days of Solomon it was thought a marvelous thing that the queen of Sheba should come about five hundred miles to hear the wisdom and behold the grandeur of Sol- Preparation of the Elements. 271 omon; but now numbers even of the untitled travel over the whole world, a great portion of which was then unknown, to see its accumulated wealth and to learn of its progress; and the circuit of the world can now be made with comfoit and even in luxury in less than eighty days. Truly, the nations are “assembled” in a manner no* expedted, yet in the only manner in which they could be assembled; viz., in common interest and activity; but alas! not in brotherly love, for selfishness marks every step of this progress. The spirit of enterprise, of which selfishness is the motive power, has prompted the construc¬ tion of the railways, the steamships, the telegraphs, the cables, the telephones; selfishness regulates the commerce and the international comity, and every other energy and enterprise, except the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of benevolent institutions: and even in these it is to be feared that much that is done is inspired by motives other than pure love for God and humanity. Self ishness has gathered the nations and has been steadily pre¬ paring them for the predidted, and now fast approaching, retribution—anarchy—which is so graphically described as the “fire of God’s jealousy” or anger, which is about to consume utterly the present social order,—the world that now is. (2 Pet. 3:7.) Yet this is speaking only from the human standpoint; for the Prophet ascribes this gather¬ ing of the nations to God. But both are true; for while man is permitted the exercise of his free agency, God, by his overruling providence , is shaping human affairs for the iccomplishment of his own wise purposes. And there¬ fore, while men and their works and ways are the agents and agencies, God is the great Commander who now gath¬ ers the nations and assembles the kingdoms from one end of the earth to the other, preparatory to the transfer of earth’s dominion to him “whose right it is,”—Immanuel. «72 The Day of Vengeance . The Prophet tells us why the Lord thus gathers the na¬ tions, saying—-“That I may pour upon them mine indig¬ nation, even all my fierce anger; for the whole earth [the entire social fabric] shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. ’ * This message would bring us sorrow and anguish only, were it not for the assurance that the results shall work good to the world, overthrowing the reign of selfish- nessand establishing, through Christ’s Millennial Kingdom, the reign of righteousness referred to in the words of the prophet—“ Then will I turn unto the people a pure language [Their communications with each other shall no longer be selfish, but pure, truthful and loving, to the intent] that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent.” The “gathering of the nations” will not only contrite ute to the severity of the judgment, but it will also make it impossible for any to escape it; and it will thus maka the great tribulation a short, as well as a decisive, confli6^ as it is written: “A short work will the Lord make upoB the earth.”—Rom. 9:28; Isa. 28:22. THE SOCIAL ELEMENTS PREPARING FOR THE FIRE- Looking about us we see the “elements” preparing fof the fire of this day—the fire of God’s wrath. Selfishness, knowledge, wealth, ambition, hope, discontent, fear and despair are the ingredients whose fridtion will shortly set aflame the angry passions of the world and cause its various social “elements” to melt in the fervent heat. Looking out over the world, note what changes have taken place in respe6l to these passions during the past century, and especially during the past forty years. The satisfied con¬ tentment of the past is gone from all classes,—rich and poor, male and female, educated and ignorant. All are dissatisfied. Preparation of the Elements. 2 ? X All are selfishly and increasingly grasping for ‘ 'rights” or be- moaning“wrongs.” True, there are wrongs, grievous wrongs, which should be righted, and rights that should be enjoyed and respedted; but the tendency of our time, with its in¬ crease of knowledge and independence, is to look only at the side of questions closest to self-interest, and to fail to appreciate the opposite side. The effedl foretold by the prophets will be ultimately to set every man’s hand against his neighbor, which will be the immediate cause of the great final catastrophe. God’s Word and providence and the lessons of the past are forgotten under the strong con¬ victions of personal rights, etc., which hinder people of every class from choosing the wiser, moderate course, which they cannot even see because selfishness blinds them to everything out of accord with their own prejudices, Each class fails to consider with impartiality the welfare and rights of the other. The golden rule is generally ig¬ nored; and the lack of wisdom as well as the injustice of this course will soon be made manifest to all classes, for all classes will suffer terribly in this trouble. But the rich, the Scriptures inform us, will suffer most. While the rich are diligently heaping up fabulous treas¬ ure for these last days, tearing down their storehouses and building greater, and saying to themselves and their posterity, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; eat, drink and be merry, ’ ’ God, through the prophets, is saying, “Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thoy hast provided?”—Luke 12:15-20. Yes, the dark night predicted (Isa. 21:12; 28:12, 13, 21, 22; John 9:4) is fast approaching; and, as a snare, it shall overtake the whole world. Then, indeed, whose shall these hoarded treasures be, when, in the distress of the hour, “they shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold 18 D 274 The Day of Vengeance . shall be removed?” “ Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord, . . . because it is the stumblingblock of their in¬ iquity,’'—Ezek. 7:19. THE HEAPING OF TREASURES. It is evident that we are in a time preeminent above all others for the accumulation of wealth, and for “ wanton’* or extravagant living on the part of the rich (James 5:3, 5). Let us hear some testimony from current literature. If the point is conclusively proved, it becomes another evidence that we are in the “ last days ” of the present dispensation and nearing the great trouble which shall eventually wreck the present order of the world and usher in the new order of things under the Kingdom of God. The Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, in a speech recently re* ported, after referring to the present as a “ wealth-produo ing age,” said :— “There are gentlemen before me who have witnessed -4 greater accumulation of wealth within the period of their lives than has been seen in all preceding times since the days of Julius Caesar.” Note this statement by one of the best informed men in the world. This fa< 5 t, so difficult for us to comprehend—« that more wealth has been produced and accumulated dur* ing the past fifty years than during the previous nineteen centuries—is nevertheless shown by statistics to be a very conservative estimate, and the new conditions thus pro* duced are destined to play an important part in the read¬ justment of the social order of the world now impending. The Boston Globe , Dec. 23, ’90, gave the following ac¬ count of some of the wealthy men of the United States:— “The twenty-one railroad magnates who met in New York on Monday, to discuss the question of railroad com* Preparation of the Ele?ne 7 its. n vr? * / C/ petition, represented $3,000,000,000 of capital. Men now- living can remember when there were not half a dozen millionaires in the land. They are now numbered 4,600 millionaires and several whose yearly income is said to be over a million. “There are in New York City, at a conservative calcu¬ lation, the surprising number of 1,157 individuals and estates that are each worth ,$1,000,000. There are in Brooklyn 162 individuals and estates each worth at least $1,000,000. In the two cities there are then 1,319 million¬ aires, but many of these are worth much more than $1,000,- 000—they are multi-millionaires, and the nature of these great fortunes is different, and they therefore yield different incomes. The rates of interest which some of the more conspicuous ones draw are reckoned in round numbers, thus: John D. Rockefeller’s, 6 per cent.; William Waldorf Astor’s, 7 per cent.; Jay Gould’s estate, which, being wrapped up in corporations, is still practically undivided, 4 per cent. ; Cornelius Vanderbilt’s, 5 per cent, and William K. Vanderbilt’s, 5 per cent. “Calculating at the foregoing rates and compounding interest semi-annually, to allow for reinvestment, the yearly and daily incomes of the four individuals and of the estates named are as follows:— Yearly. Daily. William Waldorf Astor, $8,900,000 $ 2 3> 2 77 John D. Rockefeller, . 7,611,250 20,853 Jay Gould’s Estate, .... 4,040,000 11,068 Cornelius Vanderbilt, . 4,048,000 11,090 William K. Vanderbilt, . 3 , 795 , 00 ° 10,397 The above is evidently a conservative estimate, for not long since it was noted that Mr. John D. Rockefeller s quarterly dividend on Standard Oil Company’s stock, of which he is one of the principal holders, was represented by a check for four millions of dollars; and this is only one of his many investments. The Niagara Falls Review not long ago contained the following;— The Day of Vengeance. 276 “One of the greatest dangers which now menace the stability of American institutions is the increase of indi¬ vidual millionaires, and the consequent concentration of property and money in single hands. A recent article in a prominent paper of New York State gives figures which must serve to draw general attention to the evolution of this difficulty. The following are said to be the nine greatest fortunes in the United States:— William AValdorf Astor, Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, . William K. Vanderbilt, Henry M. Flagler, John L. Blair, Russel Sage, Collis P. Huntington , $150,000,000 100,000,000 90,000,000 90,000,000 80,000,000 60,000,000 50,000,000 50,000,000 50,000,000 Total, $720,000,000 “ Estimating the yield from these immense sums in ac¬ cordance with the average interest obtained upon other similar investments, the following would be the proceeds: Yearly. Daily. Astor, ..... $ 9 , I 35 ,°°° $25,027 Rockefeller, 5,481,000 16,003 Gould, ..... 4,040,000 11,068 Vanderbilt, C., . 4 , 554,000 12,477 Vanderbilt, W. K., 4,048,000 11,09c Flagler, .... 3,036,000 8,318 Blair, ..... 3 ,° 45 , 000 8 , 34 2 Sage, ..... 3 ,° 45 , 000 8,342 Huntingtom, .... 1,510,000 4 A 37 “Nearly all these men live in a comparatively simple style, and it is obviously impossible for them to spend more than a portion of their immense daily and yearly revenues. The surplus consequently becomes capital, and helps to build still higher the fortunes of these individuals. Now the Vanderbilt family possesses the following immense sums:— (The past 8 years have increased some of these figures greatly.) Preparation of the Elements. 277 Cornelius Vanderbilt, William K. Vanderbilt, Frederick W. Vanderbilt, George W. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Elliott F. Sheppard, Mrs. William D. Sloane, Mrs. Hamilton McK Twombly, Mrs. W. Seward Webb, $90,000,000 80,000,000 17,000,000 15,000,000 13,000,000 13,000,000 13,000,000 13,000,000 Total, .... $254,000,000 “ Still more wonderful are the accumulations made through the great Standard Oil trust, which has just been dissolved,—succeeded by the Standard Oil Company. The fortunes from it .were as follows:— John D. Rockefeller, .... Henry M. Flagler, .... William Rockefeller, .... Benjamin Brewster, .... Henry H. Rogers, ..... Oliver H. Bayne (Cleveland), Wm. G. Warden (Bhiladelphia), Chas. Pratt estate (Brooklyn), John D. Archbold, .... $90,000,000 60,000,000 40,000,000 25,000,000 25,000,000 25,000,000 25,000,000 25,000,000 10,000,000 Total, .... $325,000,000 “It took just twenty years to combine this wealth in the hands of eight or nine men. Here, then, is the danger. In the hands of Gould, the Vanderbilts and Hunting ten are the great railroads of the United States. In the pos¬ session of Sage, the Astors and others, rest great blocks of New York land, which are constantly increasing in value. United and by natural accumulation, the fortunes of these nine families would amount in twenty-five years to $2,754,- 000,000. William Waldorf Astor himself, by pure force of accumulation, will probably be worth a thousand mill¬ ions before he dies; and this money, like that of the Vanderbilts, will descend in his family as in others, and create an aristocracy of wealth extremely dangerous to the commonwealth, and forming a curious commentary upon that aristocracy of birth or talent which Americans con¬ sider to be so injurious in Great Britain. 2 78 The Day of Vengeance. “ Other great fortunes are in existence only of which may be given: — William Astor, . • Leland Stanford, .... Mrs. Hetty Green, .... Philip D. Armour, .... Edward F. Searles, J. Pierpont Morgan, .... Charles Crocker estate, Darius O. Mills, .... Andrew Carnegie, .... E. S. Higgins estate, .... George M. Pullman, Total, or rising, a few . $40,000,000 30,000,000 . 30,000,000 30,000,000 . 25,000,000 25,000,000 . 25,000,000 25,000,000 . 25,000,000 20,000,000 20,000,000 $295,000,000 “Thus we see capital in almost inconceivable sums be¬ ing vested in a few, and necessarily taken from [the oppor¬ tunity of] the many. There is no power in man to peace¬ ably settle this vexed question. It will go on from bad to worse.” SOME AMERICAN MILLIONAIRES AND HOW THEY GOT THEIR MILLIONS. The Editor of the Review of Reviews gives what he terms “a few excerpts from a most instructive and enter¬ taining paper, the one fault of which is its optimistic view of the plutocratic octopus,” in these words:— “An American who writes from intimate personal knowl¬ edge, but who prefers to remain anonymous, tells in Corn- hill Magazine with much sympathy the story of several of the millionaires of the giant Republic. He claims that even if the four thousand millionaires own among them forty billion dollars out of the seventy-six billions which form the total national wealth, still the balance leaves every citizen $500 per head as against $330 per head forty-five years ago. He argues that millionaires have grown by making other classes not poorer but richer. Preparation op Die JUements. 279 “ ‘ Commodore Vanderbilt, who made the first Vanderbilt millions, was born just a century ago. His capital was the traditional bare feet, empty pocket and belief in his luck —the foundation of so many American fortunes. Hard work, from six years of age to sixteen, furnished him with a second and more tangible capital, namely, one hundred dollars in cash. This money he invested in a small boat; and with that boat he opened a business of his own—the transportation of vegetables to New York. At twenty years of age he married, and man and wife both turned money-makers. He ran his boat. She kept a hotel. Three years later he was worth ten thousand dollars. After that his money came rapidly—so rapidly that when the civil war broke out, the boy, who had started with one boat, worth one hundred dollars, was able to present to the nation one of his boats, value eight hundred thousand dollars, and yet feel easy about his finances and his fleet. At seventy years of age he was credited with a fortune of seventy millions. “ ‘The Astor fortune owes its existence to the brains of one man and the natural growth of a great nation, John Jacob Astor being the only man in four generations who was a real money-maker. The money he made, as he made it, was invested in New York City property; the amount of such property is limited, as the city stands upon an island. Consequently the growth of New York City, which was due to the growth of the Republic, made this small fortune of the eighteenth century the largest American fortune of the nineteenth century. The first and last Astor worthy of study as a master of millions was therefore John Jacob Astor who, tiring of his work as helper in his father’s butcher’s shop in Waldorf, went, about one hundred and ten years ago, to try his luck in the new world. On the ship he really, in one sense, made his whole fortune. He met an old fur-trader who posted him in the tricks of Indian fur-trading. This trade he took up and made money at. Then he married Sarah Todd, a shrewd, energetic young woman. Sarah and John Jacob dropped into the homely habit of passing all their evenings in their shop sorting pelts. ... In fifteen years John Jacob and Sarah his wife had accumulated twenty-five hundred thousand 28 o 71 i e Day of Vengeance. dollars. ... A lucky speculation in United States bonds, then very low in price, doubled John Jacob’s fortune; and this wealth all went into real estate, where it has since remained.’ “Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington went to California in the gold fever of 1849. When the trans-continental railway w r as mooted these four ‘saw millions in it,’ and contracted to make the Union Pacific. The four men, penniless in 1850, are to¬ day credited with a combined fortune of $200,000,000. “‘One of them, Leland Stanford, had designed to found a family; but ten years ago his only son died, and he then decided to establish a university in memory of that son. And he did it in princely fashion, for while yet ‘ in the flesh’ he ‘deeded’ to trustees three farms containing 86,- 000 acres, and, owing to their splendid vineyards, worth $6,000,000. To this he added $14,000,000 worth of securities, and at his death left the university a legacy of $2,500,000—a total gift by one man, to one institution of learning of $22,500,000, which is said to be a ‘world’s record.’ His wife has announced her intention to leave her fortune, some $10,000,000, to the university.’ “The most remarkable instance of money-making shown in the history of American millions is that furnished by the Standard Oil Trust:— “ ‘ Thirty years ago five young men, most of them living in the small city of Cleveland (State of Ohio), and all comparatively poor (probably the whole party could not boast of $50,000), saw monetary possibilites in petroleum. In the emphatic language of the old river pilot, ‘They went for it thar and then,’ and they got it. To-day that same party of five men is worth $600,000,000. . . . John D. Rockefeller, the brain and ‘nerve’ of this great ‘trust,’ is a ruddy-faced man with eye so mild and manner so genial that it is very hard to call him a ‘grasping monopolist.’ His ‘hobby’ now is education, and he rides this hobby in robust, manly fashion. He has taken the University of Chicago under his wing, and already the sum of seven mill¬ ion dollars has passed from his pockets to the treasury of the new seat of learning in the second city of the Republic. ’ ’ ’ Preparation of the Elements. 281 In an article in the Forum Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, the New York statistician, gives the names of seventy Americans whose aggregate wealth is $2,700,000,000, an average of $38,500,000 each; and declares that a list of ten persons could be made whose wealth would average $100,000,000 each; and another list of one hundred persons whose wealth wouldaverage$25,000,000 each; and that “the average annual income of the richest hundred Americans cannot be less [each] than $1,200,000, and probably ex¬ ceeds $1,500,000.” Commenting on this last statement, an able writer (Rev. Josiah Strong) says:— “ If one hundred workmen could earn each $1,000 a year, they would have to work twelve hundred or fifteen hundred years to earn as much as the annual income of these one hundred richest Americans. And if a workman could earn $100 a day he would have to work until he would be five hundred and forty-seven years old, and never take a day off, before he could earn as much as some Americans are worth.” The following table compares the wealth of the for. richest nations of the world in 1830 and 1893; and shows how riches are being “heaped together” nationally in these “last days” of this age of almost fabulous ac< cumulation. Great Britain’s total wealth France’s “ “ Germany’s “ “ United States’ “ “ 1830. $16,890,000,000 10,645,000,000 10,700,000,000 5,000,000,000 1893. $50,000,000,000 40,000,000,000 35,000,000,0c/ 72,000,000,00c That the reader may have an idea as to how statisticians arrive at their conclusions on so vast a subject, we give the following as an approximate classified estimate of the wealth of the United States: — 2 82 The Day of Vengeance . Real estate in cities and towns, Real estate other than of cities and towns, Personal property (n ot hereafiter sped fled), Railroads and their equipments, . . Capital invested in manufactures, Manufactured goods,. Productions (including wool), . Property owned and money invested in foreign countries.* Public buildings, arsenals, war ships, etc v Domestic animals on farms, .... Domestic animals in cities and towns, ^ Money, foreign and domestic coin, bank notes, etc., . Public lands (at $1.25 per acre), . . Mineral products (all descriptions) $15,500,000,000 12,500,000,000 8,200,000,000 8,000,000,000 5,300,000,000 5,000,000,000 3,500,000,000 3,100,000,000 3-000,000,000 2,480,000.000 1,700,000,00 O' 2,130,000,000 1,000,000,000 590,000,000 Total, . . $72,000,000,000 It is estimated that the wealth of the United States is now increasing at the enormous rate of forty million dollars per week, or two billion dollars per yean (The total indebtedness of the people of the United States, public and private, is estimated to be twenty bill¬ ion dollars.) This heaping together of treasures for the last days, here noted, relates specially to these United States, but the same is true of the whole civilized world. Great Britain is per capita richer than the United States—the richest nation o» earth. And even in China and Japan there are million aires of recent development. The defeat of China in the recent war with Japan is charged as chiefly due to the avarice of the government officers, who are said to have supplied inferior and even imitation cannon and cannon¬ balls, although paid a large price for the genuine. Preparation of tiie Elements. 2 <53 Of course only a minority of those who seek wealth find it. The rush and strife for wealth is not always rewarded. The bane of selfishness extends far beyond the successful, and, as the Apostle said, “They that will be rich [who are determined to be rich at all hazards] fall into temp¬ tation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful desires which drown men in destruction and perdition; for the love of money [wealth] is a root of all evil.” (1 Tim. 6:9, 10.) The majority, inexperienced, take the risks and find disappointment and loss : the few, worldly- wise and keen, take few risks and reap most of the gains. Thus, for instance, a “South-African gold fever” has recently spread over Great Britain, France and Germany, and has transferred from the pockets and bank accounts of the middle class to those of the wealthy capitalists and bankers, who take little risk, hundreds of millions of dollars. The result will undoubtedly be great loss to said middle class so anxious for sudden riches that they risk their all. The tendency of this will be to make many of this usually conservative class discontented and ready in a few years for any Socialistic scheme which promises to be to their advantage. THE INCREASE OF POVERTY. But is it true that there are poor and needy people in this land of plenty, in which so many are heaping together such fabulous wealth? Is it not his or her own fault if any healthyman or woman cannot get along comfortably? Would it not tend to cultivate pauperism and dependence if the “well-to-do” should undertake to paddle the canoes of the poorer classes? Thus the subjedl is regarded by many of the wealthy, who in many instances were poor themselves twenty-five years ago, and who remember that then all who 284 The Day of Vengeance. were able and willing to work could find plenty to do. They do not realize what great changes have taken place since then, and that while their fortunes have improved wonder¬ fully, the condition of the masses has retrograded, especially during the last seven years. True, wages, while lower than formerly, are generally fair, being maintained by Unions, etc.; but many cannot obtain work, while many of those who have situations have work only about half time, and often less, and are barely able by stribt economy to live decently and honestly. When special depressions come, as in 1893-6, many of these out of work are thrown upon the charity of their friends who are illy able to sustain this additional pressure; and those who have no friends are forced upon public charities, which at such times are wholly inadequate. The depression of 1893 passed like a wave over the whole world,and its heavy pressure is still widely felt; though to some a breathing spell of recuperation has come. But, as the Scriptures point out, this trouble comes in waves or spasms,—“as travail upon a woman ” (1 Thes. 5 13),—and each succeeding spasm will probably be more severe,—un¬ til the final one. The wealthy and comfortable often find it difficult to realize the destitution of the poorest class, which is rapidly becoming more numerous. The fa6t is that even among those of the middle and wealthy classes who do think and feel for the distresses of the very poor there is the realization of the utter impossibility of so changing the present social order as to bring any permanent relief to them; and so each does what little he thinks to be his ability and duty for those nearest to him, and tries to discredit or forget the reports of misery which reach his eyes and ears. The following extradls from the daily press will call to mind the conditions which obtained in 1893, and which Preparation of the Elements. 285 before very long will probably be duplicated with interest. The California Advocate said: — “The assembling of the unemployed masses in our great cities in multitudinous thousands is a most gruesome spec¬ tacle, and their piteous cry for work or bread is being heard all over the land. It is the old unsolved problem of pov¬ erty, intensified by the unprecedented depression of busi¬ ness. Involuntary idleness is a constantly growing evil co¬ incident with civilization. It is the dark shadow that steadily creeps after civilization, increasing in dimensions and intensity as civilization advances. Things are certainly in an abnormal condition when men are willing to work, want to work, and yet cannot find work to do, while their very life depends upon work. There is no truth in the old saw that ‘ the world owes every man a living. * But it is true that the world owes every man a chance to earn his living. Many theories have been advanced and many efforts have been made to secure inalienable ‘ right to work’ to every one willing to work; but all such attempts have hitherto ended in gloomy failure, tie will indeed be a benefadlor to mankind who shall successfully solve the problem how to secure to every willing worker some work to do, and thus rid mankind of the curse of involuntary idleness.” Another account describes how, in Chicago, a crowd of over four hundred unemployed men marched through the downtown streets, headed by one of their number carrying a pasteboard sign on which was scrawled the grim legend, “We Want Work.” The next day they marched with many banners bearing the following inscriptions: “Live and Let Live,” “We Want a Chance to Support Our Families.” “Work or Bread,” etc. An army of unem¬ ployed marched through San Francisco with banners on which were inscribed, “Thousands of Houses to Rent, and Thousands of People Homeless,” “Hungry and Des¬ titute,” “ Driven by the Lash of Hunger to Beg,” “Get Off Our Backs and We Will Help Ourselves,” etc. Another clipping read:—- 286 The Day of Vengenace. “Newark, N. J., August 21. —Unemployed workingmen held a large parade to-day. At the head of the line marched a man with a large black flag, upon which in white letters were the words: “Signs of the Times—I Am Starving Because He is Fat.” Beneath was a pidture of a large, well-fed man with a high hat, and beside him a starving workman.” Another journal, referring to the English coal-miners’ strike, said:— “The stories of actual distress, and even of starvation, are multiplying painfully throughout England, and the ces¬ sation of industries and the derangement of railways are assuming proportions of grave national calamity. ... As might be expedled, the real cause consists in the huge royalties that lessees have to pay for the ground to the land¬ lords from whom they lease the mines. A considerable number of millionaires, whose coal royalties hang like mill¬ stones around the neck of the mining industries, are also prominent peers, and angry public consciousness puts the two things together with a snap. . . . Radical papers are compiling portentous lists of lords not unlike the lists of trusts in America, showing in their figures their monstrous levies on the earnings of the property of the country. “ The cry for bread goes up from the city. It is deeper, hoarser, broader than it has ever been. It comes from gnawing stomachs and weakened frames. It comes from men who tramp the streets searching for work. It comes from women sitting hopeless in bare rooms. It comes from children. “In the city of New York the poor have reached straits of destitution that have never before been known. Prob¬ ably no living person understands how awful is the suffer¬ ing, how terrible the poverty. No one person can see it all. No one’s imagination can grasp it. “Few persons who will read this can understand what it means to be without food. It is one of those things so frightful that it cannot be brought home to them. They say, * Surely people can get something to eat somewhere, enough to support life; they can go to their friends.” For the stricken ones there is no ‘somewhere.’ Their friends Preparation of the Elements. 287 are as destitute as themselves. There are men so weakened from lack of food that they cannot work if work is offered to them.” An editorial in the San Francisco Examiner said:— “How is this? We have so much to eat that the farmers are complaining that they can get nothing for it. We have so much to wear that cotton and woolen mills are closing down because there is nobody to buy their produdts. We have so much coal that the railroads that carry it are going into the hands of receivers. We have so many houses that the builders are out of work. All the necessities and com¬ forts of life are as plentiful as ever they were in the most prosperous years of our history. When the country has enough food, clothing, fuel and shelter for everybody, why are times hard ? Evidently nature is not to blame. Who or what, then, is? “ The problem of the unemployed is one of the most serious that face the United States. According to the statistics colledted by Bradstreet's there were at the open¬ ing of the year something over 801,000 wage-earners out of employment in the first 119 cities of the United States, and the number of persons dependent upon these for sup¬ port was over 2,000,000. If the 119 cities gave a fair average for the country the total of wage-earners wanting employment on the first of the year would run above 4,000,000 persons, representing a dependent population of 10,000,000. As the unemployed seek the cities it is safe to dedudt one-fourth from these figures. But even with this deduction the number of wage-workers out of employment is an enormous, heart-rending total. “The hard road of poverty whose end is pauperism has been traveled so long in Europe that the authorities of the Old World know better how to deal with it than the com¬ paratively prosperous community on this side of the water. The wages of Europe are so low that in many States the end of life must be the poorhouse. No amount of industry and frugality can enable the laborer to lay by a competence for old age. The margin between income and expenses is so small that a few days’ sickness or lack of employment reduces the laborer to destitution. Government there has 25'S The Day of Vengeance. been forced to deal with it more or less scientifically in¬ stead of in the happy-go-lucky method familiar to America, where tramps flourish without work and the self-respedting man who falls into need must suffer hunger.” The editor of The Arena says in his Civilization Inferno:— “The Dead Sea of want is enlarging its borders in every populous centre. The mutterings of angry discontent grow more ominous with each succeeding year. Justice denied the weak through the power of avarice has brought us face to face with a formidable crisis which may yet be averted if we have the wisdom to be just and humane; but the prob¬ lem cannot longer be sneered at as inconsequential. It is no longer local; it affedts and threatens the entire body politic. A few years ago one of the most eminent divines in America declared that there was no poverty to speak of in this Republic. To-day no thoughtful person denies that this problem is of great magnitude. A short time since I employed a gentleman in New York to personally investi¬ gate the court records of the city that he might ascertain the exadt number of warrants for evidtions issued in twelve months. What was the result? The records showed the appalling fadt that during the twelve months ending Sep¬ tember i, 1892, twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and twenty warrants for evidtion were issued in the city of New York. “In a paper in the Foru 7 n of December, 1892, by Mr. Jacob Riis, on the special needs of the poor in New York, he says: ‘For many years it has been true of New York that one-tenth of all who die in this great and wealthy city are buried in the pottersfield. Of the 382, 530 interments recorded in the past decade, 37,966 were in the pottersfield/ and Mr. Riis proceeds to hint at the fadt known to all students of social conditions who personally investigate poverty in the great cities, that this pottersfield gauge, ter¬ ribly significant though it be, is no adequate measure by which to estimate the poverty problem of a great city. On this point he continues: “ ‘Those who have had any personal experience with the poor, and know with what agony of fear they struggle against Preparation of the Elements. 289 this crowning misery, how they plan and plot and pinch for the poor privilege of being laid to rest in a grave that is theirs to keep, though in life they never owned a shed to call their own, will agree with me that it is putting it low to assume that where one falls, in spite of it all, into this dread trench, at least two or three must be hovering on the edge of it. And with this estimate of from twenty to thirty per cent, of our population always struggling to keep the wolf from the door, with the issue in grievous doubt, all the known, if scattered, fadts of charity management in New York agree well enough.’ “In 1890 there were two hundred and thirty-nine sui¬ cides officially reported in New York city. The court records are burdened as never before with cases of at¬ tempted self-slaughter. ‘You,’ said Recorder Smyth, ad¬ dressing a poor creature who had sought death by leaping into the East River, ‘ are the second case of attempted sui¬ cide that has been up in this court this morning; and,’ he continued, ‘I have never known so many attempted suicides as during the past few months.’ “The night is slowly but surely settling around hundreds and thousands of our people, the night of poverty and de¬ spair. They are conscious of its approach but feel power¬ less to check its advance. ‘Rents gets higher and work cheaper every year, and what can we do about it?’ said a laborer recently while talkingabout the outlook. ‘ I do not see any way out of it,’ he added bitterly, and it must be confessed that the outlook is dark if no radical economic changes are at hand, for the supply is yearly increasing far more rapidly than the demand for labor. ‘ Ten women for every place no matter how poor,’ is the dispassionate state¬ ment of an official who has recently made the question of female labor a special study. ‘Hundreds of girls,’ con¬ tinues this writer, ‘ wreck their future every year and destroy their health in the stuffy, ill-ventilated stores and shops, and yet scores of recruits arrive from the country and small towns every week to fill the places vacated.’ And let us not imagine that these conditions are peculiar to New York. What is true of the metropolis is to a certain extent true of every great city in America. Within cannon-shot of Beacon Hill, Boston, where proudly rises the golden dome of the 19 D 290 The Day of Ve?igeance. Capitol, are hundreds of families slowly starving and stifling; families who are bravely battling for life’s barest necessities, while year by year the conditions are becoming more hope¬ less, the struggle for bread fiercer, and the outlook more dismal. In conversation with one of these toilers, he said, with a certain pathos and dejedtion, which indicated hope¬ lessness or perhaps a deadened perception which prevented his fully grasping the grim import of his words, ‘I once heard of a man who was put in an iron cage by a tyrant, and every day he found the walls had come closer and closer to him. At last the walls came so close together that every day they squeezed out a part of his life, and somehow,’ he said, ‘it seems to me that we are just like that man, and when I see the little boxes carried out every day, I some¬ times say to my wife, There’s a little more life squeezed out; some day we will go, too.’ “I recently visited more than a score of tenement houses where life was battling with death; where, with a patient heroism far grander than deeds of daring won amid the ex¬ ulting shouts of the battle-field, mothers and daughters were ceaselessly plying the needle. In several homes I noticed bedridden invalids whose sunken eyes and emaciated faces told plainly the story of months, and perhaps years, of slow starvation amid the squalor, the sickening odor, and the almost universal filth of the social cellar. Here one becomes painfully conscious of spedters of hunger and fear ever present. A lifelong dread presses upon the hearts of these exiles with crushing weight. The landlord, standing with a writ of dispossession, is continually before their mind’s eye. Dread of sickness haunts every waking mo¬ ment, for to them sickness means inability to provide the scant nourishment which life demands. The despair of the probable future not infrequently torments their rest. Such is the common lot of the patient toiler in the slums of our great cities to-day. On most of their faces one notes an expres¬ sion of gloomy sadness and dumb resignation. “ Sometimes a fitful light flashes from cavernous sockets, a baleful gleam suggesting smouldering fires fed by an ever¬ present consciousness of wrongs endured. They feel in a dumb way that the lot of the beast of the field is happier far than their fate. Even though they struggle from dawn Preparation of the Elements. 291 far into the night for bread and a wretched room, they know that the window of hope is closing for them in the great throbbing centers of Christendom. Sad, indeed, is the thought that, at the present time, when our land is decked as never before with stately temples dedicated to the great Nazarene, who devoted his life to a ministry among the poor, degraded and outcast, we find the tide of miserv rising; we find uninvited poverty becoming the inevitable fate of added thousands of lives every year. Never was the altruistic sentiment more generally upon the lips of man. Never has the human heart yearned as now for a true manifestation of human brotherhood. Never has the whole civilized world been so profoundly moved by the persistent dream of the ages—the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. And yet, strange anomaly! The cry of innocence, of outraged justice, the cry of the mill¬ ions under the wheel, rises to-day from every civilized land as never before. The voice of Russia mingles with the cry of Ireland. Outcast London joins with the exiles of all great continental and American cities in one mighty, earth- thrilling demand for justice.” “In London alone there are more than three hundred thousand persons on the very brink of the abyss, whose every heart-beat thrills with fear, whose life-long nightmare is the dread that the little den they call home may be taken from them. Beneath them, at the door of starvation, are over two hundred thousand lives; still further down we find three hundred thousand in the stratum of the starving, in the realm where hunger gnaws night and day, where every second of every minute, of every hour of every day, is crowded with agony. Below the starving are the home¬ less—they who have nothing with which to procure a lodg¬ ing even in the worst quarters; they who sleep without shelter the year round, hundreds of whom may be found any night on the cold stone slabs along the Thames em¬ bankment. Some have a newspaper between themselves and the damp stones, but the majority do not even enjoy this luxury! This army of absolutely homeless in London numbers thirty-three thousand.’ ’ Does some one say, This is an overdrawn picture ? Let him investigate. If it is but one-half true, it is deplorable! 292 The Day of Vengeance. DISCONTENT, HATRED, FRICTION PREPARING RAPIDLY FOR SOCIAL COMBUSTION. However it may be explained to the poor that the wealthy never were so charitable as now, that society has more ample provision now than ever before for the poor, the blind, the sick and the helpless, and that immense revenues are raised annually by taxation, for the maintenance of these benefactions, this will surely not satisfy the working¬ man. As a self-respeCting, intelligent citizen it is not alms that he wants; he has no desire to avail himself of the privileges of the poorhouse or when sick to become a charity patient in a hospital; but he does want a chance honestly and decently to earn his bread by the sweat of his face and with the dignity of an honest toiler to maintain his family. But, while he sees himself and his neighbor workmen more dependent than ever upon favor and influence to get and keep a job of work, and the small storekeepers, small build¬ ers and small manufacturers struggling harder than ever for an honest living, he reads of the prosperity of the rich, the growing number of millionaires, the combines of capi¬ tal to control the various industries—the copper business, the steel business, the glass business, the oil business, the match business, the paper business, the coal business, the paint business, the cutlery business, the telegraph business, and every other business. He sees also that these combi¬ nations control the machinery of the world, and that thus, while his labor is depreciating by reason of competition, goods and necessities may be advanced, or at least hindered from declining in proportion to the reduced cost of labor represented in improved machinery displacing human brain and muscle. Under such circumstances can we wonder that at the thirteenth annual convention of the Federation of Labor Preparation of the Elements . 293 at Chicago, the Vice President of the Trades Assembly welcomed the visitors in the following sarcastic language? He said:— “We would wish to bid you welcome to a prosperous city, but truth will not justify the assertion. Things are here as they are, but not as they should be. We bid you welcome in the name of a hundred monopolists, and of fifty thousand tramps, here where mammon holds high carnival in palaces, while mothers are heartbroken, children are starving, and men are looking in vain for work. We bid you welcome in the name of a hundred thousand idle men, in the name of those edifices dedicated to the glory of God, but whose doors are closed at night to the starv¬ ing and poor; in the name of the ministers who fatten from the vineyards of God, forgetting that God’s children are hungry and have no place to lay their heads; in the name of the pillars of the sweating system, of the millionaires and deacons, whose souls are endangered by their appetite for gold; in the name of the wage-workers who sweat blood which is coined into golden ducats; in the name of the insane asylums and poor-houses, packed by people crazed by care in this land of plenty. “ We will show you exhibits of Chicago that were not shown at the fair ground,—of her greatness and her weak¬ ness. To-night we will show you hundreds of men lying on the rough stones in the corridors of this very building —no home, no food—men able and willing to work, but for whom there is no work. It is a time for alarm—alarm for the continuation of a government whose sovereign rights are delivered to railway magnates, coal barons and speculators; alarm for the continuation of a federal govern¬ ment whose financial policies are manufactured in Wall street at the dictation of money barons of Europe. We expedl you to take measures to utilize the franchise and to hurl from power the unfaithful servants of the people who are responsible for existing conditions.” This speaker no doubt errs greatly in supposing that a change of office holders or of parties would cure existing evils; but it surely would be vain to tell him or any other sane man that there is nothing the matter with the 294 The Nay of Vengeance. social arrangement which makes possible such wide extremes of wealth and poverty. However much people may differ as to the cause and the cure, all are agreed that there is a malady. Some are fruitlessly seeking remedies in wrong diredtions, and many, alas! do not want that a remedy shall be found; not until they, at least, have had a chance "o profit by present conditions. In harmony with this thought, George E. McNeill, in an address before the World’s Labor Congress, said: — “The labor movement is born of hunger—hunger for food, for shelter, warmth, clothing and pleasure. In the movement of humanity toward happiness each individual seeks his ideal, often with stoical disregard of others. The industrial system rests upon the devil’s iron rule of every man for himself. Is it an unexplainable phenomenon that those who suffer most under this rule of selfishness and greed should organize for the overthrow of the devil’s system of government?” The newspapers abound with descriptions of fashion¬ able weddings, balls and banquets at which the so-called “upper crust” of society appear in costly robes and rare jewels. One lady at a ball in Paris, recently, it is said, wore $1,600,000 worth of diamonds. The New York World in August 1896 gave a pidture of an American lady arrayed in diamonds and other jewels valued at $1,000,000; and she does not belong to the very uppermost social strata either. The daily press tell of the lavish expenditure of thousands of dollars in providing these banquets—for choice wines, floral decorations, etc. They tell of the palaces eredted for the rich, many of them costing $50,000, and some as much as $1,500,000. They tell of “Dog Socials” at which brutes are fed on dainties at great ex¬ pense, tended by their “nurses.” They tell of $10,000 paid for a dessert service, $6,000 for two artistic flower-jars, $50,000 for two rose-colored vases. They tell that an Preparation of the Elements. 295 English duke paid $350,000 for a horse. They tell how a Boston woman “buried hei husband m a coffin costing * 5 ° ,000. They teii that anotner “lady*' expended $5,000 In burying a pet poodle dog. They tell that New York millionaires pay as high as $800,000 for a single yacht. Can we wonder that many are envious, and some angry and embittered, when they contrast such wastefulness with their own family’s penury, or at least enforced economy? Knowing that not many are “ new creatures” who set their affedtions on things above and not on earthly things, and who have learned that “godliness with contentment is great gain” while they wait until the Lord shall vindicate their cause, we cannot wonder that such matters awaken in the hearts of the masses feelings of envy, hatred, malice, strife; and these feelings will ripen into open revolt which will ultimately work all the works of the flesh and the devil, during the great trouble-time impending “ Behold, this was the iniquity of . . . Sodom,—pride, fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her; . . . neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy , ’ * etc.—Ezek. 16:49, 5 °- The California Christian Advocate, commenting upon one of the fashionable balls of New York City, says:— “The lavish luxury and dazzling extravagance displayed by the wealthy Greeks and Romans of ‘ ye olden times ’ is a matter of history. Such reckless display is beginning to make its appearance in what is called fashionable society in this country. One of our exchanges tells of a New York lady who spent $125,000 in a single season in entertaining. The charadter and value of the entertainments may be judged from the fadt that she taught society how ... to freeze Roman punch in the heart of crimson and yellow tulips, and how to eat terrapin with gold spoons out of silver canoes. Other entertainers decked their tables with costly roses, while one of ‘ the four hundred ’ is said to have spent $50,000 on a single entertainment. Such lavish expendi- 296 The Day oj Vengeance. ture to such poor purpose is sinful and shameful no matter how large a fortune one may possess. Messiah's Herald commented as follows:— “One hundred and forty-four social autocrats, headed by an aristocrat, held a great ball. Royalty never eclipsed it. It was intensely exclusive. Wine flowed like water. Beauty lent her charms. Neither Mark Antony nor Cle¬ opatra ever rolled in such gorgeousness. It was a collec¬ tion of millionaires. The wealth of the world was drained for pearlsand diamonds. Necklaces of gems costing $200,000 and downward emblazoned scores of necks. The dance went on amid Aladdin splendors. Joy was unconfined. While it was going on, says a journal, 100,000 starving miners in Pennsylvania were scouring the roads like cattle in search of forage, some of them living on cats, and not a few com¬ mitting suicide to avoid seeing their children starve. Yet one necklace from the Metropolitan ball would have rescued all these from hunger. It was one of the ‘ great social events ’ of a nation called Christian; but what a contrast! And there is no remedy for it. Thus it will be ‘ till he come.’ ” “Till he come?”—Nay, rather, “Thus shall it be in the days of the Son of Man, ’ ’ when he has come, while he is gather¬ ing his eledl to himself, and thus setting up his Kingdom, whose inauguration will be followed by the “dashing” of the present social system to pieces in a great time of trouble and anarchy, preparatory to the establishment of the King¬ dom of righteousness. (Rev. 2:26, 27; 19:15.) As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the [parousia] presence of the Son of Man.—Matt. 24:37; Luke 17:26, 28. ARE THE RICH TOO SEVERELY CONDEMNED? A recent editorial in the San Francisco Examiner says:— “Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt’s huge British steam yacht Valiante has joined Mr. F. W. Vanderbilt’s British steam Preparation of the Elements. 297 yacht Conqueror in New York Harbor. The Valiante cost $800,000. This represents the profits on a crop of about 15,000,000 bushels of sixty-cent wheat, or the entire product of at least 8,000 160-acre farms. In other words, 8,000 farmers, representing 40,000 men, women and child¬ ren, worked through sun and storm to enable Mr. Vander¬ bilt to have built in a foreign shipyard such a pleasure craft as no sovereign in Europe possesses. The construction of that vessel required the labor of at least 1,000 mechanics for a year. The money she cost, put in circulation among our workmen, would have had a perceptible influence upon the state of times in some quarters.” J. R. Buchanan in the Arena , speaking of the heartless extravagance of the wealthy, says:— “Its criminality is not so much in the heartless motive as in its wanton destruction of happiness and life to achieve a selfish purpose. That squandering wealth in ostentation and luxury is a crime becomes very apparent by a close examination of the act. There would be no harm in build¬ ing a $700,000 stable for his horses, like a Syracuse million¬ aire, or in placing a $50,000 service on the dinner table, like a New York Astor, if money were as free as air and water; but every dollar represents an average day’s labor. Hence the $700,000 stable represents the labor of 1,000 men for two years and four months. It also represents 700 lives; for $1,000 would meet the cost of the first ten years of a child, and the cost of the second ten years would be fully re¬ paid by his labor. The fancy stable, therefore, represents the physical basis of 700 lives, and affirms that the owner values it more highly, or is willing that 700 should die that his vanity might be gratified.” The Literary Digest says:— “Not long since a New England clergyman addressed a letter to Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, asking him to state why, in his opinion, so many intelligent workingmen do not attend church. In reply Mr. Gompers said that one reason is that the churches are no longer in touch with the hopes and aspirations of workingmen, and are out of sympathy with their miseries and burdens. The pastors either do not know, 298 The Day of Vengeance. he said, or have not the courage to declare from their pul¬ pits, the rights and wrongs of the toiling millions. The organizations found most effective in securing improved conditions have been frowned upon by the church. Laborers have had their attention directed to ‘ the sweet by and by,’ to the utter negleht of the conditions arising from ‘the bitter now and now.’ The church and the ministry have been the ‘apologists and defenders of the wrongs committed against the interests of the people, simply be¬ cause the perpetrators are the possessors of wealth. ’ Asked as to the means he would suggest for a reconciliation of the church and the masses, Mr. Gompers recommends ‘a complete reversal of the present attitude. ’ He closes with these words: ‘ He who fails to sympathize with the move¬ ment of labor, he who complacently or indifferently con¬ templates the awful results of present economic and social conditions, is not only the opponent of the best interests of the human family, but is particeps criminis to all wrongs inflidted upon the men and women of our time, the children of to-day, the manhood and womanhood of the future.’ ” While we thus note current opinion in condemnation of the rich as a class, and while we note also the Lord’s con¬ demnation and foretold penalty of this class as a whole, it is but reasonable that God’s people should exercise modera¬ tion in their judgment or opinions of the rich as indi¬ viduals. The Lord, whose judgment against the class is so severe, will nevertheless be merciful to them as indi¬ viduals ; and when in his wisdom he has destroyed their idols of silver and gold, and brought down their high looks, and humbled their pride, he will then be gracious to com¬ fort and to heal such as renounce their selfishness and pride. It will be noted also, that we have quoted only the reasonable and moderate expressions of sensible writers and not the extreme and often nonsensical diatribes of anarchists and visionaries. As an aid to cool moderation in judgment it is well fo? Preparation of the Elements. 2 99 us to remember (i) That the term “rich” is a very broad one, and includes not only the immensely wealthy, but in many minds those who, compared with these, might be considered poor; (2) That among those whom the very poor would term rich are very many of the best and most benevolent people, many of whom are, to a considerable extent, adtive in benevolent and philanthropic enterprises; and if they are not all so to the extent of self-sacrifice, it would certainly be with bad grace that any who have not made themselves living sacrifices for the blessing of others should condemn them for not doing so. And those who have done so know how to appreciate every approach to such a spirit that any, whether rich or poor, may manifest. It is well to remember that many of the rich not only justly pay heavy taxes for public free schools, for the sup¬ port of the government, for the support of public charities, etc., but also cheerfully contribute otherwise to the relief of the poor, and are heartily benevolent to asylums, colleges, hospitals, etc., and to the churches they esteem most worthy. And those who do these things out of good and honest hearts, and not (as we must admit is sometimes the case) for show and praise of men, will not lose their reward. And all such should be justly esteemed. Every one is able and willing to criticize the millionaires, but in some cases we fear the judgment is too severe. We therefore urge that our readers do not think too uncharitably of them. Remember that they as well as the poor are in some respedts under the control of the present social system. Custom has fixed laws and barricades around their heads and hearts. False conceptions of Christianity, endorsed by the whole world—rich and poor—for centuries, have worn deeply the grooves of thought and reason in which their minds travel to and fro. They feel that they must do as other men do;—that is, they must use their time and talents 300 The Day of Vengeance. to their best ability and on “business principles.” Doing this, the money rolls in on them, because money and ma¬ chinery are to-day the creators of wealth, labor being at a discount. Then they no doubt reason that having the wealth it is their duty not to hoard it all, but to spend some of it. They perhaps question whether it would be better to dis¬ pense it as charity or to let it circulate through the avenues of trade, and wages for labor. They properly conclude that the latter would be the better plan. Balls, banquets, weddings, yachts, etc., may strike them as being pleasures to them¬ selves and their friends and an assistance to their less for¬ tunate neighbors. And is there not some truth in that view? The ten thousand dollar banquet, for instance, starts prob¬ ably fifteen thousand dollars into circulation,—through butchers, bakers, florists, tailors, dress-makers, jewelers, etc., etc. The $800,000 yacht, while a great personal ex¬ travagance, caused a circulation of that amount of money amongst workingmen somewhere; and more, it will mean an annual expenditure of at the very least twenty and quite possibly one hundred thousand dollars for officers, engineers, sailors, victuals, etc., and other running expenses. Under present wrong conditions, therefore, it is extremely fortunate for the middle and poorest classes that the wealthy are “ foolishly extravagant,” rather than miserly; spending lavishly a portion of the flood of wealth rolling into their coffers;—for diamonds, for instance, which require “dig¬ ging,” polishing and mounting and thus give employment to thousands who would only add to the number out of work if the wealthy had no foibles or extravagances, but hoarded all they got possession of. Reasoning thus, the rich may adtually consider their extravagances as “char¬ ities.” And if they do, they but follow the same course of false reasoning taken by some of the middle class, when Preparation of the Elements. 301 they get up 4 ‘church sociables” and fairs and festivals “for sweet charity’s sake.” We are not justifying their course: we are merely seeking to point out that the extravagances of the rich in times of financial distress do not of necessity imply that they are devoid of feeling for the poor. And when they think of doing charity on any other than “business principles,” no doubt they refledt that it would require a small army of men and women to superintend the distribution of their daily increase and that they could not feel sure that it would reach the most needy anyway; because selfishness is so general that few could be trusted to dispense large quan¬ tities honestly. A millionairess remarked that she never looked from the windows of her carriage when passing through the poorer quarters, because it offended her eye. We wonder if it was not also because her conscience was pricked by the contrast between her condition and that of the poor. As for seeing to charities themselves,—the men are too busy attending their investments and the women are too refined for such things: they would see unpleasant sights, hear unpleasant sounds and sense unpleasant odors. When poorer they may have coveted such opportunities for good as they now possess: but selfishness and pride and social engagements and ethics offset the nobler sentiments and prevent much fruit. As some one has said, It was because our Lord went about doing good that he was touched with a feeling of man’s infirmities. In making these suggestions for the measure of consola¬ tion they may afford to the poorer classes, we would not be understood as in any sense justifying the selfish extravagance of the rich, which is wrong; and which the Lord con¬ demns as wrong. (Jas. 5:5.) But in consideration of these various sides of these vexed questions the mind is kept balanced, the judgment more sound, and the sympathies 3°2 The Day of Vengeance. more tender toward those whom “the god of this world’ ' has blinded with his riches, until their judgments are perverted from justice, and who are about to receive so severe a reprimand and chastisement from the Lord. The “god of this world ” also blinds the poor upon some questions, to justify a wrong course. He is thus leading both sides into the great “battle.” But although we may find pleas upon which to base some apologies for present augmentations of wealth in the hands of the few; although we may realize that some of the rich, especially of the moderately rich, are very benevolent; and although the contention may be true that they gain their wealth under the operation of the very same laws that govern all, and that some of the poor are less gener¬ ous naturally, and less disposed to be just than some of the rich, and that if places were changed they would often prove more exadting and tyrannical than the rich, yet, nevertheless, the Lord declares that the possessors of wealth are about to be called into judgment on this score, because, when they discerned the tendency of affairs, they did not seek at their own cost a plan more equitable, more generous, than the usage of to-day; as, for instance, along the lines of Socialism. As showing the views of increasingly large numbers of people in reference to the duty of society to either leave free to all the opportunities and riches of nature (earth, air and water) or else if these be monopolized to provide opportunity for daily labor for those who have no share in the monopolies, we quote the following from an exchange. It says : — “A more pathetic incident in real life is seldom told in print than the following, which is vouched for by a kinder¬ garten teacher who resides in Brooklyn, N. Y. “A little girl who attends a kindergarten on the east side, the poorest distridt in New York city, came to the Preparation of the Elements. 3°3 school one morning recently, thinly clad and looking pinched and cold. After being in the warm kindergarten a while the child looked up into the teacher’s face and said earnestly:— “ ‘Miss C-, Do you love God?’ “ ‘ Why, yes,’ said the teacher. “ ‘ Well, I don’t,’ quickly responded the child with great earnestness and vehemence, ‘ I hate him.’ “ The teacher, thinking this a strange expression to come from a child whom she had tried hard to teach that it was right to love God asked for an explanation. “ 4 Well,’ said the child, ‘he makes the wind blow, and I haven’t any warm clothes; and he makes it snow, and my shoes have holes in them, and he makes it cold, and we haven’t any fire at home, and he makes us hungry, and mamma hadn’t any bread for our breakfast.’ ” Commenting it says:—“If we consider the perfedlion of God’s material bounties to the children of earth, it is hard, after reading this story, to regard with patience the com¬ placency of rich blasphemers who, like the innocent little girl, charge the miseries of poverty to God.” However, not much is to be expedled of the worldly; for selfishness is the spirit of the world. We have more reason to look to great and wealthy men who profess to be Christians. Yet these lay neither their lives nor their wealth upon God’s altar in the service of the gospel, nor yet give them in the service of humanity’s temporal wel¬ fare. Of course, the gospel is first! It should have our all of time, talent, influence and means. But where it is hidden from view and does not have control of the heart by reason of false conceptions, from false teachings, the consecrated heart will surely find plenty to do for fal¬ len fellow-creatures, along the lines of temperance work, social uplifting, municipal reform, etc. And indeed quite a few are so engaged, but generally of the poor or the middle class;—few rich, few millionaires. If some of the world’s millionaires possessed that much of the spirit of 3©4 The Day oj Vengeance. Christ and were to bend their mental and financial talents, their own time, and the time of capable helpers who would be glad to assist if the door of opportunity were opened to them, what a social reform the world would witness in one year! How the public franchises granted to corpo¬ rations and trusts would be restricted or reclaimed in the public interest; vicious laws would be amended and in general the interests of the public be considered and guarded, and financial and political ringsters be rendered less powerful, as against the interests of the public. But to expect such a use of wealth is unreasonable; be¬ cause, although many rich men profess Christianity, they, like the remainder of the world, know nothing about true Christianity—faith in Christ as a personal Redeemer , and full consecration of every talent to his service. They wish to be classed as “Christians/ ’ because they do not wish to be classed as “heathen” or “Jews;” because the name of Christ is popular now, even if his real teachings are no more popular than when he was crucified. Truly, God’s Word testifies that not many great or rich or wise hath God chosen to be heirs of the Kingdom; but chiefly the poor and despised according to the course and wisdom and estimate of this world. How hardly (with what difficulty) shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the King¬ dom of heaven.*—Matt. 19:23, 24. But alas! “ the poor rich” will pass through terrible ex- * It is said that the “Needle’s Eye” was the name of a small gateway in the walls of ancient cities, used after sundown, when the larger gates had been closed, for fear of attacks by enemies. They are described as being so small that a camel could pass through only on his knees, after his load had been removed. The illustration would seem to imply that a rich man would needs unload and kneel before he could make his calling and election sure to a place in the Kingdom. Preparation of the Elements. 305 periences. Not only will wealth prove an obstacle to future honor and glory in God’s Kingdom, but even here its ad¬ vantages will be shortlived. “ Go to now, ye rich men , weep and howl for the misery that shall come upon you. . . . Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” The weeping and howling of the rich will be heard shortly; and the knowledge of this should remove all envy and covetousness from all hearts, and fill them instead with sympathy for the “poor rich;”—a sympathy which never¬ theless would not either strive or desire to alter the Lord’s judgment, recognizing his wisdom and goodness, and that the result of the weeping and howling will be a corredtion of heart and an opening of eyes to justice and love, on the part of all,—rich and poor alike—but severest upon the rich, because their change of condition will be so much greater and more violent. But why cannot conditions be so altered as gradually to bring the equalization of wealth and comfort? Because the world is governed not by the royal law of love but by the law of depravity—selfishness. SELFISHNESS IN COMBINATION WITH LIBERTY. Christian dodtrines promote liberty , and liberty leads to and grasps knowledge and education. But liberty and knowledge are dangerous to human welfare, except under obedience to the letter and spirit of the royal law of love. Hence “Christendom,” having accepted Christian liberty and gained knowledge, without having adopted Christ’s law, but having instead grafted its knowledge and liberty upon the fallen, selfish disposition, has merely learned the better how to exercise its selfishness. As a result, Christ¬ endom is the most discontented portion of the earth to¬ day; and other nations share the discontent and its injury 20 D 3°6 The Day of Vengeance. proportionately as they adopt the knowledge and liberty of Christianity without adopting the spirit of Christ, the spirit of love. The Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New, has fostered the spirit of liberty ,—not diredtly, but indirectly. The Law indeed provided that servants be subjedl to their masters, but it also restricted the masters in the interests of the servants, assuring them that injustice would certainly be recompensed by the great Master of all—Jehovah. The Gospel, the New Testament, also does the same. (See Col. 3:22-25; 4:1.) But the Bible assures all that while men differ in mental, moral and physical powers, God has made provision for a full restitution;—that, by faith in Christ, rich and poor, bond and free, male and female, wise and unwise, may all return to divine favor, on a com¬ mon level,—“accepted in the Beloved.” It is not surprising, then, that the Jews of old were a liberty-loving people, and had the name of a rebellious race—not willing to stay conquered, so that their con¬ querors concluded that there was no other way to subjugate them than to utterly destroy them as a nation. Nor is it surprising that able statesmen (even those not Christian) have conceded that “the Bible is the corner stone of our liberties,” and that experience proves that, wherever the Bible has gone, liberty has gone; carrying with it education and generally loftier sentiments. It was so during the first two centuries of the Christian era: then error (priestcraft and superstition) obtained control, the Bible was ignored or suppressed, and instead of further progress, Papacy’s policy brought on the “dark ages.” With the revival 6f the Bible as a public instructor, in the English and Ger¬ man Reformations, liberty, knowledge and progress again appeared amongst the people. It is an incontrovertible fa< 5 t that the lands which have the Bible have the most Preparation of the Elements. 307 liberty and general enlightenment, and that in the lands in which the Bible is freest, the people are freest, most en¬ lightened, most generally educated, and making the most rapid strides of progress in every diredlion. But now notice what we observed above, that the en¬ lightening and freeing influences of the Bible have been accepted by Christendom while its law of love (the law of perfect liberty —Jas. 1: 25) has been generally ignored. Thinking people are just awaking to the fa< 5 t that knowl¬ edge and liberty united constitute a mighty power which may be exerted for either good or evil; that if, as a lever, they move upon the fulcrum of love the results will be powerful for good; but that when they move upon the fulcrum of selfishness the results are evil,—powerful and far reaching evil. This is the condition which confronts Christendom to-day, and which is now rapidly preparing the social elements for the “fire” of “the day of vengeance” and recompenses. In chemistry it is frequently found that some useful and beneficial elements suddenly become rank poison by the change of proportions. So it is with the blessings of knowledge and liberty when compounded with selfishness. In certain proportions this combination has rendered valu¬ able service to humanity, but the recent great increase of knowledge instead of exalting knowledge to the seat of power, has enthroned selfishness. Selfishness dominates, and uses knowledge and liberty as its servants. This com¬ bination is now ruling the world; and even its valuable elements are rendered enemies of righteousness and peace by reason of selfishness being in control. Under these conditions knowledge as the servant of selfishness is most adtive in serving selfish interests, and liberty controlled by selfishness threatens to become self-license, regardless of the rights and liberties of others. Under present condi- 3 °S The Day of Vengeance. tions therefore, selfishness (controlling), knowledge and liberty constitute a Triumvirate of evil power which is now ruling and crushing Christendom;—through its agents and representatives, the wealthy and influential class : and it will be none the less the same Evil Triumvirate when shortly it shall change its servants and representatives and accept as such the masses. All in civilized lands,—rich and poor, learned and un¬ learned, wise and foolish, male and female—(with rare exceptions) are moved to almost every adt of life by this powerful combination. They beget in all their subjedls a frenzy for place, power and advantage, for self-aggrandize¬ ment. The few saints, whose aims are for the present and future good of others, constitute so small a minority as to be scarcely worthy of consideration as a fadtor in the present time. They will be powerless to affedt the good they long for until, glorified with their Lord and Master, they shall be both qualified and empowered to bless the world as God’s Kingdom. And while they are in the flesh they will still have need to watch and pray lest even their higher knowledge and higher liberty become evils by com¬ ing under the domination of selfishness. INDEPENDENCE AS VIEWED BY THE RICH AND BY THE POOR. The masses of the world have but recently stepped from slavery and serfdom into liberty and independence. Knowl¬ edge broke the shackles, personal and political, forcibly: political equality was not granted willingly, but inch by inch under compulsion. And the world of political equals :is now dividing along lines of pride and selfishness, and a new battle has begun on the part of the rich and well-to-do for the maintenance and increase of their wealth and power, Preparation of the Elements. " 309 ana on the part of the lower classes for the right to labor and enjoy the moderate comforts of life. (See Amos 8:4-8.) Many of the wealthy are disposed to think and feel toward the poorer classes thus: Well, finally the masses have got the ballot and independence. Much good may it do them! They will find, however, that brains are an important fadtor in all of life’s affairs, and the brains are chiefly with the aris¬ tocracy. Our only concern is that they use their liberty moderately and lawfully; we are relieved thereby from much responsibility. Formerly, when the masses were serfs, every lord, noble and duke felt some responsibility for those under his care; but now we are free to look out merely for our own pleasures and fortunes. Their inde¬ pendence is all the better for us; every “gentleman” is benefited by the change, and hopes the same for the peo¬ ple, who of course will do the best they can do for their own welfare while we do for ours. In making themselves political equals and independents, they changed our rela¬ tionship—they are now our equals legally, and hence our competitors instead of our proteges; but they will learn by and by that political equality does not make men physically or intellectually equal: the result will be aristocracy of brains and wealth instead of the former aristocracy of heredity. Some of the so-called “under crust” of society thought¬ lessly answer: We accept the situation; we are independ¬ ent and abundantly able to take care of ourselves. Take heed lest we outwit you. Life is a war for wealth and we have numbers on our side; we will organize strikes and boycotts, and will have our way. If the premise be accepted, that all men are independent of each other, and that each should selfishly do the best he can for his own interest, regardless of the interests and wel¬ fare of others, then the antagonistic wealth-war views above 3 IQ The Day of Vengeance. suggested could not be objedled to. And surely it is upon this principle of selfishness and independence that all class¬ es seem to be adting, more and more. Capitalists look out for their own interests, and usually (though there are noble exceptions) they pay as little as possible for labor. And mechanics and laborers also (with noble exceptions) look out for themselves merely, to get as much as possible for their services. How then can either class consistently find fault with the other, while both acknowledge the same principles of independence, selfishness and force? This has become so largely the public view that the old custom for those of superior education, talents and other advantages to visit the poor and assist them with advice or substantiate has died out; and now each attends to his own concerns and leaves the others, independent, to take care of themselves, or often to the generous public pro¬ visions—asylums, hospitals, “ homes,” etc. This maybe favorable to some and in some respedts, but it is apt to bring difficulties to others and in other respedts—through inexperience, improvidence, wastefulness, indolence, im¬ becility and misfortune. The fadt is that neither the rich nor the poor can afford to be selfishly independent of one another, should they feel or adt though they were. Mankind is one family: God “hath made of one blood all nations of men.” (Adts 17:26.) Each member of the human family is a human brother to every other human being. All are children of the one father, Adam, a son of God (Luke 3:38), to whose joint- care the earth with its fulness was committed by God as a stewardship. All are therefore beneficiaries of the divine provision; for still “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” The fall into sin, and its penalty, death, ac¬ complished by a gradual decline—physical, mental and moral—has left all men more or less impaired, and each Preparation of the Elements. 311 needs and should have the others’ sympathy and aid in proportion to the degree of his impairment and consequent dependence , mental, moral and physical. If love were the controlling motive in the hearts of all men each would delight to do his part for the common welfare, and all would be on an equality as respedts the common necessities and some of the comforts of life. This would imply a measure of Socialism. But love is not the controlling motive amongst men, and consequently such a plan cannot operate now. Selfishness is the controlling principle, not only with the major part of, but with nearly all Christendom, and is bearing its own bitter fruit and ripening it now rapidly for the great vintage of Revela¬ tion 14:19, 20. Nothing short of (1) a conversion of the world en masse , or (2) the intervention of superhuman power, could now change the course of the world from the channel of selfish¬ ness to that of love. Such a conversion is not dreamed of even by the most sanguine; for while nominal Christianity has succeeded in outwardly converting comparatively few of earth’s billions, true conversions — from the selfish spirit of the world to the loving, generous spirit of Christ —can be counted only in small numbers. Hence, hope from this quarter may as well be abandoned. The only hope is in the intervention of superhuman power, and just such a change is what God has promised in and through Christ’s Millennial Kingdom. God foresaw that it would require a thousand years to banish selfishness and reestablish love in full control of even the willing; hence the provision for just such “times of restiution.” (A6ls3:2i.) Meantime, however, the few who really appreciate and long for the rule of love can generally see the impossibility of securing it by earthly means; because the rich will not give up their ad¬ vantages willingly; nor would the masses produce sufficient 3 12 The Day of Vengeance. for themselves were it not for the stimulus of either necessity or covetousness, so inherent is selfish ease in some, and selfish, wasteful luxury and improvidence in others. WHY RECENT FAVORABLE CONDITIONS CANNOT CONTINUE. It may be suggested that the rich and poor have lived together for six thousand years, and that there is no more danger of calamity resulting now than in the past; no more danger that the rich will crush the poor and let them starve, nor that the poor will destroy the rich through anarchy. But this is a mistake; there is greater danger than ever before from both sides. Conditions have greatly changed with the masses since the days of serfdom; not only the physical, but also the mental conditions; and now, after a taste of civilization and education, it would require centuries of gradual op¬ pression to make them again submit to the old order of things, in which they were the vassals of the landed nobil¬ ity. It could not be done in one century,—sooner would they die! The very suspicion of a tendency toward such a future for their children would lead to a revolution, and it is this fear which is helping to goad the poor to stronger protests than ever before attempted. But it may be asked, Why should we contemplate such a tendency? Why not suppose a continuance, and even an increase, of the general prosperity of the past century, and particularly of the past fifty years? We cannot so suppose, because observation and reflec¬ tion show that such expectations would be unreasonable, indeed impossible, for several reasons. The prosperity of the present century has been—under divine supervision, Dan. 12 :4—direCtly the result of the mental awakening of Jae world, printing, steam, electricity and applied mechanics Preparation of the Elements. 3 I 3 being the agencies The awakening brought increased Remands for necessities and luxuries from increasing num¬ bers Coming suddenly, the increase of demand exceeded the production; and hence wages in general advanced, indas the supply became equal to and beyond the demands of the home-markets, other nations, long dormant, also awak¬ ened and demanded supplies. For a time all classes bene¬ fited, and all cndlized nations suddenly became much more wealthy as well as much more comfortable than ever before; because the manufacture of machinery required moulders, machinists and carpenters; and these required the assistance of woodsmen and brick-makers and furnace- builders and furnace-men; and when the machines were ready many of them required coal and gave increased de¬ mand for coal-diggers, engineers, firemen, etc. Steamships and railroads were demanded all over the world, and thous¬ ands of men were promptly employed in building, equip¬ ping and operating them. Thus the ranks of labor were suddenly called upon, and wages rose proportionately to the skill demanded. IndireCtly still others were benefited as well as those direCtly employed; because, as men were better paid, they ate better food, wore better clothes and lived in better houses, more comfortably furnished. The farmer not only was obliged to pay more for the labor he hired, but he in turn received proportionately more for what he sold; and thus it was in every branch of industry. So the tanners and shoemakers, the hosierymakers, clock- makers, jewelers, etc., were benefited, because the better the masses were paid the more they could spend both for necessities and luxuries. Those who once went barefoot bought shoes; those who once went stockingless began to consider stockings a necessity; and thus all branches of trade prospered. All this demand coming suddenly, a general and quick prosperity was unavoidable. 3M The Day of Vengeance. Invention was stimulated by the demand, and it has pushed one labor-saving device upon anotner into tne tactot}, the home, onto the farm, everywhere, until now it is hit ficuit for any to earn a Dare living independent of modem machinery. All of this, together with commerce with outside nations, waking up similarly, but later, has kept things going prosperously for the laboring classes, while making the merchants and manufacturers of Christendom fabulously rich. But now we are nearing the end of the lane of prosperity. Already in many directions the world’s supply exceeds the world’s demands, or rather exceeds its \financial ability to grat¬ ify its desires. China, India and Japan, after being excellent customers for the manufactures of Europe and the United States, are now beginning to utilize their own labor (at six to twelve cents per day) in duplicating what they have already purchased; and therefore they will demand less and less proportionately hereafter. The countries of South America have been pushed faster than their intelligence warranted, and some of them are already bankrupt and must economize until they get into better financial condition. Evidently, therefore, a crisis is approaching;—a crisis which would have culminated sooner than this in Europe had it not been for the unprecedented prosperity of this Great Republic, under a protective tariff, which brought hither for investment millions of European capital, as well as drew millions of Europe’s population to share the bene¬ fits of that prosperity, and which incidentally has produced giant corporations and trusts which now threaten the public weal. General prosperity and higher wages came to Europe also. Not only were Europe’s labor ranks relieved, but wars also relieved the pressure of labor-competition by killing a Preparation of the Elements. 315 million of men in the prime of life, and by a destruction of goods and a general interruption of labor. And for the past twenty-five years the constantly increasing standing armies are relieving Europe of other millions of men for the ranks, who otherwise would be competitors; besides, consider the vast numbers employed in preparing military armaments, guns, warships, etc. If, notwithstanding all these conditions so favorable to prosperity and demand for labor at good wages, we now find that the climax has been reached, and that wages are on the downward path again, we are warranted in assert¬ ing, from a human standpoint, as well as from the stand¬ point of God’s revelation, that a crisis is approaching— the crisis of this world’s history. That wages are tending downward throughout the civil¬ ized world, despite the great efforts being made to main¬ tain or advance them, cannot be disputed; and manufact¬ ures of every sort are getting cheaper and cheaper, being produced at less and less cost, and with less and less profit. What will be the result? and how long must we wait for it? The collapse will come with a rush. Just as the sailor who has toiled slowly to the top of the mast can fall sud¬ denly, just as a great piece of machinery lifted slowly by cogs and pulleys, if it slips their hold, will come down again with crushing and damaging force, worse off by far than if it had never been lifted,, so humanity, lifted high above any former level, by the cogs and levers of invention and improvement, and by the block and tackle of general education and enlightenment, has reached a place where (by reason of selfishness) these can lift no more,—where something is giving way. It will catch and steady for a moment (a few years) on a lower level, before the cogs and levers which can go no farther will break under the strain, and utter wreck will result. 310 The Day of Vengeance. When machinery was first introduced the results in com¬ petition with human labor and skill were feared; but the contrary agencies, already referred to (general awakening, in Christendom and outside, the manufacture of machinery, wars, armies, etc.), have until now more than counteracted the natural tendency: so much so that many people have con¬ cluded that this matter adts contrary to reason, and that labor-saving machinery is not at war with human labor. But not so: the world still operates under the law of sup¬ ply and demand; and the operation of that law is sure, and can be made plain to any reasonable mind. The de¬ mand for human labor and skill was only temporarily in¬ creased in preparing the yet more abundant supply of ma¬ chinery to take labor’s place, and, the climax once reached, the readion cannot be otherwise than sudden, and crushing to those upon whom the displaced weight falls. Suppose that civilization has increased the world’s de¬ mands to five times what they were fifty years ago (and surely that should be considered a very liberal estimate), how is it with the supply? All willagreee that invention and machinery have increased the supply to more than ten times what it was fifty years ago. A mentally-blind man can see that as soon as enough machinery has been con¬ structed to supply the demands , thereafter there must be a race, a competition between man and machinery; because there will not be enough work for all, even if no further additions were made of either men or machines. But more competition is being added; the world’s population is increasing rapidly, and machinery guided by increased skill is creating more and better machinery daily. Who cannot see that, under the present selfish system, as soon as the supply exceeds the demand (as soon as we have over¬ production) the race between men and machinery must be a short one, and one very disadvantageous to men. Ma* Preparation of the Elements. 3*7 v chines in general are slaves of iron, steel and wood, vital¬ ized by steam, eledtricity, etc. They can not only do more work, but better work, than men can do. And they have no minds to cultivate, no perverse dispositions to control, no wives and families to think of and provide for; they are not ambitious; they do not form unions and send delegates to interfere with the management of the business, nor do they strike; and they are ready to work extra hours with¬ out serious complaint or extra pay. As slaves, therefore, machines are far more desirable than either black or white human slaves, and human labor and skill are therefore be¬ ing dispensed with as far as possible; and those who own the machine-slaves are glad that under present laws and and usages their fellow-men are free and independent, be¬ cause they are thereby relieved of the responsibility and care on their behalf which their enslavement would neces¬ sitate. The workmen of the world are not blind. They see, dimly at least, to what the present system of selfishness, which they must admit they themselves have helped to foster, and under which they, as well as all others, are still operating, must lead. They do not yet see clearly its in¬ evitableness, nor the abjedtness of the servitude to which, unless turned aside, it will surely and speedily bring them. But they do see that competition amongst themselves to be the servants of the machine-slaves (as machinists, engineers, firemen, etc.) is becoming sharper every year. MACHINERY AS A FACTOR IN PREPARING FOR THE “FIRE.” THE PAST FEW YEARS BUT A FORETASTE OF WHAT IS TO COME. We quote from some of the people who are getting awake, and who realize the possibilities of the future. An urn known writer says:— The Day of Vengeance. 318 “The brilliancy of the ancient Greek city democracies, sparkling like points of light against the dark background of the surrounding barbarism, has been a source of conten¬ tion among the modern advocates of different forms of government. The opponents of popular rule have main¬ tained that the ancient cities were not true democracies at all, but aristocracies, since they rested on the labor of slaves, which alone gave the free citizens the leisure to ap¬ ply themselves to politics. There must be a mudsill class, according to these thinkers, to do the drudgery of the community, and a polity which allows the com¬ mon laborers a share in the government is one which cannot endure. “This plausible reasoning was ingeniously met by Mr. Charles H. Loring in his Presidential address before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1892, when he allowed that modern civilization had all the advantages of ancient slavery without its cruelty. ‘The disgrace of the ancient civilization,’ he said, ‘was its utter want of humanity. Justice, benevolence and mercy held but little sway; force, fraud and cruelty supplanted them. Nor could anything better be expedted of an organization based upon the worst system of slavery that ever shocked the sensibilities of man. As long as human slavery was the origin and support of civilization, the latter had to be brutal, for the stream could not rise higher than its source. Such a civilization, after a rapid culmination, had to de¬ cay, and history, though vague, shows its lapse into a bar¬ barism as dark as that from which it had emerged.’ “ ‘ Modern civilization also has at its base a toiling slave, but one differing widely from his predecessor of the an¬ cients. He is without nerves and he does not know fatigue. There is no intermission in his work, and he performs in a small compass more than the labor of nations of human slaves. He is not only vastly stronger, but vastly cheaper than they. He works interminably, and he works at everything; from the finest to the coarsest he is equally applicable. He produces all things in such abundance that man, relieved from the greater part of his servile toil, realizes for the first time his title of Lord of Creation. The products of all the great arts of our civilization, the Preparation of the Elements. 319 use of cheap and rapid transportation on land and water, printing, the instruments of peace and war, the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds, are made the possibility and the possession of all by the labor of the obedient slave, which we call steam engine.’ “It is literally true that modern machinery is a slave with hundreds of times the productive power of the ancient human slaves, and hence that we have now the material basis fora civilization in which the entire population would constitute a leisure class, corresponding to the free citizens of Athens—a class not free, indeed, to spend its time in indolent dissipation, but relieved of the hardest drudgery, and able to support itself in comfort with no more manual labor than is consistent with good health, mental cultiva¬ tion and reasonable amusement. In Great Britain alone it is estimated that steam does the work of 156,000,000 men, which is at least live times as many as there were in the entire civilized world in ancient times, counting slaves and freemen together. In the United States steam does the work of 230,000,000 men, representing almost the en¬ tire present population of the globe, and we are harnessing waterfalls to eleCtric motors at a rate that seems likely to leave even that aggregation out of sight. “But unfortunately, while we have a material basis for a civilization of universally diffused comfort, leisure and in¬ telligence, we have not yet learned how to take advantage of it. We are improving, but we still have citizens who think themselves fortunate if they can find the opportunity to spend all their waking hours in exhaustive labor—citi¬ zens who by our political theory are the equals of any other men in deciding the policy of the government, but who have no opportunity to acquire ideas on any subjedl beyond that of the outlook for their next meals. “Physical science has given us the means of building the greatest, the most brilliant, the happiest, and the most enduring civilization of which history has any knowledge. It remains for social science to teach us how to use these materials. Every experiment in that diredlion, whether it succeed or fail, is of value. In chemistry there are a thousand fruitless experiments for every discovery. If jlaveali and Altruria have failed, we still owe thanks to their 3 2 ° The Day of Vengeance. projedlors"’ for helping to mark the sunken reefs on the course of progress.” A coal-trade journal, The Black Diamond, says:— “We have only to glance at the rapidity of transporta¬ tion and communication which it has developed to ap¬ preciate the fadt that it has indeed secured a position with the aid of which it is difficult to comprehend how modern business could now be conducted. One point about me¬ chanical mining, and which is a matter of grave importance, is that the mechanic can be depended upon to render steady labor. The prospedts of strikes are therefore greatly diminished, and it is a noticeable fadt that wherever a strike occurs now it is often followed by an extension of the machine sway to new territory. The increased application of mechanical methods on all sides is gradually lining up the relations of cognate trade on a basis of adjustment that will continue to tend towards a point where strikes may become almost impossible. “Eledtricity is yet in its infancy, but where it once takes possession of a field it appears to be permanent, and delvers of the dusky diamonds will soon have to face the stern fadt that where they have not been driven out by the cheap labor of Europe they have a more invincible foe to meet, and that in a few years, where thousands are engaged in mining,hundreds will do an equal amount of work by the aid of eledtrical mining machinery.” The Olyphant Gazette says:— “The wonderful strides of science, and innumerable de¬ vices of this inventive age, are fast driving manual labor out of many industries, and thousands of workingmen who found remunerative employment a few years ago are vainly seeking for something to do. Where hundreds of men were engaged in a mill or fadtory, now a score will do a greater amount of work, aided by mechanical contrivance. The linotype has thrown thousands of printers idle, and so on throughout the various trades, machinery does the work more expeditiously, with less expense, and more satisfac¬ torily than hand-work. “The prospedts are, that in a few years the mining of .mthracite coal will be largely done by eledtric contrivance^ Preparation of the Elements. 3 21 and that man and the mule will be but the accessory of an eleCtric device where labor entailing motive power is at issue.” Another writer notes the following as faCts :— “One man and two boys can do the work which it re¬ quired 1,100 spinners to do but a few years ago. “One man now does the work of fifty weavers at the time of his grandfather.; “Cotton printing machines have displaced fifteen hundred laborers to each one retained. “One machine with one man as attendant manufactures as many horse shoes in one day as it would take 500 men to make in the same time. “Out of 500 men formerly employed at the log sawing business, 499 have lost their jobs through the introduction of modern machinery. “One nail machine takes the place of 1,100 men. “ In the manufacture of paper 95 per cent, of hand labor has been replaced. “ One man can now make as much pottery ware in the same time as 1,000 could do before machinery was applied. “By the use of machinery in loading and unloading ships one man can perform the labor of 2,000 men. “An expert watchmaker can turn out from 250 to 300 watches each year with the aid of machinery, 85 per cent, of former hand labor being thus displaced.” The Pittsburg Post, noting the progress of crude iron manufacture during the past twenty years by improved furnaces, says:— “Twenty years ago, in 1876, the production of pig iron in the United States was 2,093,236 tons. In the year 1895 the production of pig iron in the County of Allegheny was 2,054,585 tons. In 1885 the total production of the country was 4,144,000 tons of pig iron, while in 1895 we led the world with 9,446,000 tons.” Canadians notice the same conditions and the same ef¬ fects. The Montreal Times says:— “With the best machinery of the present day one man c^n produce cotton cloth for 250 people. One man can 21 D 3 22 The Day of "Vengeance. produce woolens for 300 people. One man can produce boots and shoes for 1,000 people. One man can produce bread for 200 people. Yet thousands cannot get cottons, woolens, boots or shoes or bread. There must be some reason for this state of affairs. There must be some way to remedy this disgraceful state of anarchy that we are in. Then, what is the remedy?” The Topeka State Journal says:— “Prof. Hertzka, an Austrian economist and statesman, has discovered that to run the various departments of in¬ dustry to supply the 22,000,000 Austrians with all the nec¬ essaries of life, by modern methods and machinery, would take the labor of only 615,000 men, working the customary number of hours. To supply all with luxuries would take but 315,000 more workers. He further calculates that the present working population of Austria, including all fe¬ males, and all males between the ages of 16 and 50, is 5,000,000 in round numbers. His calculations further led him to assert that this number of workers, all employed and provided with modern machinery and methods, could supply all the population with necessaries and luxuries by working thirty seven days a year, with the present hours. If they chose to work 300 days a year, they would only have to do so during one hour and twenty minutes per day. “ Prof. Hertzka’s figures regarding Austria, ifcorredt, are applicable with little variation to every other country, not ex¬ cepting the United States. There is a steam harvester at work in California that reaps and binds ninety acres a day, with the attention of three men. With gang-plows attached, the steam apparatus of this machine can plow eighty-eight acres a day. A baker in Brooklyn employs 350 men and turns out 70,000 loaves a day, or at the rate of 200 loaves for each man employed. In making shoes with the Mc¬ Kay machine, one man can handle 300 pairs in the same time it would take to handle five pairs by hand. In the agricultural implement factory 500 men now do the work of 2,500 men. “Prior to 1879 it took seventeen skilled men to turn out 500 dozen brooms per week. Now nine men can turn out u,200 dozen in the same time. One man can make and finish 2,500 2-pound tin cans a day. A New York watch Preparation of the Elements. 3 2 3 fadtory can turn out over 1,400 watches a day, 511,000 a year, or at the rate of two or three watches a minute. In the tailoring business one man with electricity can cut 500 garments a day. In Carnegie’s steel works, electricity helping, eight men do the work of 300. One match-mak¬ ing machine, fed by a boy, can cut 10,000,000 sticks a day. The newest weaving loom can be run without attention all through the dinner hour, and an hour and a half after the faCtory is closed, weaving cloth automatically. “Here is presented the problem of the age that is await¬ ing solution: how to so conneCt our powers and our neces¬ sities that there shall be no waste of energy and no want. With this problem properly solved, it is plain that there need be no tired, overworked people; no poverty, no hunger, no deprivation, no tramps. Solutions innumerable have been proposed, but so far none seems applicable with¬ out doing somebody an injustice, real or apparent. The man who shall lead the people to the light in this matter will be the greatest hero and the greatest benefaCtor of his race the world has ever known.” FEMALE COMPETITION A FACTOR. Still another item for consideration is female competition. In 1880 according to the United States’ Census reports, there were 2,477,157 females engaged in gainful occupa¬ tions in the United States. In 1890 the returns showed the number to be 3,914,711, an increase of more than fifty per cent. The increase of female labor along the line of book¬ keeping, copying and stenography shows specially large. The 1880 Census showed 11,756 females so employed; the 1890 Census shuwed 168,374. It is safe to say that the total number of females now (1897) engaged in gainful occupations is over five millions. And now these also are being pushed out by machinery. For instance, a coffee- roasting establishment in Pittsburg recently put in two newly invented coffee-packing machines which are oper- 324 The Day of Vengeance. ated by four women and have caused the discharge of fifty-six women. The competition daily grows more intense, and every valuable invention only adds to the difficulty. Men and women are relieved indeed from much drudgery, but who will maintain them and their families while idle? labor’s views and methods, reasonable and UNREASONABLE. We can but confess that every indication speaks of a greater press for work, by a yet larger army of unemployed, and consequently lower and yet lower wages. To avert this Labor Unions have been formed, which surely have helped somewhat to maintain dignity and pay and man¬ hood, and to preserve many from the crushing power of monopoly. But these have had their bad as well as their good effedts. They have led men to trust in themselves and their Unions for counsel and relief from the dilemma, instead of looking to God and seeking to learn from his Word what is his way, that they might walk therein and not stumble. Had they followed the latter course, the Lord would have given them, as his children, “the spirit of a sound mind,” and would have guided them with his counsel. But such has not been the result; rather the contrary;—unbelief in God, unbelief in man, general dis¬ content and restless, chafing selfishness have become in¬ tensified. Unions have cultivated the feeling of selfish independence and boastfulness, and have made workmen more arbitrary, and alienated from them the sympathies of good-hearted and benevolent men amongst the employers, who are fast coming to the conclusion that it is useless to attempt conciliatory dealing with the Unions, and that the workmen must learn by severe experience to be less arbitrary. preparation of the Elements. 325 The theory of labor is corredt, when it claims that the blessings and inventions incident to the dawning of the Millennial morning should inure to the benefit of all man¬ kind, and not merely to the wealth of those whose ava¬ rice, keen judgments, foresight and positions of advantage have secured to themselves and their children the owner¬ ship of machinery and land, and the extra wealth which these daily roll up. They feel that these fortunate ones should not selfishly take all they can get, but should gener¬ ously share all advantages with them;—not as a gift, but as a right ;—not under the law of selfish competition , but under the divine law of love for the neighbor. They sup¬ port their claims by the teachings of the Lord Jesus, and frequently quote his precepts. But they seem to forget that they are asking the fortun¬ ate ones to live by the rule of love, for the benefit of those less fortunate, who still wish to live by the law of selfish¬ ness. Is it reasonable to ask of others what they are unwill¬ ing to accord to others? And however desirable and com¬ mendable this may be, is it wise to expedt it, if asked? Surely not. The very men who demand most loudly that those more fortunate than they should share with them are quite unwilling to share their measure of prosperity with those less fortunate than themselves. Another result of the rule of selfishness in human affairs is that a majority of the comparatively few men who have good judgment are absorbed by the great business enter¬ prises, trusts, etc., of to-day, while those who offer counsel to Labor Unions are often men of moderate or poor judg¬ ment. Nor is good, moderate advice likely to be accept¬ able when offered. Workingmen have learned to be sus¬ picious, and many of them now presume that those offer¬ ing sensible advice are spies and emissaries in sympathy with the employers’ party. The majority are unreasonable. 3 20 The Day of Vengeance. and subject only to the shrewd ones who pander to the whims of the more ignorant, in order to be their comfort¬ ably-paid leaders. Whether it be of ignorance or of bad judgment, fully one half of the advice accepted and aCted upon has proved bad, unwise and unfavorable to those designed to be bene¬ fited. The trouble, in great part, no doubt is that, lean¬ ing on the arm of human strength, as represented in their own numbers and courage, they negledt the wisdom which is from above, which is “ first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. ’ ’ Consequently they have not “the spirit [disposition] of a sound mind” to guide them.—2 Tim. 1: 7. They fancy that they can by Unions, boycotts, etc., keep the price of labor in a few departments double or treble the prices paid for other kinds of labor. They fail to observe that under the new mechanical conditions it does not as formerly require years to learn a trade; that with common school and newspaper education general, thousands can speedily learn to do what few understood formerly; and that the oversupply of labor, breaking down prices in one trade or industry, will turn that many more men into competition for easier or more remunerative em¬ ployment in other directions, and ultimately with such a pressure of numbers as to be irresistible. Men will not stand back and hunger, and see their families starve, rather than accept for one or two dollars per day, a situation now paying three or four dollars per day to another. So long as the conditions were favorable —the labor sup¬ ply less than the demand or the demand for goods greater than the supply—Labor Unions could and did accomplish considerable good for their members by way of maintain¬ ing good wages, favorable hours and healthful conditions. Preparation of the Elements . 327 and they are still helpful. But it is a mistake to judge the future by the past in this matter, and to rely upon Unions to counteract the laws of supply and demand. Let labor look away to its only hope, the Lord, and not lean upon the arm of flesh. THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND INEXORABLE UPON ALL. The present basis of business, with small and great, rich and poor, as we have seen, is love-less, crushing, selfish. Manufactured goods are sold at as high prices as the manufacturers and merchants can get for them: they are bought by the public at as low prices as will secure them. The question of aCtual value is seldom even considered, except from the selfish side. Grain and farm produce are sold at as high prices as the farmer can get, and are bought by the consumers at as low prices as will procure them. Labor and skill, likewise, are sold at as high prices as their owners can command, and are bought by farmers, merchants and manufacturers, at as low prices as will secure what they need. The operations of this “Law of Supply and Demand” are absolute: no one can alter them; no one can ignore them entirely and live under present social arrangements. Suppose, for instance, that the farmer were to say, “I will defy this law which now governs the world. The price of wheat is sixty cents per bushel; but it should be one dollar per bushel in order to properly pay for my own labor and that which I employ: I will not sell my wheat under one dollar per bushel.” The result would be that his wheat would rot, his family would be needy for clothing, his hired help would be deprived of their wages by his whim, and the man of whom he borrowed money would become impatient at his failure to meet his engagements and would sell his farm, and wheat, and all, for his debt. 3 2 8 The Day of Vengeance. Or suppose the matter the other way. Suppose the farmer should say, “I am now paying my farm helpers thirty dollers per month; but I learn that in a nearby town mechanics who work no harder, and for shorter hours, ire paid from fifty to a hundred dollars per month: I am resolved that hereafter I will make eight hours a day’s work and sixty dollars a month’s pay the year round.” What would be the result of such an attempt to defy the law of supply and demand? He would probably soon find him¬ self in debt. True, if all farmers in the United States paid the same wages, and if all sold at fair prices, it could be done; but stt the close of the season the elevators would be full of wheat, for Europe would buy elsewhere. And what then? Why, the news would be telegraphed to India, Russia and South America, and the wheat growers there would ship their wheat here, and break what would be termed the Farmer’s Combine, and supply the poor with cheap bread. Evidently such an arrangement, if it could be effected, could not last more than one year. And this same law of the present social order—the Law of Supply and Demand—equally controls every other prod¬ uct of human labor or skill, varying according to cir¬ cumstances. In this Great Republic, conditions have been favorable to a large demand, high wages and good profits, by reason of a protective tariff against the competition of Europe, and the tendency has been for the money of Europe to come here for investment, because of better profits; and foreign labor and skill also came here for the sake of bet¬ ter pay than could be obtained at home. These were but the operations of the same Law of Supply and Demand. And the millions of money for investment in machinery and railroads, and to provide the people with homes and the necessities of life, have for years made this the most Preparation of the Elements. 329 remarkable country of the world for prosperity. But the height of this prosperity is passed, and we are on the down¬ ward slope. And nothing can hinder it except it be war or other calamities in the other civilized nations, which would throw the business of the world for a time to the nations at peace. The war between China and Japan re¬ lieved the pressure slightly, not only by reason of the arms and ammunition bought by the contending parties, but also by the indemnity paid by China to Japan which in turn is being expended by Japan for war vessels now under con¬ struction in various countries, chiefly in Great Britain. Moreover, the realization that Japan is now a “sea power” has led the governments of Europe and the United States to add to their naval equipment. Nothing could be more short-sighted than the recent mass meeting of workingmen held in New York to protest against further expenditure for naval and coast defenses in the United States. They should see that such expenditures help to keep labor em¬ ployed. Opposed as we are to war, we are no less opposed to having men starve for want of employment; and would risk the increased danger of war. Let the debts of the world turn into bonds. Bonds will be just as good as gold and silver in the great time of trouble approaching.—Ezek. 7: 19; Zeph. 1:18. Many can see that competition is the danger: conse¬ quently the “Chinese Exclusion Bill” became a law, not only stopping the immigration of the Chinese millions, but providing for the expulsion from this country of all who do not become citizens. And now to stop immigra¬ tion from Europe a law has passed forbidding the land¬ ing of emigrants who cannot read some language. Many see that under the law of supply and demand labor will soon be on a common level the world over, and they de¬ sire to prevent as much as possible, and as long as possible. 33 ° The Day of Vengeance. the degradation of labor in the United States, to either the European or Asiatic levels. Others are seeking to legislate a remedy,—to vote that manufacturers shall pay large wages and sell their products at a small margin above cost. They forget that Capital, if made unprofitable here, will go elsewhere to build, employ and manufacture,—where conditions are favorable, where wages are lower or prices more profitable. But the outlook for fifteen years hence under present conditions appears yet darker, when we take a still wider view of the subject. The Law of Supply and Demand gov¬ erns capital as well as labor. Capital is as alert as Labor to seek profitable employment. It, too, keeps posted, and is called hither and thither throughout the world. But Capital and Labor follow opposite routes and are governed by opposite conditions. Skilled Labor seeks the localities where wages are highest; Capital seeks the regions where wages are lowest, that thus it may secure the larger profits. Machinery has served Capital graciously, and still serves faithfully; but as Capital increases and machinery multiplies * ‘overproduction” follows; that is, more is produced than can be sold at a profit; and competition, lower prices and smaller profits follow. This naturally leads to com¬ binations for maintaining prices and profits, called Trusts; but it is doubtful if these can long be maintained except in connection with patented articles, or commodities whose supply is very limited, or fostered by legislation which sooner or later will be corrected. i OUTLOOK FOR FOREIGN INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION APPALLING. But just at this juncture a new field for enterprise and capital, but not for labor, opens up. Japan and China are awakening to Western civilization from a sleep of centuries; Preparation of the Elements. 3Z r - —to an appreciation of steam, electricity, machinery and modern inventions in general. We should remember that Japan’s population about corresponds to that of Great Britain; and that China’s population is more than five times that of the United States. Let us remember, too, that these millions are not savages, but people who gener- ally can read and write their own language; and that their civilization, although different, is far older than that of Europe—that they were civilized, manufacturers of China wares and silk goods when Great Britain was peopled with savages. We need not be surprised, therefore, to learn that Capital is seeking engagement in China, and especially in Japan—to build railroads there, to carry thither machinery, to ereCt there large manufacturing establishments;—that thus they may utilize the skill, energy, thrift, patience and submissiveness of those millions ac¬ customed to toil and frugality. Capital sees large rewards in a land where labor can be had at from six to fifteen cents per day for each employee —accepted without a murmur, and with thanks. Con¬ siderable capital has already gone to Japan, and more awaits concession in China. Who cannot see that it will require even less than the fifteen years we suggest to bring the whole manufacturing world into competition with these millions of already skillful and apt-to-learn peoples? If present wages in Europe are found insufficient; and if because of previous munificent wages in the United States and the (as compared with Europe and Asia) extravagant ideas and habits cultivated here, we consider present wages “starva¬ tion wages ’ ’ (although they are still double what is paid in Europe and eight times what is paid in Asia), what would be the deplorable condition of labor throughout the civil¬ ized world after thirty more years of inventing and building of labor-saving machinery; and after all the 33 2 The Day of Vengeance. labor of the world has been brought into close competition with the cheap labor of the far East? It would mean not only fifteen cents a day as pay, but in addition six men for every job at even that pittance. The public press has recently noted the removal of a cotton mill from Connec¬ ticut to Japan, and we must expect that before long others will follow, in order to secure a field of cheaper labor and of consequently larger profits. The German Emperor evidently sees this “industrial war” approaching; he symbolically represented it in the celebrated picture drawn by an artist under his guidance and presented, to the Czar of Russia. The picture represents the nations of Europe by female figures clad in armor standing in the light shining from across in the sky above them, and at the direc¬ tion of an angelic figure representing Michael looking to a black cloud arising from China and floating toward them, from which hideous forms and faces are developed by the flashing lightning. Under the picture are the words: “ Na¬ tions of Europe! Join in the defense of your Faith and your Homes.” THE YELLOW MAN WITH WHITE MONEY. The following is extracted from an able paper in the Journal of the Imperial Colonial Institute (English), by Mr. Whitehead, a member of the Legislative Council, Hong Kong, China. It is in every way reliable. He says: — “So far, the Chinese have made but a beginning in the construction of spinning and weaving factories. On the river Yang Tsze and in the neighborhood of Shanghai, some five mills are already working, and others are in course of con¬ struction. It is estimated that they will contain about 200,000 spindles; and some of them have commenced work. The capital employed is entirely native, and with peace restored in these regions, there is, with honest, cap¬ able management, while our present monetary system Preparation of the Eleme?its. 333 continues, really no limit to the expansion and develop¬ ment of industries in Oriental countries.” Here we notice along the same lines a Washington, D. C., dispatch of Aug. 21, ’96, announcing a report to the Government by Consul General Jernigan, stationed at Shanghai, China, to the effedt that the cotton industry there is receiving great attention; that since 1890 cotton- mills are being introduced and prospering; that now a cotton-seed-oil plant is being started; and that as in China the area suitable for the cultivation of cotton is almost as limitless as the supply of very cheap labor, “there can be no doubt that China will soon be one of the greatest cotton producing countries in the world.” Mr. Whitehead discusses the recent war between China and Japan, and declares that in it lies the chief hope of China’s industrial resurredtion. He continues:— “The outcome of the present war may help to relieve the Chinese people from the trammels of the mandarins. China’s mineral and other resources are known to be enormous, and at the very door they have millions of acres of land admirably adapted to the cultivation of cotton, which, though of short staple, is suitable for mixing with other qualities. In the Shanghai River in December, 1893, there were at one time no less than five ocean-going steamers < taking in cargoes of China-grown cotton for transportation to Japan, there to be converted by Japanese mills and Japanese hands into yarn and cloth. The Japanese are now importing for their mills cotton diredt from America and elsewhere. After this terrible awakening, should China, with her three hundred millions of intensely industrious people, open her vast inland provinces by the introdudtion of railways, her interior waterways to steam traffic and her boundless resources to development, it is impossible to form an estimate of the consequences. It would mean the discovery of pradtically a new hemisphere, thickly populated with in¬ dustrious races, and abounding in agricultural, mineral and other resources; but so far from the opening of China, which we may reasonably hope will be one of the results 334 T'ke Day of Vengeance. of the present war, being a benefit to English manufacturers, unless some change is made, and that soon, in our mone¬ tary standard, the Celestial Empire, which has been the scene of so many of our industrial victories, will only be the field of our greatest defeat. ’ * Mr. Whitehead’s view is purely capitalistic when he speaks of “ defeat;”—really the “defeat” will fall still heavier upon English labor. Continuing, he glances at Japan, as follows:— “The neighborhood of Osaka and Kioto is now a sur¬ prising spectacle of industrial activity. In a very brief period of time no less than fifty-nine cotton spinning and weaving mills have sprung into existence there, with the aid of upwards of twenty millions of dollars, entirely native capital. They now have 770,874 spindles, and in May last competent authorities estimated the annual output of these mills at over 500,000 bales of yarn, valued roughly at forty millions of dollars, or at the present exchange, say, four million pounds sterling. In short, Japanese industries, not only spinning and weaving, but of all classes, have in¬ creased by leaps and bounds. They have already carried their success to a point from which they may to a consider¬ able extent disregard British industrial competition.” Mr. Whitehead proceeds to show that the capitalists of Europe and the United States, having demonetized silver^ have nearly doubled the value of gold, and that this nearly doubles the advantage of China and Japan. He says:— “Let me explain that silver will still employ the same quantity of Oriental labor as it did twenty or thirty years ago. The inadequacy of our monetary standard therefore allows Eastern countries to now employ at least one hundred per cent, more of labor for a given amount of gold than they could do twenty-five years ago. To make this im¬ portant statement quite clear allow me to give the follow¬ ing example: In 1870 ten rupees was the equivalent of one sov¬ ereign under the joint standard of gold and silver, and paid twenty men for one day. To-day twenty rupees are about the equivalent of one sovereign, so that for twenty rupees forty men can be engaged for one day, instead of twenty Preparation of the Ele??ients. 335 men as in 1870. Against such a disability British labor cannot possibly compete. “In Oriental countries silver will still pay for the same quantity of labor as formerly. Yet, as now measured in gold, silver is worth less than half of the gold it formerly equalled. For example, a certain quantity of labor could have been engaged in England twenty years ago for, say, eight shillings. Eight shillings in England now will pay for no more labor than formerly, wages being about the same, and they have still by our law exactly the same mon¬ etary value as formerly, though their metallic value has, by the appreciation of gold, been reduced to less than six¬ pence each. The two dollars exadlly similar to the old ones, can employ the same quantity of labor as before, but no more, yet at the present gold price they are only equal to four shillings. Therefore it is possible now to employ as much labor in Asia for four shillings of our money, or the equivalent thereof in silver, as could have been em¬ ployed twenty years ago for eight shillings, or its then equivalent in silver. The value of Oriental labor having thus been reduced by upwards of fifty-five per cent, in gold money compared with what it was formerly, it will be able to produce manufactures and commodities just so much cheaper than the labor in gold-standard countries. There¬ fore, unless our monetary law is amended, or unless British labor is prepared to accept a large reduction of wages , British industrial trades must mevitably leave British shores , because their products will be superseded by the esiablishme 7 it of in¬ dustries in silver-standard countries. ’ ’ Mr. Whitehead might truthfully have added that the silver standard countries will soon not only be prepared to supply their own needs, but also to invade the gold stand¬ ard countries. For instance, Japan could sell goods in England at prices one-third less than prevail in Japan; and, by exchanging the gold money received into silver money, can take home to Japan large profits. Thus the American and European mechanics will not only be forced to compete with the Asiatic cheap and patient labor and skill, but in addition will be at the disadvantage in the 33 ^ The Day of Vengeance. competition by reason of the difference between the gold and silver standards of financial exchange. Commenting upon Mr. Whitehead's Iedlure, the Daily Chronicle (London) calls attention to the fadt that India Aas already largely supplanted much of England’s trade in cotton manufactures. It said: — “The Hon. T. H. Whitehead’s ledture last night at the Colonial Institute drew attention to some astonishing figures in relation to our eastern trade. The fadt that during the last four years our exports show a decrease of ^54,000,000- has unfortunately nothing disputable about it. The returns of the sixty-seven spinning companies of Lancashire for 1894 show an aggregate adverse balance of ^411,000. Against this the increase in the export of Indian yarns and piece goods to Japan has been simply colossal, and the cot¬ ton mills at Hiogo, in Japan, for 1891, showed an average profit of seventeen per cent. Sir Thomas Sutherland has said that before long the Peninsular and Oriental Company may be building its ships on the Yang-tze, and Mr. White- head belives that Oriental countries will soon be competing in European markets. However much we may differ about proposed remedies, statements like these from the mouths of experts afford matter for serious refledlion.” A German newspaper, Tageblatt (Berlin), has been look¬ ing up the matter of Japan’s recent vidtory over China, and is surprised at the intelligence it finds. It pronounces Count Ito, the Japanese Prime Minister, another Bismarck ; and the Japanese in general quite civilized. It concludes with a very significant remark respedting the industrial war which we are considering, saying: — “Count Ito shows much interest in the industrial devel¬ opment of his fatherland. He believes that most foreigners underrate the chances of Japan in the international struggle for industrial supremacy. The Japanese women, he thinks, are equal to the men in every field of labor, and double the capacity for work of the nation.” The Editor of the Eco 7 iomiste Francais (Paris), com¬ menting upon Japan and its affairs, says, significantly:— Preparation of the Elements. O ? *7 s “The world has entered upon a new stage. Europeans must reckon with the new factors of civilization. The Powers must cease to quarrel among themselves, and must show a combined front, and they must remember that henceforth the hundreds of millions in the far East—sober, hard-working and nimble workmen—will be our rivals. ’ ’ Mr. George Jamison, British Consul General at Shanghai, China, writing on the subjedt of Oriental Competition, points out that the demonetization and hence depreciation of silver, leaving gold the standard money in civilized lands, is another item which depresses Labor and profits Capital. He says:— “The continual rise in the value of gold, as compared with that of silver, has changed everything. British goods got so dear in their silver value that the Orient was forced to make for himself, and the decline in the value of the white metal has so helped him in his work that he cannot only make sufficient for himself but is able to export them to advantage. The rise in the value of gold has doubled the silver price of British goods in the East and has made their use almost prohibitive, while the fall in the value of silver has brought down by over a half the gold price of Oriental goods in gold using countries, and is continually increasing the demand for them. The conditions are so unequal that it seems impossible to continue the struggle long. It is like handicapping the champion by giving to his opponent half the distance of the race. “The impossibility of the European competing with the Oriental in the open field has been proved in America. The Chinese there by their low wages so monopolized labor that they had to be excluded from the country or the European workmen would have starved or been driven out. But the European countries are not threatened with the laborer himself as the Americans were (he knew the price of European labor, and could learn, understand, how much he should get himself), but with the products of that labor done at Oriental wages. Besides, it would be easy enough to refuse to employ an Oriental to do your work while it is difficult to decline to buy goods made by him, especially 22 D 33 § The Day of Vengeance. as they improve in quality and get cheaper in price. The temptation to buy them becomes ail the greater as the money earned by the British workman gets less. He is the more prone to do so, and declines to buy his own vnak^ but dearer goods. Protedtive countries are better off. They can impose increased duties on Oriental goods, and so stop them from flooding their markets. But England with her free trade has no defence, and the brunt of the burden will fall upon her workmen. The evil is getting greater. Every farthing in the increase of the price of gold as compared with that of silver makes English goods one per cent, dearer in the East, while every farthing decrease in the price of silver makes Oriental goods one per cent, cheaper in gold-using countries. These new industies are growing very rapidly in Japan, and what is being done there can and will be done in China, India and other places. Once well established, the Orient will hold on to them in spite of all opposition, and unless some speedy remedy is found to alter the currency system of the world, their products will be spread broadcast all over the world to the ruin of British industries and untold disaster to thousands and thousands of workmen.” Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, who for several years was a teacher in Japan, in an article in the Atlantic Monthly ( 061 . ’95), points out as one of the reasons why Japanese competition will be sharp, that the poor can live and move and have their being, comfortably, according to their ideas of comfort, at almost no expense. He explains that a Japan¬ ese city is made up of houses of mud, bamboos and paper, put up in five days, and intended to last, with endless re¬ pairing, only so long as its owner may not desire to change his abode. There are, in fadl, no great buildings in Japan except a few colossal fortresses eredted by the nobles while feudalism prevailed. The modern fadfories in Japan, however extensive their business or however beautiful and costly their produdts, are but long-drawn shanties, and the very temples must, by immemorial custom, be cut into little pieces every twenty years, and distributed among the Preparation of the Elements 339 pilgrims. A Japanese workman never roots himself or wishes to root himself. If he has any reason for changing his province he changes it at once, dismantling his house, the paper and mud hut which is so picturesque and cleanly, packing his belongings on his shoulder, telling his wife and family to follow, and trudging off with a light step and a lighter heart for his far-away destination, perhaps five hun¬ dred miles off, where he arrives after an expenditure of per¬ haps, at the outside, 5s. ($1.22), immediately builds him a house which costs a few shillings more, and is at once a re¬ spectable and responsible citizen again. Says Mr. Hearn :—- “All Japan is always on the move in this way, and change is the genius of Japanese civilization. In the great industrial competition of the world, fluidity is the secret of Japanese strength. The worker shifts his habitation without a regret to the place where he is most wanted. The faCtory can be moved at a week’s notice, the artisan at half-a-day’s. There are no impedimenta to transport, there is practically nothing to build, there is no expense except in coppers to hinder travel. “ The Japanese man of the people—the skilled laborer able to underbid without effort any Western artisan in the same line of industry—remains happily independent of both shoemaker and tailor. His feet are good to look at, his body is healthy and his heart is free. If he desire to travel a thousand miles, he can get ready for his journey in five minutes. His whole outfit need not cost seventy-five cents ; and all his baggage can be put into a handkerchief. On ten dollars he can travel a year without work, or he can travel simply on his ability to work, or he can travel as a pilgrim. You may reply that any savage can do the same thing. Yes, but any civilized man cannot; and the Jap¬ anese has been a highly civilized man for at least a thousand years. Hence his present capacity to threaten Western manufacturers.” Commenting on the above the London Spectator says:— “ That is a very noteworthy sketch, and we acknowledge frankly, as we have always acknowledged, that Japanese 34 ^ The Day of Vengeance. competition is a very formidable thing, which some day may deeply affedt all the conditions of European indus¬ trial civilization.” The character of the competition to be expected from this quarter will be seen from the following, from the Literary Digest on “the condition of labor in japan.” “Japan has made astonishing progress in the develop¬ ment of her industries. This is in no small measure due to the intelligence and the diligence of her laborers, who will often work fourteen hours per day without complain¬ ing. Unfortunately, their complaisance is abused to a great extent by their employers, whose only object seems to be to overcome foreign competition. This is specially the case in the cotton manufacture, which employs large numbers of hands. An article in the Echo , Berlin, de¬ scribes the manner in which Japanese factories are run as follows:— “The usual time to begin work is 6 a. m., but the work¬ men are willing to come at any time, and do not complain if they are ordered to appear at 4 a. m. Wages are sur¬ prisingly low; even in the largest industrial centers weavers and spinners average only fifteen cents a day; women re¬ ceive only six cents. The first fadtories were built by the government, which afterward turned them over to joint stock companies. The most prosperous industry is the manufadture of cotton goods. A single establishment, that of Kanegafuchi, employs 2,100 men and 3,700 women. They are divided into day and night shifts and interrupt their twelve hours’ work only once, for forty minutes, to take a meal. Near the establishment are lodgings, where the workers can also obtain a meal at the price of not quite one and a half cents. The Osaka spinneries are similar. All these establishments possess excellent English machines, work is kept going day and night, and large dividends are realized. Many of the fadtories are opening branch works, or increasing their original plant, for the production is not yet up to the consumption. Preparation of the Elements. 341 “That the manufacturers have learned quickly to employ women as cheap competitors to male laborers is proved by the statistics, which show that thirty-five spin- neries give work to 16,879 women and only 5,730 men. The employers form a powerful syndicate and often abuse the leniency of the authorities, who do not wish to cripple the industries. Little girls eight and nine years of age are forced to work from nine to twelve hours. The law requires that these children should be in school, and the teachers complain; but the officials close their eyes to these abuses. The great obedience and humility of the work¬ men have led to another practise, which places them com¬ pletely in the power of their employers. No mill will employ a workman from another establishment unless h$y produces a written permit from his late employer. This rule is enforced so strictly that a new hand is closely watched, and if it is proved that he already knows some¬ thing of the trade, but has no permit, he is immediately discharged.” The British Trade Journal for June, ’96, prints an ac¬ count of the industries of Osaka, from a letter of a corres¬ pondent of the Adelaide (Australia) Observer. This correspondent, writing directly from Osaka, is so impressed with the variety and vitality of the industries of the city that he calls it “the Manchester of the Far East:”— “Some idea of the magnitude of the manufacturing in¬ dustry of Osaka will be formed when it is known that there are scores of factories with a capital of over 50,000 yen and under, more than thirty each with a capital of over 100,000 yen, four with more than 1,000,000 yen, and one with 2,000,000 yen. These include silk, wool, cotton, hemp, jute, spinning and weaving, carpets, matches, paper, leather, glass, bricks, cement, cutlery, furniture, umbrellas, tea, sugar, iron, copper, brass, sake, soap, brushes, combs, fancy ware, etc. It is, in fact, a great hive of activity and enterprise, in which the imitative genius and the un¬ flagging pertinacity of the Japanese have set themselves to equal, and, if possible, excel, the workers and artisans of the old civilized nations of the West. 342 The Day of Vengeance. I “ There are ten cotton mills running in Osaka, the com¬ bined capital of which is about $9,000,000 in gold, all fitted up with the latest machinery, and completely lighted by elediricity. They are all under Japanese management, and, it is said, all paying handsome dividends,—some as much as eighteen per cent, on the invested capital. Out of $19,000,000 worth of cotton imported into Japan in 1894, the mills of Kobe and Osaka took and worked up about seventy-nine per cent.” A silver “yen” is now worth about 50 cents in gold. Note also the following telegram to the public press:— “San Francisco, Cal., June 6, 1896.—Hon. Robert P. Porter, editor of the Cleveland World and ex-superinten¬ dent of 1890 U. S. Census, returned from Japan on the steamer Peru, yesterday. Mr. Porter’s visit to the empire of the Mikado was for the purpose of investigating the in¬ dustrial conditions of that country with regard to the ef¬ fect of Japanese competition upon American prosperity. After thorough investigation of the aCtual conditions in Japan, he expresses the belief that this is one of the most momentous problems which the United States will be obliged to solve. The danger is close at hand as evinced by the enormous increase of Japanese manufactures within the past five years, and its wonderful resources in the way of cheap and skillful labor. Japanese export of textiles alone have increased from $511,000 to $23,000,000 in the last ten years; and their total exports increased from $78,- 000,000 to $300,000,000 in the same period, said Mr. Porter. Last year they purchased $2,500,000 worth of our raw cotton, but we purchased of Japan various goods to the amount of $54,000,000. “To illustrate the rapid increase he mentioned matches, of which Japan manufactured $60,000 worth ten years ago, chiefly for home consumption, while last year the total out¬ put was $4,700,000 worth, nearly all of which went to India. Ten years ago the exports of matting and rugs was $885 worth; last year these items amounted to $7,000,000 worth. They are enabled to do this by a combination of modern machinery and the most docile labor in the world. They have no faCtory laws, and can employ children at any Preparation of the Elements. 343 age. Children, seven, eight and nine years of age work the whole day long at one to two American cents per day. “In view of the growing demand for our cotton and the growth of their exports of manufactured goods to us, a Japanese syndicate was formed while I was there, with a capital stock of $5,000,000 to build and operate three new lines of steamships between Japan and this country, the American ports designated being Portland, Oregon, Phila¬ delphia and New York.” The reporter saw and interviewed Mr. S. Asam, of Tokio, Japan, a representative of the above mentioned steamship syndicate, who arrived on the same steamer with Mr. Porter, to make contracts for building said steamers. He explained that the Japanese government had recently offered a large subsidy for vessels of over 6,000 tons bur¬ den, between the United States and Japan, and that their syndicate had formed to take advantage of the same, and would build all of its vessels still larger—of about 9,000 tons capacity. The syndicate proposes to do a very heavy business, and to this end will cut the freight and passenger rates very low. A $9 passenger rate between Japan and our Pacific coast is contemplated. U. S. CONGRESS INVESTIGATES JAPANESE COMPETITION. The following, taken from a report of a U. S. Congres¬ sional Committee, should be considered reliable beyond question, and it fully confirms the foregoing:— “ Washington, June 9, ’96.—Chairman Dingley, of the House ways and means committee, to-day made a report on the menace to American manufacturers by the threatened invasion of the cheap products of Oriental labor and the effeCt of the difference of exchange between gold and silver standard countries upon United States’ manufacturing and agricultural interests, these questions having been in¬ vestigated by the committee. “The report says the sudden awakening of Japan is be¬ ing followed by an equally rapid westernizing of her 344 The Day of Vengeance. methods of industry; that, while the Japanese do not have the inventive faculty of Americans, their imitative powers are wonderful. Their standard of living would be regarded as practical starvation by the workmen of the United States, and their hours of labor average 12a day. Such skilled workmen as blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, com¬ positors, tailors and plasterers receive in Japanese cities only from 26 to 33 cents, and faCtory operatives 5 to 20 cents per day in our money, and nearly double those sums in Japanese silver money, while farm hands receive #1.44 per month. “ The report continues: Europeans and Americans are recognizing the profitable field afforded for investment and factories. Sixty-one cotton mills controlled ostensibly by Japanese companies, but promoted by Europeans, and sev¬ eral small silk factories are in operation, with something over half a million spindles. Japan is making most of the cotton goods required to supply the narrow wants of her own people, and is beginning to export cheap silk fabrics and handkerchiefs. “ Recently, a watch faCtory with American machinery was established by Americans, although the stock is held in the names of Japanese, as foreigners will not be per¬ mitted to carry on manufacturing in their own names un¬ til 1899. The progress made indicates that the enterprise will prove a success. “It is probable the rapid introduction of machinery into Japan will, within a few years, make fine cottons, silks and other articles in which the labor cost here is an im¬ portant element in production, a more serious competitor in our markets than the products of Great Britain, France and Germany have been. “According to Mr. Dingley, the competition will differ, not in kind, but in degree from European competition. The committee knows no remedy, outside of the absolute prohibition enforced against conviCt labor goods, except the imposition of duties on competing goods equivalent to the difference of cost and distribution. An argument for this policy is made; it being said to accomplish a double purpose, the collection of revenue to support the govern¬ ment and the placing of competition in our markets on the Preparation of the Elements. 345 basis of our.higher wages. This is said to be not for the benefit of the manufacturer in this country, for the manu¬ facturer has only to go to England or Japan to place him* self on the same basis as he is placed here under duties or competing imports equivalent to the difference of wages here and there, but to secure to all the people the benefits which come from home rather than foreign production.” The Japanese government gives no protection to foreign patents. The civilized world’s most valuable labor-saving machinery is purchased and duplicated cheaply by her cheap craftsmen who, though not “original,” are, like the Chinese, wonderful imitators. Thus her machinery will cost less than one half what it costs elsewhere; and Japan will soon be prepared to sell Christendom either its own patented machinery or its manufactured products. Under the caption, “Japanese Competition,” the San Francisco Chronicle says :— “Another straw showing which way the wind of Japanese competition blows is the transfer of a great straw matting man ufaCtory from Milford, Ct.,to Kobe, one of the industrial centers*of Japan. Those who affeCt to pooh-pooh the sub¬ ject of Japanese competition and airily speak of the super¬ iority of Western intellect, entirely overlook the faCt that the mobility of capital is such that it can easily be trans¬ ferred to countries where cheap labor can be had, so that all that is necessary is for the superior intellects of America and Europe to invent machines, and the owners of capital can buy them and transfer them to countries where they can be operated most cheaply.” Hon. Robert P. Porter, referred to above, contributed an article to the North American Review (August, ’96) in which he points out that, notwithstanding the United States tariff against foreign-made goods, the Japanese are rapidly making inroads upon United States manufactures. They can do this by reason (1) of their cheap and patient labor, and (2) by reason of the one hundred per ce?it. advantage of their silver standard over the gold standard of civilized 346 J'he Day of Vengeance. countries, which far more than offsets any tariff protection that would be considered feasible. We give some extracts from the article in question as follows:— “ The Japanese have, metaphorically speaking, thrown their hats into the American market, and challenged our labor and capital with goods which, for excellence and cheapness, seem for the moment to defy competition, even with the latest labor-saving appliances at hand.” After giving a statistical table of various Japanese ar¬ ticles imported into the United States, he says:— “Within the last few months I have visited the districts in Japan and inspected the industries reported in the above table. The increase in the exports of textiles, which was over forty-fold in ten years, is due to the fact that Japan is a nation of weavers.” The Japanese, it seems, are sending large quantities of cheap silks and all kinds of cheap goods into America, but what they have done is as nothing to what they are about to do:— “The Japanese are making every preparation, by the formation of guilds and associations, to improve the qual¬ ity and increase the uniformity of their goods.” Incidentally Mr. Porter intimates that the cotton mills of Lancashire, England, which have no protection, are doomed. In Japan, he says:— “Cotton spinning in 1889 gave employment to only 5,394 women and 2,539 men. In 1895 over 30,000 women and 10,000 men were employed in mills that for equipment and output are equal to those of any country. The future situation of the cotton industry, at least to sup¬ ply the Asiatic trade, is bound to be in China and Japan. England is doomed so far as this trade is concerned, and nothing can save her—not even bimetallism, as some imagine. Cotton mills are going up rapidly, both in Osaka and Shanghai, and only actual experience for a period of years will demonstrate which of these locations is the bet- Preparation of the Elements. 347 ter. My own judgment, after a close examination of every item in the cost of production, is Japan. “ Should Japan take up the manufacture of woollen and worsted goods as she has done cotton, her weavers could give Europe and America some surprises and dumbfound those who claim there is nothing in Japanese competition. A constant supply of cheap wool from Australia makes it possible, while the samples uf Japanese woollen and worsted doth and dress goods which I examined while there indi¬ cate that in this branch of textiles the Japanese are as much at home as in silk and cotton. They are also doing good work in fine linens, though so far the quantities produced are small. “The sudden influx of the Japanese umbrella, some¬ thing like 2,000,000 exported in 1894, has caused anxiety among umbrella makers in the United States.” The Japanese themselves do not hesitate to boast of their approaching triumph in the “industrial war.” Mr. Porter says:— “When in Japan I had the pleasure of meeting, among other statesmen and officials, Mr. Kaneko, Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. I found him a man with intelligence and foresight, and of wide experience in economical and statistical matters. Educated in one of the great European universities, he is up to the spirit of the age in all that relates to Japan and her industial and com¬ mercial future.” Mr. Kaneko recently made a speech to a Chamber of Commerce, in which he said :— “The cotton spinners of Manchester [England] are known to have said that while the Anglo-Saxons had passed through three generations before they became clever and apt hands for the spinning of cotton, the Japanese have ac¬ quired the necessary skill in this industry in ten years’ time, and have now advanced to a stage where they surpass the Manchester people in skill.” A dispatch from San Francisco, dated Nov. 9, ’96, says :— “ M. Oshima, technical dire6tor of the proposed steel works in Japan, and four Japanese engineers, arrived on The Day of Vengeance. 1 48 \j » the steamer Rio de Janeiro from Yokohama. They are on a tour of inspection of the great steel works of America and Europe, and are commissioned to buy a plant costing $2,000,000. They say they will buy just where they can buy the best and cheapest. The plant is to have a capac¬ ity of 100,000 tons. It will be built in the coal fields in Southern Japan, and both Martin and Bessemer steel are to be manufactured. “ Mr. Oshima said: ‘We want to put our nation where it properly belongs, in the van, as a manufacturing nation. We will need a vast amount of steel and do not want to depend on any other country for it.” Marching closely behind Japan comes India, with its population of two hundred and fifty millions, and-its rap¬ idly growing industries; and next comes China, with its four hundred millions, awakened by the recent war to a recognition of Western civilization, which enabled Japan with only forty millions to conquer it. China’s Prime Minister, Li Hung Chang, recently on a tour of the w^orld, is negotiating for American and European instructors for his people, and freely expresses it as his intention to inaugurate reforms in every department. This is the man who so im¬ pressed General U. S. Grant on his tour of the world, and whom he declared, in his judgment, one of the most able statesmen in the world. The significance of this bringing together of the ends of the earth is that British, American, German and French manufacturers are to have shortly as competitors people who, until recently, were excellent customers; competitors whose superior facilities will soon not only drive them out of foreign markets, but invade their own home markets; competitors who will thus take labor out of the hands of their workmen, and deprive them of luxuries, and even take the bread out of their mouths by reason of wage com¬ petition. No wonder, in view of this, that the German Emperor pictured the nations of Europe appalled by a Preparation of the Elements. 349 speller rising in the Orient and threatening the destruc¬ tion of civilization. But it cannot be checked. It is a part of the inevitable, for it operates under the law of Supply and Demand which says, Buy the best you can obtain at the lowest possible price—labor as well as merchandise. The only thing that can and will cut short and stop the pressure now begun, and which must grow more severe so long as the law of selfishness continues, is the remedy which God has provided; —the Kingdom of God with its new law and complete re¬ organization of society on the basis of love and equity. If the people of Europe and America have had the whole world for customers, not only for fabrics but also for machinery, and yet have gotten to a place where the sup¬ ply is greater than the demand, and where millions of their population seek employment in vain, even at low wages, what is their prospedl for the near future when more than double the present number will be competitors? The natural increase will also add to the dilemma. Nor would this outlook be so unfavorable, so hopelessly dark, were it not for the fa6t that these nearly seven hundred millions of new competitors are the most tradlable, patient and eco¬ nomical people to be found in the world. If European and American workmen can be controlled by Capital, much more can these who have never known anything else than obedience to masters. THE LABOR OUTLOOK IN ENGLAND. Mr. Justin McCarthy, the well known English writer, in a recent article in Cosmopolis 1 declares:— “The evils of pauperism and lack of employment ought to strike more terror to the heart of England than any alarm about foreign invasion. But English statesmanship has never taken that error seriously, or even long troubled 35o The Day of Vengeance. about it. Even the one trouble caused by disputes between employers and workingmen—the strike on the one hand and the lock-out on the other—has been allowed to go on without any real attempt at legislative remedy. The reason is that any subjedt is allowed to engross our attention rather than that of the condition of our own people." Keir Hardie (Member of Parliament and Labor Leader) in a recent interview is reported to have said:— “ Trades-unionism is in a bad way in England. I some¬ times fear that it is pradtically dead. We workingmen are learning that capital can use its money in organization, and by using it beat us. Manufacturers have learned a way of beating the men and the men are helpless. Trades unions have not won an important strike in London in a long time. Many of the once big unions are powerless. This is espe¬ cially true of the dockers. You remember the great dock strike? Well, it killed the union that made it, and did not help the men at all. The trades-union situation in London is distressing. ‘‘The Independent Labor Party is socialistic. We shall be satisfied with nothing but Socialism, municipal Socialism, national Socialism, industrial Socialism. We know what we want, and we all want it. We do not want to fight for it, but if we cannot get it in any other way we will fight for it, and when we fight we shall fight with determination. The avowed object of the Independent Labor Party is to bring about an industrial commonwealth, founded on the socialization of land and industrial capital. We believe that the natural political divisions must be on economical lines. “Of the wrongs of the present system, I should say that the greatest single oppression upon British working¬ men is the irregularity and uncertainty of employ¬ ment. You may be aware that I have made this question a specialty, and know that I am speaking fads when I say that in the British islands there are over 1,000,000 able- bodied adult workers, who are neither drunkards, loafers nor of less than average intelligence, but who are still out of employment through no fault of their own, and utterly unable to get work. Wages appear to be higher than they Preparation of the Elements. 351 were half a century ago, but when the loss of time through lack of employment is taken into consideration it is found that the condition of the worker has really retrograded. A small, steady wage produces greater comfort than a larger sum earned irregularly. If the right to earn a living wage were secured to every worker, most of the questions which vex us would be solved by natural process. The situation is surely melancholy. During the recent dread¬ ful cold weather relief works were opened at which men could have four hours’ work at sweeping the streets, at 6 pence an hour. Thousands gathered outside the yard gates as early as 4 a. m. in order to be at the front of the line. There they stood, shivering and shaking in the cold, half-starved and filled with despair, until 8 a. m., when the yards were opened. The rush which followed was little less than a riot. Men were literally trampled to death in that horrible scramble for the opportunity to earn 2 shillings (48 cents). The place was wrecked. Hungry men in a solid mass, pushed on by thousands in the rear, crushed the walls and gates in their anxiety to find em- ployment. These men were no loafers. “The average wage of unskilled labor in London, even when it keeps up to the trades-union standard, is only 6 pence an hour. In the provinces it is less. Careful study has shown that nothing under 3 guineas a week will enable the average family (two adults and three children) to en¬ joy common comfort, not to mention luxuries. Very few workers in England receive this sum or anything like it. That skilled workman is fortunate who gets 2 guineas a week the year round, and that laborer is lucky who man¬ ages to earn 24 shillings ($5.84) in the course of each seven days, one-third of which must go for rent. So in the best- paid classes of workers the family can only keep itself at the poverty line. A very short period of enforced idle¬ ness is invariably sufficient to drag them below it. Hence our vast number of paupers. “London contains now over 4,300,000 persons. Sixty thousand families (300,000 persons) average a weekly in¬ come per family of less than 18 shillings a week, and live in a state of chronic want. One in every eight of the total population of London dies in the workhouse or in the 35 2 The Day of Vengeance. workhouse infirmary. One in every sixteen of the present population of London is at the present moment a recog¬ nized pauper. Every day 43,000 children attend the board schools, having gone without breakfast. Thirty thousand persons have no homes other than the 4-penny lodging houses or the casual ward. ’ ’ The foregoing statistics show that fifteen years would be a liberal allowance for the development of this competition. Thus the Almighty is bringing the masses of all nations, gradually, to a realization of the fadt that soon or later the interests of one must be the interests of the other,—that each must be his brother’s keeper if he would preserve his own welfare. Nor is it wise or just to denounce Capital for doing the very same thing that Labor does and has always done— seeking its own advantage. Indeed, we can all see that some of the poor are equally as selfish at heart as some of the rich; we can even imagine that if some now poor were given the positions of the wealthy, they would be more severely exadling and less generous than their present masters. Let us not, therefore, hate and denounce the rich, but instead hate and denounce the selfishness general and particular which is responsible for present conditions and evils. And, thoroughly abhorring selfishness, let each resolve that by the Lord’s grace he will mortify (kill) his own inherent selfishness, daily, and more and more culti¬ vate the opposite quality of love, and thus be conformed to the image of God’s dear Son, our Redeemer and Lord. HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN’S PROPHETIC WORDS TO BRITISH WORKMEN. Note the views of Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary of Great Britain, and one of the shrewdest states¬ men of our day. In receiving a deputation of unemployed Preparation of the Elements. 353 shoemakers who came to advocate municipal workshops, he showed them clearly that what they wanted would not really aid them, except temporarily; that such shops would merely oversupply the demand and throw others, now do¬ ing fairly well, out of work, and that the true policy would be to cultivate trade with the outside world, and thus find customers for more boots, which would speedily bring a demand for their services. He said:— “ What you want to do is not to change the shop in which the boots are made, but to increase the demand for boots. If you can get some new demand for boots, not only those who are now working but those out of employment may find employment. That should be our great objedt. In addition to the special point before me, you must remem¬ ber that, speaking generally, the great cure for this diffi¬ culty of want of employment is to find new markets. We are pressed out of the old markets (out of the neutral mar¬ kets which used to be supplied by Great Britain) by foreign competition. At the same time, foreign Governments abso¬ lutely exclude our goods from their own markets, and unless we can increase the markets which are under our control, or find new ones, this question of want of employment , already a very serious one , will become, one of the greatest possible magnitude , and I see the gravest reasons for anxiety as to the complications which may possibly ensue. I put the matter before you in these general terms; but I beg you, when you hear criticisms upon the conduct of this Government or of that, of this Commander or of that Commander, in expandhig the British Empire , I beg you to bear in mind that it is not a Jingo question, which sometimes you are induced to believe —it is not a question of imreasonable ag¬ gression, but it is really a question of continuing to do that which the English people have always done—to extend their markets and relations with the waste places of the earth; and unless that is done , and done coniinously , I am certain that , grave as are the evils now, we shall have at no distant time to meet much more serious consequences. ’ * 2 3 d 354 The Day of Vengeance. NATIONAL AGGRESSION AS RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS. Here we have the secret of British aggression and em¬ pire-expansion. It is not prompted merely by a desire to give other nations wiser rulers and better governments, nor merely by a love of acreage and power: it is done as a part of the war of trade, the “industrial war.” Nations are conquered, not to pillage them as of old, but to serve them—to secure their trade. In this warfare Great Britain has been most successful; and, in consequence, her wealth is enormous, and is invested far and near. The first nation to have an oversupply, she first sought foreign markets, and for a long time was the cotton and iron factory of the world outside of Europe. The mechanical awakening which followed the United States civil w T ar in 1865 made this land for a time the center of the world’s attention and business. The mechanical awakening spread to all civilized nations turned their attention to finding outside demand. This is the foreign competition to which Mr. Chamberlain refers. All statesmen see what he points out; namely, that the mar¬ kets of the world are fast being stocked, and that machinery and civilization are rapidly hastening the time when there will be no more outside markets. And as he wisely de¬ clared, “grave as are the evils now , we shall have at no distant time to meet much more serious consequences. ’ ’ While we write, Mr. Chamberlain, as Colonial Secretary for the British Empire, has in London delegates from the British Colonies who have come thousands of miles to con¬ fer with him and each other respecting the best means of meeting industrial competition. Ever since Great Britain found that her workshops produced more wares than her population could consume, and that she must seek her market abroad, she has been the advocate of Free Trade, Preparation of the Elements. 355 and, of course, has kept her colonies as near to her free trade policy as practicable without force. The present conference is with a view to an arrangement by which Great Britain and her numerous colonies will ereCt a protective tariff wall about themselves to measurably shut out the com¬ petition of the United States, Germany, France and Japan. The conquests of France, Italy and Great Britain in Africa mean the same thing;—that they feel the commer¬ cial warfare severely, and see it increasing and would, per force, have some markets under their co?itrol. The follow¬ ing press dispatch is in evidence on this subjeCI:— “Washington, June 9, ’96.—Taking as his starting point the official announcement of the annexation by France of TimbuCtoo, the principal place in the Djallon country, a district larger than the state of Pennsylvania and quite as fertile, United States’ Consul Strickland, at Goree-Dakar, has made a most interesting report to the State Department upon the dangers threatening United States’ trade with Africa, owing to the rapid extension of the colonial pos¬ sessions of the European nations. He shows how the French, by the imposition of a discriminating duty of 7 per cent, against foreign goods, have monopolized the mar¬ kets of the French colonies, and have thus crushed out the lucrative and growing trade which the United States al¬ ready enjoyed in that part of the world. He says that the process has now begun of fortifying perhaps the whole continent of Africa against us by protective tariffs; for, if one nation can even now do it with effeCt, the remainder will in time have to in order to equalize things among them. ’ 9 Truly, men’s hearts are failing them for fear and for look¬ ing forward to those things coming upon the earth [society]; and they are preparing, as best they can, for what they see coming. But let no one suppose for a moment that the aforesaid “expanding of the British Empire” and the other empires of the earth, and the general war for trade, are inaugurated or sustained solely for the purpose of supplying British, Die l)ay of Vengeance. Italian and French workmen with employment. Not at all! The workman is merely an incidental. It is chiefly to enable British capitalists to find new fields wherein to garner profits, and to “heap together riches for the last days. ’—James 5:3. THE SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL WAR IN GERMANY. Herr Liebknecht, leader of the Social Democratic party in the German Reichstag, who visited Great Britain in July 1896, submitted to an interview for the columns of the London Daily Clwonicle , from which we extradt the following:— “ * Our Social Democratic party is the strongest single party in the German Parliament. At the last election we polled 1,880,000 votes. We are expedling a dissolution on the question of expenditure on a great fleet, which the Reichstag will not sandfion. At that election we look for¬ ward to polling another million votes.’ “ ‘Then jingoism is not very strong in Germany? ’ “ ‘Jingoism does not exist in Germany. Of all the peo¬ ple in Europe, the Germans are the most sick of militar¬ ism. We Socialists are at the head of the movement against it.’ “ ‘And do you think this movement against militarism is extending throughout Europe ? ’ ‘“I am sure of it. In the Parliaments of France, Ger¬ many, Belgium, Italy and Denmark the Socialist Deputies (and we have a good many in each) are fighting it to the death. When the International Congress takes place this year in London, all the Socialist Deputies present will hold a meeting for the purpose of arranging for common action. As for Germany, it is being totally ruined by its military system. We are a new country. Our manufactures are all young, and if we have to compete with England ’- “ ‘ Then you, too, have a cry about foreign competition?’ “‘Of course we have, only to us it is something very real. We have, as I will show you, no liberty of the Press and nc> liberty of public meeting. You, on the contrary. Preparation of the Eleme?its. 357 have both, and that is how I account for the fact that the present economic system is more deeply and firmly rooted in England than anywhere else; and, above all, we have the doctrine of the divine right of kings to contend against, and you English found out two hundred years ago that the divine right of kings and political liberty for the people could not exist together. ’ “ ‘Then you look for great changes before long?' “‘Ido. The present system in Germany is causing such discontent that they must come.’ “ ‘ And now can you tell me anything about the economic position of Germany? You have an agrarian question there, as we have here. * “‘We have in Germany five million peasant proprietors, and they are all going to ruin as fast as they can. Every one of them—and I use the word advisedly—is mortgaged up to and beyond the full value of his holding. Our peas¬ antry live on bread made from a mixture of rye and oats. In fadl, food of all kinds is cheaper in England than in Germany. ’ “ ‘ And your manufadtures? ’ “ ‘ As a manufacturing country we are only just beginning. Our present industrial system only dates from 1850, but already its results are becoming far greater than in your country. We are being rapidly divided into two classes— the proletarians, and the capitalists and land-owners. Our middle classes are being literally wiped out by the economic conditions that obtain. They are being driven down into the working classes, and to that more than to anything else I attribute the extraordinary success of our party. “‘ You must remember that we have not two sharply- defined parties, as you have in England. We Social Demo¬ crats work with any party, if we can get anything for our¬ selves. We have only three great parties: the others may be disregarded. There is our party, the Conservatives and the Catholic Center party. Our Conservatives are very dif¬ ferent from yours. They want to go back to feudalism and reaction of the worst type. Economic conditions are split¬ ting up the Center party, and part will come over to us and the rest go to the Conservatives. And then we shall see what will happen.’ 358 The Day of Vengeance. “Herr Liebknecht gave the history of the Socialist movement. The rapidity of the growth of Social Dem¬ ocracy in Germany was caused by the newness of industrial commercialism in that country, and the fierce competition which Germany had had to face to keep pace with England and France in the struggle for commercial supremacy.” It will be noticed that the questions recognized by this able man as those which press upon the people and are causing the distress and the division of the people into two classes —the poor and the rich—are thus clearly stated as being (i) the Agrarian or land question, especially affecting agriculturalists; (2) the Economic question, or the money question, including the relationship between Capital and Labor; (3) the Industrial question, or question of finding profitable employment for mechanics,—related to foreign and home competition, supply and demand, etc. These are the same questions which are perplexing every civilized nation, and preparing for the approaching world-wide trouble—revolution, anarchy—preparatory for the Millen¬ nial Kingdom. Herr Liebknecht was a delegate to the Trades Union Congress (London, July, ’96). At that Convention the following resolution was passed:— “That this international meeting of workers (recognis¬ ing that peace between the nations of the world is an es¬ sential foundation of international brotherhood and human progress, and believing that wars are not desired by the peoples of the earth, but are caused by the greed and self¬ ishness of the ruling and privileged classes with the single view to obtain the control of the markets of the world in their own interests and against all the real interests of the workers), hereby declares that between the workers of dif¬ ferent nationalities there is absolutely no quarrel, and that their one common enemy is the capitalist and landlord class, and the only way of preventing wars and ensuring peace is the abolition of the capitalist and landlord system of society in which wars have their root, and it therefore Preparation of the Elements. 359 pledges itself to work for the only way in which that system can be overthrown—the socialization of the means of pro¬ duction, distribution and exchange; it further declares that till this is accomplished every dispute between nations should be settled by arbitration instead of by the brutality of the force of arms; further, this meeting recognises that the establishment of an International Eight Hours Day for ail workers is me most immediate step towards their ulti¬ mate emancipation, and urges upon the Governments of all countries the necessity of having a working day of eight hours by legal enactment; and, further, considering that the working class can only bring about their economic and social emancipation by their taking over the political ma¬ chinery of to-day in the hands of the capitalist class; and, considering that in all countries large numbers of working¬ men and all working women do not possess the vote and cannot take part in political action, this meeting of workers declares for and pledges itself to use every endeavor to obtain universal suffrage.' ’ HUMANITY ATTACKED FROM STILL ANOTHER QUARTER. GIANTS IN THESE DAYS. <« Another result of competition has been the organization of large corporations for commerce and manufacturing. These are important elements in preparation for the com¬ ing “fire. ’ J Before these giant corporations the small shops and stores are being rapidly crowded out, because they can neither buy nor sell as profitably as can the large concerns. These large concerns, in turn, being able to do more busi¬ ness than there is for them, are forming combinations, called Trusts. These, originally organized to prevent competition from destroying all but the largest of its kind, are found to work very satisfactorily to those whose capital and management they represent; and the plan is spreading, —the Great? Republic leading the world in this direction. Notice the following list published in the New York World , Sept. 2, 9 96, under the caption—The Growth of Trusts .’* The Day of Vengeance. 360 “LIST OF 139 COMBINATIONS TO REGULATE PRODUCTION* FIX PRICES, MONOPOLIZE TRADE AND ROB THE PEOPLE IN DEFIANCE Title. OF LAW. 7 7 Capital. Dressed Beef and Provision Trust, $100,000,000 Sugar Trust, New York, • • 75,000,000 Lead Trust, . 30,000,000 Rubber Trust, New Jersey, • • 50,000,000 Gossamer Rubber Trust, 12,000,000 Anthracite Coal Combine, Pennsylvania, . *85,000,000 Axe Trust, .... • • 15,000,000 Barbed Wire Trust, Chicago, *10,000,000 Biscuit and Cracker Trust, • • 12,000,000 Bolt and Nut Trust, *10,000,000 Boiler Trust, Pittsburg, Pa., . Borax Trust, Pennsylvania, . • • *15,000,000 *2,000,000 Broom Trust, Chicago, • • *2,500,000 Brush Trust, Ohio, *2,000,000 Button Trust, Carbon Candle Trust, Cleveland, • • *3,000,000 *3,000,000 Cartridge Trust, • 0 *10,000,000 Casket and Burial Goods Trust, *1,000,000 Castor Oil Trust, St. Louis, • • 500,000 Celluloid Trust, . 8,000,000 Cigarrette Trust, New York, • • 25,000,000 Condensed Milk Trust, Illinois, 15,000,000 Copper Ingot Trust, • • *20,000,000 Sheet Copper Trust, *40,000,000 Cordage Trust, New Jersey, • • 35,000,000 Crockery Trust, . *15,000,000 Cotton Duck Trust, • • 10,000,000 Cotton-Seed Oil Trust, 20,000,000 Cotton Thread Combine, New Jersey, 7,000,000 Electric Supply Trust, *10,000,000 Flint Glass Trust, Pennsylvania, • • 8,000,000 Fruit Jar Trust, .... *1,000,000 Galvanized Iron Steel Trust, Pennsylvania, *2,000,000 Glove Trust, New York, *2,000,000 Harvester Trust, • • *1,500,000 * Estimated. Preparation of the Elements. 361 Title. Capital. Hinge Trust, .... • $1,000,000 Indurated Fibre Trust, • 500,000 Leather Board Trust,. . *500,000 Lime Trust, ..... *3,000,000 Linseed Oil Trust, 18,000,000 Lithograph Trust, New Jersey, 11,500,000 Locomotive Tire Trust, *2,000,000 Marble Combine, .... *20,000,000 Match Trust, Chicago, 8,000,000 Morocco Leather Trust, . *2,000,000 Oatmeal Trust, Ohio, . *3,500,000 Oilcloth Trust, .... *3,500,000 Paper Bag Trust, .... 2,500,000 Pitch Trust, ..... *10,000,000 Plate Glass Trust, Pittsburg, Pa., *8 000,000 Pocket Cutlery Trust, *2,000,000 Powder Trust, .... 1,500,000 Preservers’ Trust, West Virginia, *8,000,000 Pulp Trust, .... *5,000,000 Rice Trust, Chicago, 2,500,000 Safe Trust, .... 2,500,000 Salt Trust, ..... *1,000,000 Sandstone Trust, New York, *1,000,000 Sanitary Ware Trust, Trenton, N. J., 3,000,000 Sandpaper Trust, *250,000 Sash, Door and Blind Trust, *1,500,000 Saw Trust, Pennsylvania, 5,000,000 School Book Trust, New York, *2,000,000 School Furniture Trust, Chicago, 15,000,000 Sewer Pipe Trust, .... 2,000,000 Skewer Trust, .... • 60,000 Smelters’ Trust, Chicago, 25,000,000 Smith Trust, Michigan, • *500,000 Soap Trust, ..... *500,000 Soda-Water Apparatus Trust, Trenton, N. J., 3,750,000 Spool, Bobbin and Shuttle Trust, 2,500,000 Sponge Trust, .... • *500,000 Starch Trust, Kentucky, 10,000,000 * Estimated, • The T)ay oj Vengeance. 362 Title. Merchants’ Steel Trust, Steel Rail Trust, . Stove Board Trust, Grand Rapids, Mich., Straw Board Trust, Cleveland, O., . Structural Steel Trust, Teazle Trust, ..... Sheet Steel Trust, .... Tombstone Trust, .... Trunk Trust, ..... Tube Trust, New Jersey, Type Trust, ..... Umbrella Trust, .... Vapor Stove Trust, .... Wall Paper Trust, New York, . Watch Trust, ..... Wheel Trust, ..... Whip Trust, ..... Window Glass Trust, , Wire Trust, . Wood Screw Trust, Wool Hat Trust, New Jersey, Wrapping Paper Trust , Yellow Pine Trust, .... Patent Leather Trust, , Dye and Chemical Combine, Lumber Trust, .... Rock Salt Combination, Naval Stores Combine, Green Glass Trust, .... Locomotive Trust, .... Envelope Combine, .... Ribbon Trust, .... Iron and Coal Trust, .... Cotton Press Trust, . . • . Tack Trust, ..... Clothes-Wringer Trust, Snow Shovel Trust, .... The Iron League (Trust), Capital. $25,000,000 *60,000,000 200,000 *8,000,000 *5,000,000 *200,000 *2,000,000 100,000 2,500,000 11,500,000 6,000,000 *8,000,000 *1,000,000 20 , 000,000 30,000,000 * 1 , 000,000 *500,000 * 20 , 000,000 * 10 , 000,000 * 10 , 000,000 *1,500,000 * 1 , 000,000 * 2 , 000,000 5,000,000 * 2 , 000,000 * 2 , 000,000 5,000,000 * 1 , 000,000 *4,000,000 *5,000,000 5,000,000 *18,000,000 10 , 000,000 *6,000,000 *3,000,000 * 2 , 000,000 * 200,000 *60,000,000 l * Estimated. Preparation of the Elements. 3 6 3 Title. Paper Box Trust, Bitumious Coal Trust, . . Alcohol Trust, Confectioners’ Trust, Gas Trust, Acid Trust, .... Manilla Tissue Trust, . Carnegie Trust, Illinois Steel Trust, Brass Trust, .... Hop Combine, Flour Trust, New York, . American Corn Harvesters’ Trust, Pork Combine, Missouri, Colorado Coal Combine, Bleachery Combine, Paint Combine, New York, Buckwheat Trust, New Jersey, Fur Combine, New Jersey, . Tissue Paper Trust, Cash Register Trust, Western Flour Trust, Steel and Iron Combine, EleCtrical Combine No. 2, Rubber Trust No. 2, Tobacco Combination, Capital. n 5,000,000 *15,000,000 *5,000,000 *2,000,000 *7,000,000 *2,000,000 *2,000,000 25,000,000 *50,000,000 10,000,000 *500,000 7,500,000 *50,000,000 *20,000,000 20,000,000 *10,000,000 *2,000,000 5,000,000 10,000,000 *10,000,000 *10,000,000 10,000,000 4,000,000 1,800,000 7,000,000 2,500,000 Total Capital, . . $1,507,060,000 The same issue of the same journal notes the power and tendency of one of these trusts in the following editorial, under the caption, “What the Coal Advance Means:”— “The addition of $1.50 to the price of every ton of anthracite coal means that the eleven members of the Coal Trust will pocket not less than fifty and perhaps more than sixty millions of dollars. On the basis of last fall’s compe¬ tition and resulting fair prices, this money rightfully be¬ longs to those who use coal. * Estimated. 3 6 4 The Day of Vengeance. “The enormous addition to the cost of coal means that many manufacturers who were going to start again this fall cannot do so because they cannot add such a large item to the cost of their produCt and still compete with those who get coal at natural prices. It means that many manufac¬ turers will cut wages to make up for this increase in the cost of produ&ion. It means that every householder of moderate means will pinch on some modest luxury or comfort. He must buy coal, and as the officers he has helped to eleCt will not enforce the law, he must pay the trust’s prices. It means finally that the poor will have to buy less coal. The old prices were hard enough. The new prices are sharply restrictive. And so the poor must shiver in the coming winter. “ On the one side is more luxury for a few. On the other side is discomfort, and in thousands of cases positive misery, for the many. Between the two is the broken and dishonored law.” Take another illustration of the power of trusts.—In the Spring of 1895 the Cotton Tie Trust was formed. (The cotton tie is a plain band of iron used in baling cotton.) The price at that time was seventy cents a hundred. Last year (Aug. 1896) the trust concluded that it would make a little extra profit, and advanced the price to $1.40 per hundred—so near the time for baling cotton that foreign ties could not be imported in season. All trusts have not similarly abused their power; pos¬ sibly favorable opportunities have not yet offered to all; but no one will dispute that “the common people,” the mass¬ es, are in serious danger of injury at the hands of such giant corporations. All know what to fear from power and selfishness in an individual, and these “giant” trusts not only have immensely more power and influence than indi¬ viduals, but in addition, they have no consciences. It has became a proverb that “ Corporations have no souls.” We clip the following dispatch to the Pittsburg Post in illustration of— Preparation of the Elements. 3°5 THE PROFITS OF TRUSTS. “ New York, Nov. 5, ’96.—The liquidating trustees of the Standard Oil Trust met to-da)' and declared the regular quarterly dividend of $3 per share and $2 per share addi¬ tional, payable December 15. The total original issue of Standard Oil Trust certificates was $97,250,000. During the fiscal year just closing there has been 31 per cent, in dividends declared, making a total distribution of earn¬ ings amounting to $30,149,500. During the same period the American Sugar Refining Company, known as the sugar trust, has paid $7,023,920 in dividends. In addition to these payments of earnings to stockholders, the trust is said to have a surplus in raw sugar, bills receivable and cash amounting to about $30,000,000.” The same journal, in its issue of Dec. 1, *96, said editor¬ ially as follows:— ‘ ‘ The W ire Nail Trust was probably one of the most rascally combinations to plunder and extort money from the people that was ever gotten up in this country. It defied the laws, bribed, bullied and ruined competitors, and ruled the trade with autocratic powers. Having done this, and advanced prices from two hundred to three hundred per cent., it di¬ vided millions among its members. No anarchy here, of course. In fadt, it is the anarchists who protest against such robbery and defiance of law. So at least thinks Mr. A. C. Faust, of New Jersey, of the nail trust, who writes the World that its exposures of the enormities of the trust ‘feed the flame of popular discontent.’ This is getting things down to a fine point. The illegal and plundering trusts are to be allowed free sway, and attempts to hold them in check are not to be tolerated because ‘ they feed the flame of popular discontent.’ On one side we have the people of the country, and on the other the licensed robbers— the trusts. But there must be no exposures or protest, or the ‘ flame of popular discontent ’ will make it hard for the trusts. Could impudence and arrogance go further? ‘ ‘ The Coal Trust in the anthracite produdt is now plunder¬ ing the people at the rate of fifty million dollars a year by an advanced price of $1.50 per ton. Rev. Dr. Parkhurst 306 The Day of Vengeance. paid his respedls the other day to this particular band in these words : ‘ If the coal companies or coal combines or coal trusts use their power to the end of draining off into their own treasury as much of the poor man’s money as they can or dare, to the impoverishment of the poor, to the redudlion of their comfort and to the sapping of the currents of health and life, then such companies are POSSESSED OF THE DEMON OF THEFT AND MURDER. And this is no more applicable to dealers in coal than to the dealers in any other commodity. * “While Rev. Dr. Parkhurst was denouncing them as i possessed by the demon of theft and murder/ another New York preacher, Rev. Dr. Heber Newton, to velvet pews and a millionaire flock, praised the trusts as a necessary and beneficent part of our advancing civilization.” Anent the recent drop in the price of steel rails from $27 to *$15 per ton the Allegheny Evening Record says:— ‘ ‘ The great ‘ Steel Pool, ’ formed to keep up prices, is pradlically smashed. This gigantic combination of capital and power, made to control the output of one of the greatest industries of America, to run prices up or down by its simple mandate, to tax consumers at its pleasure, and to the limit of expediency, is to be devoured by a combination still more gigantic, still more powerful, still more wealthy. Rockefeller and Carnegie have seized the steel industry of America. The event is epochal. The cut in the price of steel rails from $25 to $17 a ton, the lowest figure at which they have ever been sold, marks an era in the country’s economy. So far it is a case of trust eat trust, and the railroads are the gainers. “It is safe to say that neither Mr. Rockefeller nor Mr. Carnegie has been led into their great enterprise by any considerations of sentiment for the public. They saw a chance to crush competition and they took advantage of it. They now own the most remarkable source of supply in the world, the Mesaba range, above Duluth, described as a region where it is not necessary to delve at vast expense, but merely to scoop the ore off the surface. Rockefeller has strengthened his advantage in securing this source of supply by building a fleet of barges of immense capacity Preparation of the Elements. 367 to carry his raw material to the docks of Lake Erie. When he completed his cycle by the alliance with Carnegie, with his furnaces and mills, he had the 4 Railmakers’ Associa¬ tion ’ at his mercy. The whole affair has been carried out by a masterly combining of existing facilities. The present result, at least, is a benefit to great numbers of people. Whether Messrs. Rockefeller and Carnegie, having got¬ ten this vast power into their hands, will be content to reap reasonable profits and let the public benefit, or will, once having crushed their opponents, use this power for ruthless extortion, is a grave problem. The fa< 5 t that they have the power is a menace in itself. ’ ’ The following item has circulated widely, but is worthy of notice in considering this subjedt:— 44 Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 26, ’96. — Ex-Governor David R. Francis, now Secretary of the Interior, sent the follow¬ ing letter to a little party of gold standard men who held a banquet at the Midland Hotel last night:— Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C., Nov. 19, 1896. u Gentlemen :—I have just received your invitation of the 25th, and regret I cannot attend the ratification of the sound money victory this evening. ... If some legisla¬ tion is not enadled to check the growing influence of wealth and to circumscribe the powers of the trusts and monop¬ olies, there will be an uprising of the people before the close of the century which will endanger our very institu¬ tions. David R. Francis.” The following we clip from the London Spectator :— 44 We have in our hands a decision by Judge Russell, of the New York Supreme Court, which shows the extent to which the ‘Trust’ system, or system of using capital to create monopolies, is pushed in the United States. A National Wholesale Druggists’ Association has been formed which includes almost every large drug-dealer in the Union, and which fixes the price of drugs. If any private dealer under¬ sells the Association the latter warns the whole trade by circular not to deal with him, and as a rule succeeds in ruining the business of the refradlory firm. John D. Park and Sons’ Company resolved to resist the dictation, and 3 68 The Day of Vengeance. applied for an injunction, which was refused in the par¬ ticular instance, but granted as a general principle, all men being enjoined to abstain from ‘ conspiring’ to enforce ‘a restraint of traded The case is an extreme one, because it is clear that a Trust of the kind is, or may be, playing with human life. It does not matter much if they raise the price of patent medicines, which seems to have been the specific grievance, to a guinea a drop; but suppose they put drugs like quinine, opium, or the aperients oi't of the reach of the poor. It will be remembered that Mr. Bryan’s follow¬ ers place the Trust system in the forefront of their charges against capital, and cases like this give them an argument¬ ative foothold.” TRUSTS IN ENGLAND. Although trusts may be termed an American invention, the following, contributed to the London Spectator of 061 . io, ’96, shows that they are not exclusively American. The writer says:— “Trusts are beginning to take possession of some of our British trades. At the present time there exists—with its headquarters in Birmingham—a combination or trust in the metallic bedstead trade throughout Great Britain, which is so cleverly arranged that it is pradhcally impossible for any outsider to start making brass or iron bedsteads unless he joins the combination, and even then he has to sue for admittance, which will probably be denied him. If, how¬ ever, he tried to start independently of it, he would be un¬ able to buy his raw material or get any workmen used to the trade, as all the makers of iron and brass for bedsteads have agreed to only supply the combination, and the work¬ men are all pledged by their Union to work only for makers belonging to it. Consumers have therefore to look to for¬ eign competition alone if prices are to be kept down. This bedstead trust is at present successful, hence many other local trades are now emulating its example.” Controlling capital of hundreds of millions of dollars, these combinations or trusts are indeed giants; and if mat- Preparation of the Eleme?its. 369 ters continue for a few years, as they have operated for the past five, they will soon control the world with the finan¬ cial lever. Soon they will have the power, not only to didate the prices of the goods consumed by the world, but, being the chief employers of labor, they will have the control of wages. True, these combinations of capital have in the past ac¬ complished great enterprises which single individuals could not have accomplished so quickly or so well. Indeed, private corporative enterprise has taken and successfully carried risks which the public would have condemned and defeated if undertaken by the government. We are not to be understood as holding up vast accumulations of capital to wholesale condemnation; but we are pointing out that every year’s experience not only adds largely to their fi¬ nancial power, but also to their sagacity, and that we are rapidly nearing the point where the people’s interests and very liberties are threatened, if indeed we are not already there. Everybody says, Something must be done! but what to do nobody knows. The fa<5t is, mankind is help¬ lessly at the mercy of these giant outgrowths of the present selfish social system, and the only hope is in God. True, also, these giants are usually headed by men of ability who thus far generally seem disposed to use their power in moderation. Nevertheless, the power is being concentrated; and the ability, guided in the main by self¬ ishness, will be likely from time to time to tighten the screws upon their servants and the public as opportunities permit and circumstances favor. These giants threaten the human family now as literal giants threatened it over four thousand years ago. Those giants were “men of renown”—men of wonderful ability and sagacity, above the fallen Adamic race;—they were a hybrid race, the result of a new vitality united to the Adamic tA n 370 The Day of Ve?igeance. stock.* So with these modern corf orate giants: they are great, powerful and cunning, to an extent which discour¬ ages the thought of their being conquered without divine interference. Their marvelous powers have never yet been fully called into service. These giants, too, are hybrid: they are begotten by a wisdom that owes its existence to Christian civilization and enlightenment adting in combi¬ nation with the selfish hearts of fallen men. But man’s necessity and God’s opportunity are simul¬ taneously drawing near; and as the giants of “ the world that was before the flood ’ ’ were swept away in the flood of waters, so these corporative giants are to be swept away in the coming flood of fire—the symbolic “fire of God’s jeal¬ ousy” or indignation, already kindling; “a time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation.” In that “fire” will be consumed all the giants of vice and selfishness; they will fall, and will never rise again.—Isa. 26:13, 14; Zeph. 3:8, 9. BARBARIC SLAVERY VERSUS CIVILIZED BONDAGE. Contrast for a moment the past with the present and future, respecting the supply of labor and the demand for it. It is only within the last century that the slave trade has been generally broken up and slavery abolished. At one time it was general, but it gradually merged into serfdom throughout Europe and Asia. Slavery was abol¬ ished in Great Britain no longer ago than the year 1838, the general government paying to the slave-holders the sum of ^20,000,000, or nearly $100,000,000 indemnity. France emancipated her slaves in 1848. In the United States slavery continued in the southern states until 1863. * Gen. 6 : 4 —Further reading matter on this subject free , on applica« tion to Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, Allegheny, Pa. Preparation of the Elements. 372 It cannot be denied that Christian voices and Christian pens had much to do with putting a stop to human slavery; but, on the other hand, it should be noticed that the chang¬ ing conditions of the labor market of the world helped to give the majority a new view of the matter, and with the indemnity fund helped to reconcile the slave owners to the new order of things. Christian voices and pens merely hastened the abolition of slavery; but it would have come later, anyway. Slavery dies a natural death under the modern selfish competitive system backed by mechanical inventions and the growth of population. Aside entirely from moral and religious considerations, it would now be impossible to make slavery general in populous, civilized countries: it would not pay financially. (1) Because machinery has, to a large degree, taken the place of non-intelligent, as well as of intelligent, labor. (2) Because an intelligent servant can do more and better work than an unintelligent one. (3) Because to civilize and even slightly educate slaves would make their services cost more than free labor; be¬ sides which the more intelligent and efficient slaves would be more difficult to control and use profitably than those nominally free, but bound hand and foot by necessity. In a word, the worldly-wise have learned that wars for spoils of enemies, and for slaves, are less profitable than wars of commercial competition whose results are better, as well as larger; and that the free “slaves of necessity” are the cheaper and more capable ones. If already free, intelligent labor is cheaper than ignorant slave-labor, and if the whole world is waking up in intelli¬ gence, as well as rapidly increasing in numbers, it is evident that the present social system is as certain to work its own destrudlion as would an engine under a full head of steam and without a check or governor. 372 The Day of Vengeance. Since society is at present organized upon the principle of supply and demand, there is no check, no governor, upon the world’s selfish competition. The entire strudture is built upon that principle: the selfish pressure, the force pressing society downward, grows stronger and stronger daily. With the masses matters will continue thus, to press down lower and lower, step by step, until the social col¬ lapse in anarchy is realized. HUMANITY BETWEEN THE UPPER AND NETHER MILLSTONES. It is becoming more and more manifest to the masses of men that in the present order of things they are be¬ tween a nether and an upper millstone whose rapid revo¬ lutions must eventually, and at no distant date, grind them down to a miserable and ignoble serfdom, unless interfered with in some way. Such, indeed, is the adtual condition of things: human necessity is the feed-pipe which presses the masses between the millstones; the lower millstone is the fixed law of supply and demand which is crowding the rapidly increasing and growingly intelligent population of the world closer and closer to the pressure of the upper millstone of organized selfishness, driven by the giant power of mechanical slaves, assisted by the cogs and levers and pulleys of financial combinations, trusts and monopolies. (It is pertinent, that the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin esti¬ mated in 1887 that the steam engines (power slaves) then at work in the world represented approximately one thous¬ and million men, or three times the working population of the earth; and the steam and eledtric powers have probably more than doubled since then. Yet these engines are nearly all in civilized lands, whose populations represent only about one-fifth of the total.) Another part of the driv¬ ing power of the upper millstone is its fly-wheel, pon- Preparation of the Elements . 373 derous with the weight of concentrated and hitherto undreamed of wealth and selfishly quickened and trained brain power. As partially illustrating the result of the grinding process, we note the report that in London, Eng¬ land, there are 938,293 poor, 316,834 very poor and 37,610 of the most destitute—a total of 1,292,737, or nearly one- third of the population of the greatest city in the world living in poverty. Official figures for Scotland show that one-third of the families live in a single room, and more than one-third in only two rooms; that in the city of New York during a recent winter 21,000 men, women and chil¬ dren were evidted because unable to pay their rent; and that in a single year 3,819 of its inhabitants were buried in the “potter’s field,” too poor to either live or die de¬ cently. This, remember, in the very city which we have already shown numbers among its citizens 1,157 mil¬ lionaires. A writer in The American Magazine of Civics , Mr. J. A. Collins, discusses the subjedt of the Decadence of Amer¬ ican Home Ownership, in the light of the last census. At the outset he tells us to be prepared for startling fadts, and for threatening and dangerous indications. We quote as follows:— “ A few decades ago the great bulk of the population was made up of home-owners, and their homes were prac¬ tically free from incumbrance; to-day the vast bulk of the population are tenants. ’ ’ Since the occupant of a mortgaged home is virtually but a tenant of the mortgagee, he finds 84 per cent, of the families of this nation virtually tenants, and adds:— “Think of this startling result having been produced in so short a time, with the vast domain of free lands in the West open to settlers, with the great fields of industry open and offering employment at good pay; and then consider what is to be the result with the great West all occupied. 374 The Day of Vengeance. or its lands all monopolized, a population increased by the addition of millions, both by natural increase and by im¬ migration, the mineral lands and mines controlled by syn¬ dicates of foreign capital; the transportation system con¬ trolled in the interest of a few millionaire owners; the manufactures operated by great corporations in their own interest; with the public lands exhausted, and the home sites monopolized and held by speculators beyond the reach of the industrial masses.” Comparing these figures with European statistics, Mr. Collins concludes that conditions under the greatest Re¬ public on earth are less favorable than in Europe, except the richest and most enlightened there—Great Britain. But Mr. Collins’ figures are misleading unless it be remem¬ bered that thousands of these mortgaged homes are owned by young people (who in Europe would live with their parents) and by immigrants who buy on the “instalment plan.” The bare truth, however, is bad enough. With the increasing pressure of the times few of the present many mortgages will ever be cleared off, except by the sheriff. Few probably realize how very cheaply human strength and time are sometimes sold; and those who realize it know not how to remedy the evil, and are busy avoiding its clutches themselves. In all large cities of the world there are thousands known as “sweaters,” who work harder and for longer hours for the bare necessities of life, than did the majority of the southern slaves. Nominally they have their liberty, but actually they are slaves, the slaves of necessity, having liberty to will, but little liberty to do, for themselves or others. We clip the following from the (Pittsburg) Presbyterian Banner on this subjedl:— “The sweater system had its birth and growth in foreign lands before it was transplanted to American soil, bringing its curse with it. It is not confined to the departments of ready-made clothing, but it includes all others which are Preparation of the Elements. 375 worked by a middleman. The middleman or contractor engages to procure goods for the merchant at a certain price, and in order to supply the great buying public with bargains and at the same time give the dealer and the middleman their profits, this price must be fixed at a low rate, and the poor workmen must suffer. “In England almost every business is worked on this basis. The boot and shoe trade, the fur trade, the cabinet and upholstery trade, and many others, have come within the scope of the middleman, and the people are ground down to starvation wages. But it is of the ready-made clothing trade in our own land we mean to speak. Ten years ago there were but ten sweater shops in New York, now there are more than seven hundred, while Chicago boasts of nine hundred, and other cities have their share. These shops are for the most part in the hands of Jews, and those in Boston and New York have the advantage over their brothers farther west in that they can take ad¬ vantage of foreigners, freshly arrived, who cannot speak the language and are therefore easily imposed on. These employees are taken, crowded into small, illy-ventilated rooms, sometimes twenty or thirty in a room large enough for eight workers, where they often have to cook, eat and live, toiling for eighteen and twenty hours a day to earn enough to keep them alive. “ The prices paid for this kind of work are a disgrace to humanity. Men by hard work may earn from two to four dollars a week. The following figures are given by one who has made a study of the matter and who obtained his information from one of the ‘ boss sweaters * who gave these prices as what he received from the dealer:— For making overcoats, For making business coats, For making trousers, For making vests (per dozen), For making knee pants (per dozen), For making calico shirts (per dozen), $ -76 to $2 50 •3 2 to I 5° •25 to 75 1.00 to 3 00 •5o to 75 •3° to 45 “ A large percentage is taken from this list of prices by the boss sweater as his profit, and after deducting the cost of carting, which the workman pays, it can easily be im- 376 The Day of Vengeance. agined how hard and how long men and women must labor to obtain the ordinary necessities of life. For knee pants, for which the * boss ’ gets sixty-five cents a dozen from the manufacturer, the sweater gets only thirty-five cents. “The maker gets ten cents for making summer trousers, and in order to complete six pairs must work nearly eigh¬ teen hours. The cloaks are made by fifteen persons, each one doing a part. Overalls, sixty cents a dozen pairs. These are a few examples, and any woman who knows anything about sewing or making clothes, knows the amount of labor involved. “But there is retribution in all things, and sometimes the innocent or thoughtless must suffer as well as the guilty. This clothing is made under the worst conditions of clean¬ liness. It is made in rooms sometimes not fit for human occupancy and which are reeking with germs of disease. In Chicago, during this year, a visitor saw in one of these shops four people working on cloaks, all of whom had scarlet fever, and in another place a child lay dead of the same disease, while the work went on around it, and the contagion was inevitably spread. *' “ Alas that gold should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap.” The numbers of the miserably poor are rapidly increas¬ ing, and, as has been shown, competition is crowding the whole race down hill, except the fortunate few who have secured machinery or real estate; and their wealth and power correspondingly advance, until it seems as though the billionaire might soon be looked for if present condi¬ tions continue. That such a condition of things should continue forever is not possible; even the operation of the natural law of cause and effect would eventually bring retribution. Nor could we expect that the justice of God, which arranged that law, would permit such conditions forever. God, through Christ, has redeemed, and has espoused the cause of our unworthy humanity, and the time for its deliverance Preparation of the Elements. 377 from selfishness and the general power of the evil one is nigh at hand.—Rom. 8:19-23. The following, from a Western journal, The Star and Kansan , clearly represents the present situation and its strange inconsistencies. It says:— “The unemployed in this country to-day number two millions. Those dependent upon them probably number four times as many more. “Perhaps you have heard this before. I want you to think about it until you realize what it means. It means that under ‘the best government in the world,’ with ‘the best banking system the world ever saw,’ and every¬ thing else at the top notch, and with unparalleled produc¬ tions of food and every other comfort and luxury of exist¬ ence, one-seventh of our population has been reduced to absolute beggary, as the only alternative to starvation. People are going hungry in sight of warehouses and ele¬ vators filled with grain that can’t be sold for enough to pay the cost of raising. People are shivering and almost naked in the shadow of store rooms filled to bursting with cloth¬ ing of every sort. People are cold and fireless, with hun¬ dreds of millions of tons of coal easily accessible in thou¬ sands of mines. And the shoemakers who are idle would be glad to go to work and make shoes for the men who mine the coal in exchange for fuel. So would the latter be glad to toil in the mines to get shoes. Likewise the half-clad farmer in Kansas, who is unable to sell his wheat to pay for the harvesting and threshing bills, would be de¬ lighted to exchange it with the men in the eastern factories who spin and weave the cloth he needs. “It is not lack of natural resources that troubles the country to-day. It is not inability or unwillingness on the part of the two millions of idle men to labor and pro¬ duce desirable and useful things. It is simply that the in¬ struments of production and the means of exchange are congested in the hands of a few. How unwholesome a state of affairs this is we are beginning to realize; and we shall understand it more and more fully as the congestion grows more severe. People are idle, cold and starving be¬ cause they cannot exchange the products of their labor. 378 The Day of Vengeance. In view of such results as this, is not our boasted nineteenth century civilization pretty near a dead failure? The un¬ employed in this country formed in ranks four abreast and six feet apart would make a line six hundred miles long. Those who depend upon them for subsistence would in the same order reach 2,400 miles. This army thus formed would extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific—from Sandy Hook to the Golden Gate. “ If the intellect of the race is not capable of devising a better industrial system than this, we might as well admit that humanity is the greatest failure of the universe. [Yes, that is just where divine providence is leading: men must learn their own impotence and the true Master just as every colt must be “broken” before it is of value.] The most outrageous and cruel thing in all the ages, is the present attempt to maintain an industrial army to fight the battles of our plutocratic kings without making any pro¬ visions for its maintenance during the periods in which services are not needed.” The above was written during the period of the most serious depression incident to 'tariff tinkering,” and hap¬ pily is not the normal condition. However, there is no knowing when it may be repeated. Nevertheless, the Harrisburg Patriot, of Aug. 21, ’96, gives the following figures under the caption, “The Number of the Unem^ ployed:— “ There are 10,000 laborers out of work in Boston; iif Worcester 7,000 are unemployed; in New Haven 7,000; in Providence 9,600; in New York city 100,000. Utica is a small city, but the unemployed number 16,000; in Paterson, N. J., one-half of the people are idle; in Phila¬ delphia 15,000; in Baltimore 10,000; in Wheeling 3,000; in Cincinnati 6,000; in Cleveland 8,000; in Columbus 4,000; in Indianapolis 5,000; in Terre Haute 2,500; in Chicago 200,000; in Detroit 25,000; in Milwaukee 20,000; in Minneapolis 6,000; in St. Louis 80,000: in St. Joseph 2,000; in Omaha 2,000; in Butte City, Mont., 5,000; in San Francisco, 15,000.” We give below an extract from The Coming Nation, en« Preparation of the Elements. 379 titled “ A Problem You Must Solve.” It shows how very plainly some men see the present situation. All these warn¬ ing voices do but reiterate the solemn counsel of the in¬ spired prophet,—“ Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings [all in any measure of authority and power]; be instructed, ye judges of the earth.” It says:— “You will admit that new machines are rapidly displac¬ ing workmen. The claim that the making and caring for these new machines employs the number thus thrown out will not stand; for if that were true there would be no gain in the use of machines. The fact stands out so prom¬ inently that hundreds of thousands of men are now idle because machines are doing the work they formerly did, that any man must recognize it, if he will think but a moment. These men out of work do not buy as many goods as when employed, and this decreases the demand for goods, and thus prevents many more workmen from being employed, increases the number out of work and stops more purchasing. “What are you going to do with these unemployed? That prices of goods, as a whole, are being cheapened, does not give these men employment. There is no occupation open to them, for all occupations are glutted with men, for the same reason. You can’t kill them (unless they strike), and there is nowhere for them to go. In all serious¬ ness I ask, what are you going to do with them? Skilled farmers are bankrupting, so what show would these men have at that, even if they had land? “These men are multiplying like leaves of the forest. Their numbers are estimated by millions. There is no prospect of many of them getting employment, or if they do, it is only to take the places of others now employed who would then be added to the out-of-works. You think, perhaps, that it is none of your concern what becomes of them, but, my dear sir, it is your concern, and you will realize it before many sea¬ sons. It is a subject that cannot be dismissed by turning on your heel and refusing to listen. The French people thought that, once upon a time, but they learned differently, even if the present generation has forgotten the lesson. 3 So The Day of Vengeance. The present generation in the United States must solve this question, and will solve it in some way. It may be in peace and love and justice, or it may be by a man on horse¬ back trampling down the rights of all, as you now carelessly see the rights of some trampled. We repeat, you will answer these questions before the year 1900. ‘‘The French were warned, but they could not listen be¬ cause of the gaiety of royal rottenness. Will you listen? or will the present course be permitted to run unchecked until five or six millions are clamoring for bread or the oxide of iron ? The trouble, when it comes, will be intensified in the United States a hundred-fold, because of the social condi¬ tions that have prevailed here for a century. The love of liberty has grown stalwart, nursed on a hatred of kings, tyrants and oppressors. No army or navy from the masses can be relied upon to shoot their own fathers and brothers at the beck or order of untitled or titled kings. Seeing what must result from a too prolonged idleness of millions, whose conditions will soon cement a bond of fellowship, do you not think you have some interest in the conditions they are producing? Would it not be better to find and apply a remedy, to employ these men, even in public work¬ shops, than to have the finale? “We know what the capitalists are doing: We see them preparing the munitions of war to rule the masses by force of arms. But they are foolish. They are wise only in their own conceits. They are adopting the tadlics of kings, and will be as chaff before the wind, by and by. All the fates are against their tactics. Kings, with greater armies than can be mustered to fight for capitalism here, are trembling before the steady growth of a higher civiliza¬ tion among the people, hurried on by the distress of this rapidly increasing army of out-of-works. Justice injures none, though it may shut off the privileges of robbers. Let us, as citizens, solve and settle the problem lawfully, not as partisans, but as citizens who think more of country than of party, and more of justice than of the king’s gold.” These are strong words from one who evidently feels strongly, and there are many such. No one can gainsay that there is at least some truth in the charges. Preparation of the Elements. 3«i THE CONDITIONS UNIVERSAL AND BEYOND HUMAN POWER TO REGULATE. Nor are these conditions peculiar to America and Europe: not for centuries have the millions of Asia known anything else. An American missionary in India writes that she be¬ came heart-sick when asked by the natives if it were true that the people of her home have all the bread they want to eat, three times a day? She says that in India the ma¬ jority rarely have sufficient food to satisfy nature’s cravings. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, India, is reported to have said, not long since, “Half our agricultural popu¬ lation never know from year’s end to year’s end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied.” Those who raise the grain cannot eat what nature calls for: taxes must first be paid out of it. Ten millions of India’s population are hand-loom cotton-cloth weavers, and now machinery on the coast has destroyed their trade and left nothing for them but agriculture on the above hard conditions. In South Africa, too, where millions of dollars have recently been invested under what is known as the “African Gold Craze,” times are “hard” with very many, and some of the educated are faring worst. The following from a Natal, S. Africa, journal gives an idea of the conditions: — “Those who do not come diredlly in contadl with European immigrants in search of employment can have little idea of the amount of destitution which prevails among this class in Durban. It is gratifying to find, how¬ ever, that the Relief Committee of the Town Council realize that, on the grounds of humanity, they have a duty toward the unfortunates who have been stranded here. In course of a chat this week with Mr. R. Jameson, the inde¬ fatigable convener, who has entered heart and soul into this philanthropic movement, I ascertained that the relief works at the Point afford a temporary employment to some¬ thing like fifty men. It is distressing to find that men who 382 The Day of Vengeance. have been trained to clerical pursuits, as well as skilled artisans, should find themselves so ‘down in their luck’ that they are only too ready to accept the Corporation’s allow¬ ance of 3 s. per day and shelter, in return for eight hours’ shovelling sand under a broiling sun. “ Meantime there are no vacancies, and frequent applica¬ tions h; ve to be refused. From time to time the chairman of the committee, by means of advertisements and other¬ wise, finds employment for such of the men as have any knowledge of a trade or handicraft. Vacancies thus created in the gang are filled up from the ranks of those who have previously made unsuccessful application. In addi¬ tion to those serving on the gang, there is a considerable number of men wandering about the town who have sought in vain for employment. They very soon find their way to the genial deputy-mayor, and he does the best he can for them, which, unhappily, often ends in failure. If em¬ ployers having vacancies will wait on Mr. Jameson, they can obtain full information concerning the unemployed on his list. It must be understood that none of these men are residents proper of Durban, but have drifted there from various parts of South Africa in seach of employment. Durban is by no means unique in its experience; there are only too clear evidences that similar deplorable conditions hold elsewhere. “As has been already indicated, many of the applicants for places on the relief gang are men accustomed only to clerical work. It cannot be too often or too strongly em¬ phasized that for such there is absolutely no chance in Natal, the market being always overstocked. But for the adtion of the Corporation in providing temporary work, there would have been a considerably greater amount of destitution in town. On the whole the condudt of the men on the relief gang has been highly exemplary, and warrants a continuance of the policy which the council has adopted. But what, it may be asked, is the Benevolent Society doing? That excellent institution affords relief only to residents and their families, and, as usual, its hands are full—if not with money, at any rate with deserving cases.” Preparation of the Elements. 3S3 But will not people of intelligence who see these matters take steps to prevent the crushing of their fellow-creatures, less favored or less intelligent ? Do they not see that the upper millstone is coming very dangerously close upon the lower one, and that the masses who must pass between them in competition are feeling the pressure severely, and must feel it yet more? Will not generous hearts provide relief? No; the majority who are favored either by fortune or skill are so busy doing for themselves, “ making money,’ diverting as much as possible of the ‘ 4 grist” to their own sacks, that they do not realize the true situation. They do hear the groans of the less fortunate, and often give gener¬ ously for their aid, but as the number of the unfortunate grows rapidly larger, many get to feel that general relief is hopeless; they get used to the present conditions, and settle down to the enjoyment of their own comforts and special privileges, and for the time at least forget or ignore the troubles of their fellow men. But there are a few who are well circumstanced and who see the real situation more or less clearly. Some of these, no doubt, are manufacturers, mine owners, etc. They can. see the difficulties, and wish that matters were otherwise, and long to aid in changing them; but what can they do? They can do very little, except to help to relieve the worst cases of distress among their neighbors and relatives. They cannot change the present constitution of society and de¬ stroy the competitive system in part, and they realize that the world would be injured by the total abolition of com¬ petition without some other power to take its place to com¬ pel energy on the part of the naturally indolent. It is evident that no one man or company of men can change the present order of society; but by the Lord’s power and in the Lord’s way, as pointed out in the Script¬ ures, it can and will be changed by and by for a perfedl 384 The Day of Vengeance. system, based, not upon selfishness, but upon love and justice. And to introduce this the present conditions must be entirely overthrown. The new wine will not be put into the old bottles, nor a new patch upon the old garment. Hence, with sympathy for both rich and poor in the woes near at hand, we can pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven,” even though it be introduced with “the fire of God’s indigna¬ tion,” for which we see the “elements” already in pre¬ paration. THE MORNING COMETH. u A better day is coming, a morning promised long, When truth and right, with holy might, shall overthrow the wrong; When Christ the Lord will listen to every plaintive sigh, And stretch his hand o’er sea and land, with justice, by and by. The boast of haughty tyrants no more shall fill the air, But aged and youth shall love the truth and speed it everywhere. No more from want and sorrow shall come the hopeless cry, But war shall cease, and perfedt peace will flourish by and by. st The tidal wave is coming, the year of jubilee; With shout and song it sweeps along, like billows of the sea. The jubilee of nations shall ring through earth and sky. The dawn of grace draws on apace—’tis coming by and by. “ O! for that glorious dawning we watch and wait and pray, Till o'er the height the morning light shall drive the gloom away; And when the heavenly glory shall flood the earth and sky, We’ll bless the Lord for all his works and praise him by and by.” STUDY VIII. THE CRIES OF THE REAPERS. The Conservative Element of Society.—Peasants, Farmers.—New Condi- tions in Christendom.—Agrarian Agitation.—Its Causes.—Gold and Silver Standards are Factors.—The Scripture Prediction Fulfilling. —These Things Related to the Battle of The Great Day. “ Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath.”—Zeph. i : 18. 'T'HE thoughtful student of history, while following our -*■ theme and noting the truthfulness of the fadts presented and the reasonableness of the conclusions drawn, may still feel uncertain as to the outcome. He may say to himself, “The writer forgets that there is in the civilized as well as in the semi-civilized countries a large, a predominating social element which is extremely conservative, and has always constituted the backbone of society,—the farmers. ’ ’ But not so: we have not forgotten this fadt, and we recog¬ nize its importance. Looking back, we see that Europe would frequently have been thrown into the convulsions of revolution had it not been for this very conservative ele¬ ment. We see that the revolutions in France were chiefly- instituted and carried on by the working class of the larger cities and that the element which finally brought rest and peace was the conservative peasant-farmer. The reasons for this condition of things are not difficult to find, (i) The ‘farmer’s life contains less of excitement and social fridtion. (2) His mind is less drawn to the advantages of wealth, 25 3*5 3*G The Day of Vengeance. and his ambition for wealth and luxury lies comparatively dormant. (3) He is more or less attached to the soil, and learns to depend on it alone, trusting to nature’s rewards in return for labor. (4) The measure of education and consequent mental awakening and adlivity amongst far¬ mers has always heretofore been quite limited. Asa result of all these conditions, the farming class of the civilized world has long been pointed to as an example of frugal prosperity and contentment. But the last thirty years have witnessed a wonderful change in the affairs of farmers—in many respedts a very advan¬ tageous change. The farmers of the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland have always been on a different footing from the farmers of the remainder of the world. They are neither serfs nor peasants, nor ignorant, nor dull, but intelligent, even when not educated. Then the Civil War in the United States had the effedl of drawing together representatives from every part of the country and immi¬ grants from all parts of the world, and it furnished a cer¬ tain kind of education,—knowledge of things and affairs. It lifted the ideas of farmers more completely than ever out of the rut of centuries, and brought them into contadl and sympathy with the sentiments and ambitions which move city life. As a result the old log school-house no longer satisfied the ambitions of the country boy and girl, and with the increase of higher schools and colleges and seminaries came also the increase of literature (especially newspapers), which has been a remarkable fadlor in the de¬ velopment of the people of the United States—foreign- born as well as native-born citizens. The result here has been that to agriculture has been applied much of the system and ta< 5 t which belong to city business life, together with a multitude of inventions which have tended to de¬ crease the drudgery of the farmer and to vastly increase the The Cries of the Reapers. 3 S 7 produ6t of his land. As a result of these conditions not only has the country population vastly increased, but the city population has kept pace with it, and yet, beyond supplying food for our own seventy millions, we are able to distribute to the remainder of the world nearly eight hundred million dollars worth of farm products annually —about eight-tenths of our total exports. This until with¬ in the last ten years has meant great prosperity to American farmers; and with all this prosperity came to the farmer a share in life’s comforts and in the general desire for wealth and luxury, and consequently a measure of dissatisfaction with his conditions which, nevertheless, are far superior in many respects to those of farmers in other parts of the world. Meantime, the Franco-Prussian war exercised a some¬ what similar influence upon the peoples of France and Germany,—to a much less extent, however,—and their awakening has come in a different manner. The animosity between France, the conquered, and Germany, the con¬ queror, which has prevailed since their war, has induced both countries, and indirectly induced Italy, Austria and Russia, to establish a military training system which lays hold upon every young man of those countries and com¬ pels his instruction in military tactics and discipline, and incidentally his contact with numbers of his fellows. All this furnishes a most beneficial education; besides, in the barracks certain hours are devoted to book-studies. While the maintenance of these standing armies has seemed to be a terrible crime against the peoples of these various na¬ tions, removing from the channels of domestic activity one to three years in the life of each male member of society, it has nevertheless, we believe, proved a wonderful influ¬ ence for enlightenment; and the nations mentioned are awakened, energized and ambitioned as they never were be¬ fore. And, of course, in proportion as education has come 333 The Day of Vengeance. in, and a measure of contact with the conveniences and comforts and luxuries of city life and wealth, proportion¬ ately a measure of discontent has sprung up—a feeling that others are prospering better than they, and that they must be on the lookout for a favorable opportunity to better their conditions;—a laxity in morals has also been engen¬ dered. Meantime, the shackles of ignorance and superstition along religious lines have also been giving way, although, the influence of Papacy and the Greek Church is still very great. And while it is only half believed that the priest, bishop and pope have power to consign to pur¬ gatory, or to eternal torment, or to admit to heaven, yet their power is still to a great extent feared, reverenced. On the whole, however, a great change has come over all class¬ es from the religious point of view. The tendency amongst Protestants has, like a pendulum, swung to the opposite ex¬ treme, so that, although forms of godliness and piety are still observed, much of the true reverence has departed from the Protestant masses. The so-called “higher criticism” and theories of evolution have prabtically destroyed rever¬ ence for the Word of God. And these theories blending now with oriental Theosophy are making shipwreck of the true Christian faith of hundreds of thousands, both in Europe and America. All of these influences, it should be observed, have al¬ ready for some years been tending toward a change in the attitude of the class heretofore known as “the conservative yeomanry of Christendom.” And now, just at a critical juncture, we behold some mighty influence which gradually yet assiduously has been at work, and is now at work, un¬ dermining the prosperity of this conservative class. For the past ten years the farmers of the various civilized na¬ tions have been finding it more and more difficult to gain The Cries of the Reapers. 3 S 9 a competency or a share in the comforts and luxuries of life. The prices of their produces have been going steadily downward. This they have sought to offset by pro¬ curing improved machinery, hoping that the increase of production would compensate for the fall in prices; and hoping also that, somehow or other, prices would by and 1 by take a turn upward, as they have for some time been go- in a downward. o While the American farmer has been beset with these conditions, his European brother was faring even worse; because his conditions were less favorable: (i) To start with, he had oftener a rented farm, and a smaller one com¬ paratively. (2) He had not the same facilities for obtain¬ ing improved machinery. For these reasons the European farmer has not been at all able to offset the fall in price of wheat by a larger production in quantity; and he has suffered proportionately more than his American brother, except as he turned his attention to the sugar beet. Philosophers, statesmen and scientists have been giving the subjeCt some consideration, and very generally have hastily come to the conclusion that the fall in the price of wheat is wholly the result of “ over production.” Believing that they have found the true answer, they drop the matter there. But some, more careful, have studied the question out, and examined statistics, and find that it is not true that the granaries of the world are being stored with vast sup¬ plies of wheat for the needs of coming years. They find on the contrary that comparatively little wheat is carried from year to year, and that praCtically the world is producing no more wheat than is being consumed. Mr. Robt. Lindblom, a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, has made a study of the subjeCt, and in a com¬ munication to the Agricultural Department of the United States Government, dated Dec. 26, ’95, says:— 390 The Day of Vengeance. 1 ‘The aggregate produdlion of wheat, in the principal wheat growing countries, has not increased; for while it is true that some of the wheat countries show an occasional increase, it is equally true that other countries show a cor¬ responding decrease. In order to be absolutely impartial, let us take the last crop from which we have complete re¬ turns, namely that of 1893. “As regards foreign crops, I use the figures furnished by the special foreign correspondent of the Board of Trade and compiled by the secretary of the Chicago Board of Trade, and in regard to exports and domestic crops I use the figures of your department. I am compelled to omit the comparison as regards Austro-Hungary, because I have not in my possession the figures for 1893, but outside of this I beg to submit to.you a statement showing the pro- dudtion of wheat in all the principal countries for 1893, as compared with 1883:— England, France, Russia, United States, . Germany, Italy, India, . 1893. 53,000,000 277,000,000 25 2 , 000,000 396,000,000 116,000,000 119,000,000 266,000,000 1883. 76,000,000 286,000,000 273,000,000 421,000,000 94 , 000,000 128,000,000 287,000,000 Total, 1,479,000,000 1,565,000,000 “From the above it will be seen that in 1893 the prin¬ cipal wheat growing countries in the world produced 86,- 000,000 bu. less than ten years before, while, according to your figures, the produdlion in Argentina has increased only 60,000,000 bu. during the same time. In 1871 Great Britain produced over 116,000,000 bu. of wheat; and in two years preceding and succeeding that year the crop was 105,000,000 bu., or an average for the three years of 109,- 000,000 bu., while this year the crop is slightly over 48,- 000,000 bu., according to the figures furnished by the special foreign correspondent of the Board of Trade, residing in London. “If it were true that the United States were being sup- The Cries of the Reapers. 391 planted by competing wheat growers, then it would follow as a matter of logical inference that the exports from this country to Europe would show a decrease ; but previous to and including 1890 the average exports were 119,000,000 bu., while in 1891 they were 225,000,000 bu., in 1892, 191,000,000 bu., in 1893, 193,000,000 bu. and in 1894, 164,000,000 bu., so it does not seem to be a fa< 5 t that we have been holding our wheat while other countries have been disposing of theirs. The faCts are against the asser¬ tion, and if anything else were needed to prove it, your Department furnishes the information that stocks in farmers’ hands last March were small. I have no statistics as re¬ gards the crop of Australia, about which so much was said a few years ago, but I have the exports from that country in 1893 as 13,500,000 bu., while ten years before that they were 23,800,000 bu., and in 1894 and 1895 Australia was importing wheat from America. I have said nothing about the increased consumption which, in the last decade, in England amounts to 18,000,- 000 bu., and in this country during the same period the in¬ crease is not less than 50,000,000 bu., and there has been an increase in every country, except France, sufficient to more than absorb any increased production throughout the world.” Whatever the cause of this depression in the price of wheat (and we might remark that within the past three years particularly the depression has extended to all cereals, be¬ cause the farmer finding the price of wheat relatively lower than that of other cereals put in larger crops of oats, corn, rye, etc.), the fa< 5 t is indisputable that it is crushing the very life out of the farmers, both in Europe and America. Many American farmers who went into debt for farm ma¬ chinery, or who labor under a purchase-money mortgage upon their farm and nome, find it impossible to meet the payments on these, even in years of fairly good crops. They are crying out against the holders of mortgages, and also, and frequently unjustly, against the rates charged by the railroads for transporting their crops. The European 392 The Day of Vengeance. farmers are appealing to their several governments for ‘ 1 protection ” against the importation of wheat from other countries, so that they may maintain or raise their prices to cover a reasonable cost of production ; claiming, as all reasonable people would admit, that fifty or sixty cents a bushel for wheat is below cost if reasonable remuneration De allowed for the agriculturalist's time and energy. This brings to notice a very striking prophecy respedt, ing the closing days of this Gospel age, as recorded by the Apostle James. (Jas. 5 : x —9.) After calling our attention to the present day and its wonderful heaping together of riches, and after stating that these things are about to bring a great time of trouble, the Apostle gives as the im¬ mediate cause of the trouble an unrest in the hitherto con¬ servative class of society—the farmers. He seems to point out the condition of things precisely as can now be seen by all careful observers, adding in explanation of the mat¬ ter—that it is the result of a fraud. He says :— “Behold, that reward which you [“ rich men”] have fraudulently withheld from those laborers who harvested your fields cries out; and the loud cries of the laborers have entered into the ears of the Lord of armies. We have seen in the previous chapter that mechanics and laboring men in cities are already suffering to some extent, but that their real sufferings thus far are chiefly fear of the very much worse conditions daily developing with the in¬ crease of intelligence, machinery and population, under present social conditions. The civilized farmer not only has all this to contend against, but as we shall show he now is burdened by a “fraud” which does not injure but rather benefits his brother the mechanic. Looking at the fa< 5 ts of the case, we cannot see it to be true that laborers in general, and farm-laborers in particular, are defrauded out of their wages by employers in these The Cries of the Reapers. 393 ** last days” of this age. Indeed, on the contrary, we find that laws are more stridt than ever before in protecting the wage-earner from loss. He can attach and sell his employ¬ er’s property, and, indeed, in most instances is given pri¬ ority amongst the creditors. We believe the prophecy to apply rather to farmers in general, who are the world’s food producers, “reapers;” and we should look for some general world-wide legislation which would affedt all these “reapers” everywhere alike. We should expedt to find such legislation secured by trickery or deception, and we should expedt to find such tricky legislation or legalized “fraud” secured by and beneficial to the world’s rich men. Such a finding, and none other that we can think of, would meet the requirements of this prophecy. We believe, and shall endeavor to prove, that all these require¬ ments of the prophecy are met in the demonetization of silver. But let no one think for a moment that we are urging or expedting the return of silver to its former place as the principal money of the world!—much less that we are urging that as a panacea for present and coming troubles! Quite to the contrary, we are firmly convinced from James' proph¬ ecy that silver will not be restored to its monetary power. But we do wish to show the fulfilling of this prophecy, and to have all who will benefit by the light which it throws up¬ on the present and approaching troubles of the world. The demonetization of silver by Christendom is of ad¬ vantage to certain classes and of disadvantage to other certain classes in “Christendom.” It is of disadvantage to the growers of wheat, rice and cotton, because they must sell these produdts of their en¬ ergy in competition with the produdts of countries doing business on a silver basis, and hence pradtically they sell for depreciated silver; while their land, implements, clothing, 394 The Day of Vengeance. labor and the interest on mortgages on their property are all payable in enhanced gold. If they receive pay in silver and pay out the same sum in gold they lose just one half—when gold is double the value of silver. In 1873, before silver was demonetized by the nations of Christendom, a silver dollar was worth two cents more than a gold dollar, while to-day, in consequence of that legislation, it requires two silver dollars to equal a gold dollar (in affual value, outside the nation creating and using them at a fixed valuation like bank notes). This change may be stated as an appreciation or doubling of the value of a gold dollar; or as a deprecia¬ tion or dividing of the value of a silver dollar, according as the speaker or writer may prefer—the fatt is the same. The value of a bushel of wheat in 1872 was in silver #1.51 per bushel, in gold #1.54 in 1878 was in silver 1.34 per bushel, in gold 1.19 in 1894 was in silver 1.24 per bushel, in gold .61 It thus appears that the price of wheat has declined but little in countries which still recognizesilver—the fall in value has been in gold, in Christendom. England, the chief wheat purchaser, buys where she can get most wheat for her money. By turning a gold dollar into two silver ones she can purchase twice as much wheat in India as before silver was demonetized. Thus the gold-price of wheat was driven down. The rice and cotton growers of the United States suffer similarly for the same reasons. Rice and cotton are produced by silver standard countries, and can be bought by gold standard countries on that basis—one-half the former price. Incidentally the producers of other farm crops share the trouble, because wheat, cotton and rice growers, after try¬ ing in vain to make up for their declining prices by in¬ creased crops, are turning in despair to other crops which have not declined so much, and are depressing them by The Cries of the Reapers. 395 overprodudtion. Incidentally also small stores are suffer¬ ing, and ultimately all classes must feel the farmer’s burden to some extent. But what classes benefit by the demonetization of silver? Several: (i) Specially and most, the bankers, money lend¬ ers, mortgage owners; because every dollar of their wealth has doubled in value, and every dollar of interest received now is worth double what it was worth before;—worth double in the sense that it will purchase twice as much of the necessities and luxuries of life. (2) All persons of fixed incomes, such as Congressmen, Legislators, Judges, clerks and all workingmen who receive wages are benefited for similar reasons. Whether they get ten dollars per week or per day or per hour, the ten dollars will buy twice as much cotton, wool, wheat, etc., and consequently nearly twice as much of the produces of these. When the silver question was sprung upon the people of the United States by the farmers, who first found the cause of their trouble, it for a time looked as though it would sweep the country in the 1896 eledtions. But as each in¬ dividual looked out for his own interests in the question, the wealthy class, the office-holding class, the clerking class and the workingmen began to see that their bread was but¬ tered on the gold side; storekeepers and well-to-do farmers conservatively doubted their own judgments and followed the lead of their bankers—contrary to their own interests; and silver was defeated in the nation to whose interests it was most vital—the only nation which, by reason of the charadter and amounts of her exports and imports, could have turned the scales and restored silver to its former value as money. But now the case is hopeless: silver will not be re¬ stored to the place lost in 1S73. It is now a question of pure selfishness, and while farmers as a class are more num- 395 The Day of Vengeance. erous than any other, they do not constitute a majority, and nearly all others are selfishly interested on the other side of the question. Poor farmers! poor reapers of the fields! Your cries of the past four years are relieved a little for a year by reason of India’s famine and plague— a little respite to be followed soon by greater pressure than ever and by louder and louder cries from the reapers of Christendom. Thus is the patience and conservatism of the most patient and conservative class of society being undermined and destroyed as a further preparation for the great time of trouble, the great day of vengeance. But how did the demonetization of silver come about? Who could be interested in having such a catastrophe be¬ fall the world? We answer: Financiers took the lead. It is 11 their business” so to manage and work money as a farmer works his farm—to bring to themselves, or their syndicates and institutions, the largest possible increment. English financiers lead the world—they have been at the business longer, and have given it greater study. “Everything is fair in war” is an adage, and the finan¬ ciers and statesmen of England who seem to have gotten awake fifty years before the remainder of the world in re- speCt to such matters, seem to think that commercial war¬ fare is the order of the day and far more profitable to the victors than the slave trade of the past and the expeditions for pillage. The British early realized that, having a com¬ paratively small domain, their greatest prosperity must lie in the diredtion of manufacturing and financiering, not only for themselves, but so far as permitted for the remain¬ der of the world. Her public men have carefully pursued this plan, and being able to manufacture cheaper at the time than the remainder of the world they adopted the policy most favorable to their own interest—free trade—and have urged it as a policy upon the civilized world ever since. The Cries of the Reapers. 397 The conditions have for a long time made Great Britain not only the work-shop of the world, but also its com¬ mercial, money and banking center. Nearly a century ago shrewd British financiers saw that since they were not an agricultural people their interests would be favored by depressing the prices of agricultural products, which they were obliged to purchase from out¬ side nations. They saw also that silver was the money of the world and had been so from the earliest dawn of his¬ tory; therefore, if they could effeCt a change in their stand¬ ard of money so that they would do business on a gold basis while the remainder of the world used silver, they might be able to change the relative values of the two metals in their own favor. Consequently Great Britain demonetized silver as early as 1816. Had she succeeded in hindering manufactures in other countries, as she sought to do, and thus (by reason of having immense plants and facilities and experienced workmen) been able to manufac¬ ture cotton and woolen cloth and machinery at lower prices than the remainder of the world, unequipped, could pro¬ duce them, she would have succeeded in separating her money from that of the remainder of the world, and ultimate¬ ly have greatly advantaged herself. Butin neither of these respedts did she entirely succeed: France, and the United. States in particular, and later Germany, established pro¬ tective duties and thus fostered mechanical industries with¬ in their borders, and have gradually become able to supply not only the majority of their own necessities, but able also to compete with Great Britain for the trade cf the world—India, China, Spain, Portugal, South America, Russia—all of which countries, as we have seen, in turn, are seeking to follow the same course and to develop manu - factures of their own;—nevertheless, Great Britain still has the lead as the manufacturer and trader of the world. f 39 8 The Day of Vengeance. Neither did she succeed in the separation of gold and silver, so long recognized as unitedly the money of the world. Indeed, while the relationship between the two metals had for years been about sixteen parts of silver to one of gold in value, the tendency rather was for silver to appreciate and gold to depreciate relatively,—because silver was the money of the world chiefly in use, and favored above gold by the people, except in great Britain. It is not surpris¬ ing, therefore, that, as shown by statistics, a silver dollar commanded a premium of over two cents above a gold dollar in 1872. Realizing that by themselves they could control neither gold nor manufadtures, British financiers sought co¬ operation with the United States and with Europe, hoping that by their combined effort gold and silver would be separated in values, and gold thus caused to enhance in value. By a combination of the civilized nations to de¬ monetize silver as a standard money, the effedt would be:— (1) Silver would become merely a merchantable com¬ modity in civilized countries, and hence be cheaper than gold, whose standard (established) would rise proportion¬ ately as silver would decrease in value. This would enable the civilized countries to purchase what they wished of cotton, wheat, rubber and other raw materials from the un¬ civilized nations with a debased money, silver, and thus get them cheaper—at half price — while compelling the poor heathens to pay for all luxuries, machinery, etc., bought from civilized nations, double prices; because the heathen’s silver dollar had been demonetized and degraded to half a dollar by the legislation of his civilized brethren of Christendom, under the guidance of “Shylocks,” other¬ wise known as financiers. This use of civilized brains to get the advantage of the heathen is justified as “stridtly business;” but was it justice, or was it fraud, from the divine The Cries of the Reapers. 399 standpoint ? It surely was not doing to the heathen neigh¬ bor as they would have the heathen do to them. (2) Although this would let in all the civilized nations on the same footing with Great Britain as respedts the outside trade, yet she hoped that, having the lead of the others, she would always be able to hold the larger share of foreign trade. We do not ignore the law of supply and demand as respedls wheat: we admit its bearing, but have shown that as yet the world has no oversupply. We have seen, indeed, from Mr. Lindblom’s statistics that the wheat supply is not even keeping pace with the increase of the world’s pop¬ ulation. We notice, further, that while the year 1892 is noted as the one which produced the largest wheat harvest in the world’s history, the average price of wheat in New York City for that year was 90 cents per bushel; and that with smaller crops since the price steadily declined, until the present year, 1896-97. The spurt in prices during the present year is owing to the phenomenal conditions prevailing throughout the world. The wheat crop of Russia was considerably below its average v that of Austria and Hungary were also below the average, while India, which usually has a large surplus of wheat foi export, has a famine which is affebling 35,000,000 of its population, and is importing American wheat to help make up its deficiency. Such a condition of things in previous years—say in 1892 even, with the largest crop the world ever knew, would have put the price of wheat to probably $1.30 per bushel (for an ounce of silver was still worth 87 cents in gold in 1892), while under the monetary condi¬ tions prevailing in 1873 world’s price of wheat would this year have advanced to its present price in India,— about $1.90 per bushel (silver). Furthermore, in con¬ sidering this subject, we must take note of the fabl that. 4oo The Day of Vengeance. while the price of wheat has been dropping for the past twenty years for some cause (which we have seen is not thus far overproduction), the prices of some other articles have fallen comparatively little. For instance, compare the year 1878 with the year 1894 as being average years. The fol¬ lowing quotations represent the average prices for those years in New York city:— 1878. 1894- Rye, per bushel, .... 65c 68c Oats, “ “ 33 c 37 C Corn, “ “ . 5 2C 5 IC Kentucky Leaf Tobacco, per pound, 7 C 9%c Fresh Beef, wholesale, 5 / 4 c Fresh Pork, “ 4 j A c Hay, per ton, .... $ 7-25 $8.50 Compare with these the three items of wheat, cotton and silver, which were specially affeCted, and affedted alike, and, evidently by the same cause—the demonetization of silver by Christendom. 1878. 1894. Cotton, per pound, IIC 7 C Wheat, per bushel, $1.20 61c Silver, per ounce, .... 115 £> 3 j A c But, some one suggests, may not the demonetization of silver have been forced upon the nations of Christendom by the law of supply and demand ? Is not its fall in value due to its becoming too plentiful , and not to any scheme to- enhance the value of gold money? No, we answer; although the yield of gold and silver of late has been great, the growth of general business and population has been proportionately far greater. All the gold and silver of the world, if coined into money, would be quite insufficient for the world’s business, and would require supplementing with government, bank and com¬ mercial notes, clearing house certificates, etc. It is the money-lender that is interested in having a legal tender The Cries of the Papers. 401 money scarce, so that he may always have a good demand for it, and be able to lend it at a good rate of interest and demand double security. All the gold of the world, coined and uncoined, is estimated at less than sixty hundred mill¬ ion dollars ($6,000,000,000), while the public and private debts of the United States are reckoned to be more than three times this sum. Russia had been trying for years be¬ fore 1873 t0 return from a debased paper money to a silver standard, and as she could not get silver enough she is still on a paper basis. We mention these matters to show that the fall of silver was pre?nediicited; that it was caused, not by the law of supply and demand (it was more in de¬ mand than gold in ±872, and brought a premium over gold), but by legislation. But is it conceivable that the representatives of the peo¬ ple of all the nations of “ Christendom ” entered into a conspiracy against the heathen and against their own far¬ mers? No: the fadts do not beaz out such a conclusion; but rather indicate that the money power (which we shall term “ Shylock”) engineered the scheme so as to deceive legislators as to the results to be expedted. We have the testimony of Prince Bismarck, and of many United States’ Congressmen, to this effedt. Thus, “ by fraud ,” the thin wedge of legislation was inserted between the two halves of the world’s money, with the effedt of depreciating silver and doubling the value of gold: and now, when the evil is discerned, statesmen stand aghast at the extent of the rup¬ ture, and realize that the restoration of silver to its former place would work hardship and loss to the creditor class in offset to the injury and loss already experienced by the debtor class by the debasement of silver. Besides, “ Shy- lock” having obtained an advantage so valuable (doubling the value of all his possessions and incomes), would permit society to go into convulsions of p^nic or revolution rather 26 D 402 The Day of Vengeance. than lose this grip upon the financial life-blood of human¬ ity. “Shylock” has the power to enforce his demands. He controls the numerous class of borrowers who are suppli¬ cants at his bank-counters: he controls the national govern¬ ments, all of which are borrowers, and he controls the press, by which the public is encouraged to trust “ Shylo.ck’s ” honor and benevolence and to fear his anger and power. In addition, a very large and influential class of salaried of¬ ficials and clerks and skilled workmen find that their inter¬ ests are in accord with “ Shylock’s” policy; and if not his supporters, they are lukewarm or cool in their opposition to his policy, and inclined to say little or nothing against it. Among the many testimonies respecting the deception and fraud practiced, the following few will suffice:— Senator Thurman said:— s “When the bill was pending in the Senate we thought it was simply a bill to reform the mint, regulate coinage and fix up one thing and another, and there is not a single man in the Senate, I think, unless a member of the com¬ mittee from which the bill came, who had the slightest idea that it was even a squint toward demonetization.”— Con¬ gressional Record, volume 7, part 2, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, page 1,064. Senator Conkling in the Senate, on March 30, 1876, during the remarks of Senator Bogy on the bill (S. 263) To .\mend the Laws Relating to Legal Tender of Silver Coin, in surprise inquired:— “Will the Senator allow me to ask him or some other Senator a question? Is it true that there is now by law no American dollar? And, if so, is it true that the effedt of this bill is to make half-dollars and quarter-dollars the only silver coin which can be used as a legal tender?” Senator Allison, on February 15, 1878, said:— “But when the secret history of this bill of 1873 comes to be told, it will disclose the fadt that the House of Repre¬ sentatives intended to coin both gold and silver, and in- The Cries of the Reapers . I 4o 3 tended to place both metals upon the French relation, in¬ stead of on our own, which was the true scientific position with reference to this subjedt in 1873, but that the bill afterward was dobtored.” Hon. William D. Kelley, who had charge of the bill, in a speech made in the House of Representatives, March 9, 1878, said:— ‘‘In connection with the charge that I advocated the bill which demonetized the standard silver dollar I say that, though the chairman of the committee on coinage, I was ignorant of the fabt that it would demonetize the silver dollar from our system of coins, as were those distinguished Senators, Messrs. Blaine and Voorhees, who were then members of the House, and each of whom a few days since interrogated the other: ‘Did you know it was dropped when the bill passed?’ ‘No,’ said Mr. Blaine, ‘did you? ‘No,’ said Mr. Voorhees. ‘I do not think that there were three members in the house that knew it.’ ” Again, on May 10, 1879, M r - Kelley said:— “All I can say is that the committee on coinage, weights and measures, who reported the original bill, were faithful and able, and scanned the provisions closely; that as their organ I reported it; that it contained provision for both the standard silver dollar and the trade dollar. Never hav¬ ing heard until a long time after its enadtment into law of the substitution in the Senate of the sedtion which dropped the standard dollar, I profess to know nothing of its his¬ tory ; but I am prepared to say that in all the legislation of this country there is no mystery equal to the demoneti¬ zation of the standard silver dollar of the United States. I have never found a man who could tell just how it came about or why.” Senator Beck, in a speech before the Senate, January 10, 1878, said :— “It (the bill demonetizing silver) never was understood by either House of Congress. I say that with full knowl¬ edge of fabts. No newspaper reporter—and they are the most vigilant men I ever saw in obtaining information—- discovered that it had been done.” 404 The Day of Vengeance. Did jpace permit we could quote similar forceful lan¬ guage from many others. The very title of the bill was mis¬ leading; it was called: “An Act Revising the Laws Relative to the Mint, Assay Officers and Coinage of the United States;” and the demonetization of silver was hidden by (i) the provision of sedlion 14, that a gold dollar should thenceforth “be the unit of value;” and (2) by sedtion 15, which defines and specifies the silver coins, but entirely omits to mention the “standard” silver dollar. The Adt of June 22, 1874, finished the killing of the “standard ” silver dollar without so much as naming it, by simply pro¬ viding that no other coins except those mentioned in the Adt of 1873 should be minted. And President U. S. Grant, whose signature made the adt a law, it is said, did not know of its character, and so declared four years after, when the effedt began to be apparent. Indeed, few but the long¬ headed “financiers” took much notice of specie, as the nation had not yet resumed specie payments and this was supposed to be a helpful preparatory step in that diredtion. Mr. Murat Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati Com¬ mercial Gazette , is one of the able men of to-day. The following from his pen under date of Odtober 24, 1877, is quoted from the New York Journal :— “This, the British gold policy, was the work of experts only. Evasion was essential to success in it, and possibly because coin was not in circulation, and, being out of pub¬ lic view, it could be tampered with without attracting at¬ tention. The monometallic system of the great creditor nation was thus imposed upon the great debtor nation without debate.” The following words are publicly credited to Col. R. G. Ingersoll:— “I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud. It was an imposition upon every solvent man, a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United The Cries of the Reapers. 405 States. It assassinates labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest mend’ That the effedt would be what it is was foretold by numer¬ ous statesmen upon the floors of Congress as soon as the true situation was realized—1877 to 1880. Some were blind to the issue, and some were quieted by self-interest, and some relied upon the advice of “financiers,” but others spoke valiantly against the wrong. The late Hon. James G. Blaine said in a speech before the United States’ Senate (1880):— “I believe the struggle now going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if suc¬ cessful, produce widespread disaster in and throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money, and the establishment of gold as the sole unit of value, must have a ruinous effedt on all forms of property except those investments which yield a fixed return in money. These would be enormously enhanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other species of property. If, as the most reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly $7,000,000,000 of coin or bullion in the world, very equally divided between gold and silver, it is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without results that will prove distressing to millions, and utterly disastrous to tens of thousands. I believe gold and silver coin to be the money of the constitution; indeed, the money of the American people anterior to the consti¬ tution, which the great organic law recognized as quite in¬ dependent of its own existence. No power was conferred on Congress to declare either metal should not be money; Congress has, therefore, in my judgment, no power to de¬ monetize either. If, therefore, silver has been demone¬ tized, I am in favor of remonetizing it. If its coinage has been prohibited, I am in favor of ordering it to be re¬ sumed. I am in favor of having it enlarged.” The late Senator Vance said later:— “The power of money and its allies tnroughoul the world have entered into this conspiracy to perpetrate the 40 6 The Day of Vengeance. greatest crime of this or any other age, to overthrow one- half of the world’s money and thereby double their own wealth by enhancing the value of the other half which is in their hands. The money changers are polluting the temple of our liberties.” The United States’ Government recently sent official letters to its representatives in foreign countries, requesting reports on monetary affairs. The report of Mr. Currie, Minister to Belgium, recently published, is a remarkable showing, in harmony with the experiences of the people of the United States. He reports the following reply to his questions given by the Hon. Alfonse Allard, Belgian Diredlor of Finance:— “Since 1873 a crisis, consisting in a fall in all prices, exists continually, nor does it appear possible to arrest its progress. This fall in prices, readting on wages, is now evolving a social and industrial crisis. “You ask me why we returned in 1873 to monometallism, limping though it be. I can conceive no other reason, un¬ less that it was to please a certain class of financiers who profited thereby—a class supported by theories invented and defended at that time by some political economists, notably by members of the Institute of France. “Youask what influence these monetary measures have had in Belgium on industry and wages? Money, which was already scarce in 1873, ^ as become still scarcer, and that fall in prices which was predidted has taken place. The average fall in the price of all the produdls of labor is 50 per cent, since 1873—^ at °f cereals over 65 per cent. Industry is no longer remunerative, agriculture is ruined, and everybody is clamoring for protedlion by duties, while our ruined citizens think of war. Such is the sad condi¬ tion of Europe.” In a letter to the National Republican League (June n, *91,) Senator J. D. Cameron said:— “The single gold standard seems to us to be working ruin with a violence that nothing can stand. If this in¬ fluence is to continue for the future at the rate of its adtion 407 The Cries of the Reapers. during the twenty years since the gold standard took pos¬ session of the world, some generation, not very remote, will see in the broad continent of America only a half- dozen overgrown cities keeping guard over a mass of capital and lending it out to a population of dependent laborers on the mortgage of their growing crops and unfinished handiwork. Such sights have been common enough in the world’s history, but against it we all rebel. Rich and poor alike; Republicans, Democrats, Populists; labor and capi¬ tal ; churches and colleges—all alike, and all in solid good faith, shrink from such a future as this. ’ ’ English financiers know very well why the farmers of the world, and especially the farmers of the United States and Canada, who export wheat, are suffering; and they sometimes confess that it is their own selfishness. For in¬ stance, we quote from the editorial columns of the Finan- cial News (London), April 30, 1894, as follows:— “We have frequent diplomatic differences with the United States; but, as a rule, there is seldom associated with these any sense of animus between the peoples of the two countries, and squabbles pass over and are forgotten. But now we are encouraging the growth of a feeling that, on a question which afifedts the prosperity of millions of indi¬ vidual Americans, this country is inclined to entertain views unfriendly to the States. We know, of course, that the unfriendliness is accidental, and that our monetary policy is controlled by purely selfish considerations—so purely selfish that we do not mind seeing India suffering from oui adlion much more than America does. . . . “Senator Cameron points a plain moral when he re¬ marks that if the United States would venture to cut her¬ self adrift from Europe and take outright to silver, she would have all America and Asia at her back, and would command the markets of both continents. ‘The barrier of gold would be more fatal than any barrier of a custom house. The bond of silver would be stronger than any bond of free trade. ’ There can be no doubt about it, that if the United States were to adopt a silver basis to-morrow, British trade would be ruined before the year is out. Every The Day of Vengeance. 408 American industry would be protedted, not only at home, but in every other market. Of course, the States would suffer to a certain extent through having to pay her obliga¬ tions abroad in gold; but the loss on exchange under this head would be a mere drop in the bucket compared with the profits to be reaped from the markets of South America and Asia, to say nothing of Europe. The marvel is that the United States has not long ago seized the opportunity, and but for the belief that the way of England is neces¬ sarily the way to commercial success and prosperity, un¬ doubtedly it would have been done long ago. Now, Amer¬ icans are awakening to the fadl that, ‘so long as they nar¬ row their ambition to becoming a larger England ’ they cannot beat us. It has been a piece of good luck for us that it has never before occurred to the Americans to scoop us out of the world’s markets by going on a silver basis, and it might serve us right if, irritated by the con¬ temptuous apathy of our government to the gravity of the silver problem, the Americans retaliate by freezing out gold. It could easily be done. . . . There have not been wanting, of late, indications of growing irritation with this country for its dog-in-the-manger attitude towards a ques¬ tion (the silver question) that is convulsing two continents, and gravely compromising the future of the poorer states in Europe.” That the farmers’ cry, that reward for toil is kept back by fraud, is general to all gold-standard countries—to ail Christendom—we quote as follows:— Under date September 22, ’96, the New York World publishes a lengthy cable message, signed by leading agri¬ cultural men of Europe, met as an International Agricul¬ tural Congress, at Budapest, Hungary, addressed to the then Presidential candidate W. J. Bryan. It says:— “We wish you success in your struggle against the dom¬ ination of the creditor class, which during the past twenty- three years has secured both in Europe and America, mone¬ tary legislation destructive of the prosperity of your farmers and others. . . . We believe that, failing such restoration (of silver to money privileges), the gold premium through* The Cries of the Reapers. 409 out all Asia and South America will continue to rob the farmer (of America and Europe) of all rewards for his toil, and that your election may avert from Europe serious agrarian and social troubles now pending.” The New York World, under date of September 24, *96, publishes the following words of Prince Bismarck to Herr von Kardorf, leader of the Free Conservative Party in the German Reichstag:— “I am too old to go to school over the currency issue, but I recognize that, although I aCted in 1873 011 what I regarded as the best advice, my adtion was too precipitate in view of the results which have followed. “The one class that we cannot afford to estrange is the farming class. If they are convinced, and they assure you they are convinced, that agricultural depression is peculiar to these monetary changes, our government must review its position.” The present extreme depression of silver, and of all com¬ modities sold on a silver basis, came very gradually—for two reasons. (1) It required time and manipulation to depress silver, a commodity still in great demand by more than one-half the world’s population. (2) Silver mine owners and others diredlly interested, together with states¬ men who foresaw the coming evil, pressed their arguments so forcibly in the United States’ Congress that expedients were resorted to, such as the Remonetization A6t of 1878, and the Silver Purchasing A6t of 1890. But expedients were found impracticable. Silver must either be a money with full, equal power with gold as legal tender, or else it must be considered a merchantable commodity like dia¬ monds, wheat, etc., and be subjeCt to fluctuations accord¬ ing to supply and demand; and when in 1893 the last of these expedients was repealed, silver at once dropped to one-half the price of gold, and all the evils of its demone¬ tization were felt to their full in 1895, except as the conse¬ quent panic may be far-reaching, progressive and enduring. 4io The Day of Vengeance . Here, then, are the fa T-JJf this confusion; and that, in God’s wise providence, men are now brought face to face with these perplexing problems which no human wisdom can solve, and with calamitous conditions which no human foresight or policy can avert or dispel, so that in due time, in their extremity and peril, they will be glad to recognize and submit to the divine in¬ tervention and to cease from their own works and be taught of God. He whose right the kingdom is is about to “take unto himself his great power and reign,” to bring order out of chaos, to glorify his Church, as his “bride,” and with and through her to end the woes of the sin-bur¬ dened, groaning creation and bless all the families of the earth. Only those who have the “true light” can see the glorious outcome of this present dark time, which is puz • zling the wise. MR. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, LIKE OTHERS, SEES THE CONDI¬ TION OF THINGS AND DEPLORES IT, BUT SUGGESTS NO REMEDY. Col. Ingersoll is well known as a wise man according to the course of this world. Although a noted infidel, he is a man of marked ability and of more than usual sound judg¬ ment, except in religious matters, where no man’s judg¬ ment is sound except as informed and guided by the Word and spirit of the Lord. As a lawyer, Mr. Ingersoll’s ad¬ vice has been so highly esteemed that he has been known to receive $250 for thirty minutes counsel. This adtive brain has also been employed in grappling with the great problems of this perplexing time; yet neither has he any remedy to suggest. He has expressed his views of the situa¬ tion in a lengthy article in the Twentieth Century , from which we give a brief extradb He says:— “ Invention has filled the world with competitors, not only of laborers, but of mechanics—mechanics of the 28 D AZ A rO~t The Day of Vengeance. highest skill. To-day the ordinary laborer is, for the most part, a cog in the wheel. He works with the tireless, he feeds the insatiable. When the monster stops the man is out of employment—out of bread. He has not saved any¬ thing. The machine that he fed was not feeding him— the invention was not for his benefit. The other day I heard a man say that for thousands of good mechanics it was almost impossible to get employment, and that in his judgment the government ought to furnish employment to the people. A few minutes after I heard another say that he was selling a patent for cutting out clothes; that one of the machines could do the work of twenty tailors, and that only the week before he had sold two to a great house in New York, and that over forty cutters had been discharged. The capitalist comes forward with his specific. He tells the workingman that he must be economical—and yet, un¬ der the present system, economy would only lessen wages. Under the great law of supply and demand every saving, frugal, self-denying workingman is unconsciously doing what little he can to reduce the compensation of himself and his fellows. The saving mechanic is a certificate that wages are high enough. 4 ‘Capital has always claimed, and still claims, the right to combine. Manufacturers meet and determine prices, even in spite of the great law of supply and demand. Have the laborers the same right to consult and combine? The rich meet in the bank, club-house or parlor. Workingmen, when they combine, gather in the street. All the organ¬ ized forces of society are against them. Capital has the army and the navy, the legislature, the judicial and execu¬ tive departments. When the rich combine, it is for the the purpose of ‘exchanging ideas.’ When the poor com¬ bine, it is a ‘conspiracy.’ If they adt in concert, if they really do something, it is a ‘mob.’ If they defend them¬ selves, it is ‘ treason.’ How is it that the rich control the departments of government? There are times when mendi¬ cants become revolutionists—when a rag becomes a banner, under which the noblest and the bravest battle for the right. “How are we to settle the unequal contest between man and machine? Will the machines finally go into partner¬ ship with the laborer? Can these forces of nature be con- The Conflict Irrepressible. 435 trolled for the benefit of nature’s suffering children? Will extravagance keep pace with ingenuity? Will the workmen become intelligent enough and strong enough to become the owners of machines? Can man become intelligent enough to be generous, to be just; or does the same law or fa< 5 t control him that controls the animal or vegetable world? In the days of cannibalism the strong devoured the weak —actually ate their flesh. In spite of all the laws that man has made, in spite of all advances in science, the strong, the heartless, still live on the weak, the unfortunate, and the foolish. When I take into consideration the agony of civilized life—the failures, the anxieties, the tears, the withered hopes, the bitter realities, the hunger, the crime, the humiliation, the shame—I am almost forced to say that cannibalism, after all, is the most merciful form in which man has ever lived upon his fellow-man. “It is impossible for a man with a good heart to be satis¬ fied with the world as it now is. No man can truly enjoy even what he earns—what he knows to be his own—know¬ ing that millions of his fellow-men are in misery and want. When we think of the famished, we feel that it is almost heartless to eat. To meet the ragged and shivering makes one .almost ashamed to be well dressed and warm—one feels as though his heart were as cold as their bodies. “Is there to be no change? Are the Maws of supply and demand,’ invention and science, monopoly and com¬ petition, capital and legislation, always to be the enemies of those who toil? Will the workers always be ignorant enough and stupid enough to give their earnings for the use¬ less? Will they support millions of soldiers to kill the sons of other workingmen? Will they always build temples and live in dens and huts themselves? Will they forever allow parasites and vampires to live upon their blood? Will they remain the slaves of the beggars they support? Will honest men stop taking off their hats to successful fraud ? Will industry, in the presence of crowned idleness, forever fall upon its knees? Will they understand that beggars cannot be generous, and that every healthy man must earn the right to live? Will they finally say that the man who has had equal privileges with all others has no right to com¬ plain, or will they follow the example set by their oppress- 4 3 6 The Day of Vengeance. ors? Will they learn that force, to succeed, must have thought behind it, and that anything done in order that it may endure must rest upon the cornerstone of justice?” The argument here set forth is poor, weak, hopeless and suggestionless; and coming from a wise man and a fine logician merely shows that the wise men of this world see the malady but can see no remedy. The learned gentle¬ man points out the causes of the difficulty clearly enough, and their inevitableness, and then says, to workmen, prac¬ tically,—“Don’t you let them (invention, science, compe¬ tition, etc.) crowd you down and hurt you ! ” But he sug¬ gests no means of deliverance, except it be in the query, “Will the workmen become intelligent enough and strong enough to become the owners of machines? ” But suppose they had machines and quite sufficient capital to operate them ! Could such fadtories and machines be operated more successfully than others? Could they long be successfully operated as benevolent concerns and not for profit? Would they not do their share to increase “over- pro du 61 ion ” and cause “shut-downs,” making their own and other workmen idle ? Do we not know that if the mill or shop were run on the principle of equal pay for all employed, it would speedily either become bankrupt be¬ cause it paid too much for wages, or else the more skillful would be drawn by better pay to other situations, or to private operations on their individual account? In a word, self-interest, selfishness, is so ingrained in fallen human na¬ ture and so much a part of the present social strudture that whoever does not count on it will quickly learn his mistake. The closing sentence quoted is very smooth, but very barren of help for the emergency. It is like a glass nest- egg. It serves instead of a solution, until you break it open and attempt to eat it. “Will they [the workmen] The ConfiiH Irrepressible. 437 * learn that force, to succeed, must have thought behind it?’ r Yes; all know that; and that thought must have brains; and that the brains must be of good quality and arrange¬ ment. All can see that if all had brains of equal caliber and force the battle between man and man would be so equal that a truce would be speedily arranged, and each other’s rights and interests provided for; or, more probably, the fight would have come sooner and been severer. But no one knows better than does Mr. Ingersoll that no earthly power could produce such a condition of mental equality. The fourth paragraph quoted is most creditable to the great man. It finds an echo in every noble soul, of which we trust there are many. But others, in moderate circum¬ stances, or even wealthy like Mr. Ingersoll, decide as he no doubt has decided, that they are as powerless to obstrudt or to alter the social trend which sweeps along the channel of the fallen human nature, by casting into it their money and influence, as they would be to stop Niagara Falls by casting their bodies thereinto. A momentary splash and commotion is all that there would be in either case. HON. J. L. THOMAS ON LABOR LEGISLATION. The claim is frequently made that Labor has been dis¬ criminated against by legislation favoring the rich and in¬ jurious to the interests of the poor; and that a reversal of this would be a cure-all remedy. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we are glad to have a summary of United States Labor legislation by so well qualified a gentle¬ man as United States Assistant Attorney General Thomas, in the New York Tribune , Odd. 17, ’96, as follows:— “ To write the history of the legislation for the last fifty years for the amelioration of the conditions of the poorer and laboring classes would require volumes, but it may be summarized as follows: The Day of Vengeance. 43 s “ Imprisonment for debt has been abolished. “Laws have been passed exempting homesteads and a large amount of personal property from execution against debtors who are heads of families, their widows and orphans. “Liens have been given by law to mechanics and laborers on the land or thing on which they bestow labor for their wages. “ Poor persons are allowed to sue in the courts, State and National, without the payment of costs or the giving of security for costs. “The courts, State and National, appoint attorneys to defend, without compensation, poor persons in the criminal courts and in some instances in the civil courts. “The courts in many instances are directed to enter judg¬ ment in favor of a laborer who has to bring suit to recover his wages or enforce his rights against a corporation for a stated sum to cover his attorney’s fees. “ Seven hours, in some cases, and eight or nine in others, have been declared by law a day’s labor for public service or on public works. “In the administration of insolvent estates the wages of labor are preferred claims, and in some cases wages are made preferred claims generally. “Laws have been passed regulating passenger and freight charges on railroads and other transportation lines, and also of public warehouses and elevators, and National and State commissions have been created to supervise railway traffic, by which charges have been reduced two-thirds or more. “ Laws reducing the rate of interest have been passed in nearly all of the States, and extending the time for redemp¬ tion after the foreclosure of mortgages or deeds of trust. “Railroads are required to fence their roads or pay double damages resulting from a failure to fence; they are also re¬ quired to furnish safe places and appliances for their workmen. “ Manufacturers and mine operators are required to pro¬ vide places and machinery for the safety and comfort of their employes. “The incorporation of labor organizations has been au¬ thorized by law. “Labor Day has been made a national holiday. The Conflict Irrepressible. 439 “ Commissioners of Labor, State and National, are ap¬ pointed to gather statistics and, so far as possible, ameliorate the condition of the working classes. “The Department of Agriculture has been established, and the head thereof made a Cabinet officer. “Seeds costing $150,000 annually are distributed free to the people. “It is made a misdemeanor in many of the States to blacklist a poor man who has been discharged from service or has failed to pay his debts, and it is made a misdemeanor to threaten by postal card through the mails to sue a debtor, or by the use of any device to refledt on him. “In order to protedt the imprudent and unwary, the use of the mails is denied to those who would operate fraudulent or lottery schemes through this medium. “ Postages have been reduced, entailing a loss to the gov¬ ernment of $8,000,000 annually in carrying the mails, under the operation of which the people get the country news¬ papers free of postage, and the best magazines and periodi¬ cals have been made so cheap as to put them within the reach of the poor. “Policies of life insurance and shares in building and loan associations are made non-forfeitable for non-pay¬ ment of premiums or dues after a limited time. “Banks, whether State or National, are subject to public supervision, and their accounts to public inspedtion. “The employes in the public service are allowed leave of absence with pay for thirty days in some instances, and fif¬ teen days in others, and an additional thirty days for sickness of themselves or families. “The coolie trade, the importation of laborers under contradt, the labor of convidtsof the United States, the fur¬ ther immigration of Chinese, the importation of convidl- labor-made-goods, and the peonage system have been for¬ bidden by law. “ Boards of Arbitration, State and National, for the settlement of labor disputes have been created. “Those employed in the public service are allowed pay for the National holidays—the first day of January, the 22c! of February, Decoration day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and the 25th of December. 440 The Day of Vengeance. “Homesteads have been given to those who would go and settle on them, and other lands have been given to those who would plant and grow trees thereon. “ The Australian ballot and other laws for the protection of the people in their right to vote unmolested and unawed, have been passed. “Four millions of slaves have been freed, by which hun¬ dreds of thousands of property-owners were impoverished. “Public libraries have been established at public expense. “ Public hospitals have been multiplied for the care of the sick and poor. “One hundred and forty million dollars are annually paid out of the public Treasury to the soldiers of our wars, their widows and orphans. “ Last, though not least, public schools have been estab¬ lished, so that now the annual expenditure for tuition alone in them is more than $160,000,000, and for buildings, in¬ terest on loans and other expenses, probably the further sum of $40,000,000 or more. “Innumerable other laws of less importance, looking in the same direction as the above, and extending into the minutest details of the relations between employers of la¬ bor, whether corporations, partnerships or individuals, and employes, have been passed by Congress and by the Legislatures of the various States “ All these laws were passed and these benefactions granted by the rich as well as the poor. Indeed, the his¬ tory of this country for the last quarter of a century shows that men and women of all classes alike have taxed their ingenuity to the utmost limit to devise laws for the benefit, education and elevation of the masses of the people, and this has been carried so far that many thoughtful men fear that it will, if the present course continues, land in State Socialism. There is no question that the trend of public opinion among the people h^s been for many years in that direction.” So then, if all has been done by legislation that can be done, and still the unrest increases, it is evidently hopeless So look in that direction for a remedy. Mr. Thomas evi- The ConfliTt Irrepressible . 44 \ dently has also reached the conclusion that the conffiCI i.* Yreuressible. Note the words in which that able and noble man, WENDELL PHILLIPS, EXPRESSED HIS OPINION. “No reform, moral or intellectual, ever came from the upper class of society. Each and all came from the pro¬ test of the martyr and victim. The emancipation of the working people must be achieved by the working people themselves. ’' Very true; very wise; but neither does Mr. Phillips of¬ fer any practical suggestion as to how the working-people are to emancipate themselves from the sure outcome on selfish principles of the Law of Supply and Demand (backed by mental and physical inequalities), inexorable as the law of gravitation. He knew not what to recommend. Revolution, as all know, might work local and temporary changes, beneficial or otherwise but what would revolution avail against universal conditions and competition? As well might we revolt against the rising of the ocean tide, and attempt to sweep it back with brooms, or to gather the surplus in barrels. Macaulay’s prediction. The Paris Figaro quotes the following extracts of a letter written in 1857 by Mr. Macaulay, the great English his-, torian, to a friend in the United States:— “It is clear as the daylight that your government will never be able to hold under control a suffering and angry majority, because in your country the government is in the hands of the masses, and the riclq who are in the minority, are absolutely at their mercy. A day will come in the state of New York when the multitude, between half a break¬ fast and the hope of half a dinner, will eleCt your legisla-. 442 The Day oj Vengeance. tors. Is it possible to have any doubt as to the kind of legislators that will be elected? “You will be obliged to do those things which render prosperity impossible. Then some Caesar or Napoleon will take the reins of government in hand. Your Republic will be pillaged and ravaged in the twentieth century, just as the Roman empire was by the barbarians of the fifth century, with this difference, that the devastators of the Roman em¬ pire, the Huns and Vandals, came from abroad, while your barbarians will be the natives of your oavii country, and the product of your own institutions.” It did not occur to this man of large acquaintance with human nature, in both rich and poor, to suggest as a prob¬ ability that the rich might unselfishly espouse the cause of the majority and acquiesce in the enadlment of such large and benevolent laws as would lift the masses gradually to competency and render it impossible for anyone to amass more than half a million dollars worth of wealth. No; Mr. Macaulay knew that such a proposition was unworthy of consideration, and hence his predidlion, which is inline with God’s testimony as to the results of selfishness, a great time of trouble. Moreover, since he thus wrote, the ballot has been de¬ manded by Mr. Macaulay’s own countrymen, the British public, and they got their demand. It has been demand¬ ed by the Belgians and the Germans, and has been granted. It was demanded and taken by force by the French. It is being demanded in Austro-Hungary, and will be exercised ere long by the Italians. So that the very catastrophe so confidently predidled for the United States impends also over “Christendom” entire. Macaulay saw no hope, and had no suggestions to offer, except what others also offered; namely, that the rich and influential forcibly take control and sit on the safety valve as long as possible—until the explosion occurs. The Ccnftift, Irrepressible . MR. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW’s HOPES. 443 Amongst the able and broad thinkers of the world to-day is also the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, LL. D. A wise man, he frequently gives good advice; and we are glad to have his views of the present situation. Speaking to the graduating class of the Chicago University, and others, as orator of its Tenth Convocation, he said, among other things:— “Education has not only made possible the marvelous growth of our country, and the wonderful opportunity it affords for employment and fortunes, but it has lifted our people out of the methods and habits of the past, and we can no longer live as our fathers did. “ The common school and the high school, with their su¬ perior advantages, have cultivated us so that the refinements of life make broader and more intelligent men, and brighter, more beautiful and more large-souled women. It lifts them above the plane of the European peasant. While educa¬ tion and liberty have made the Americans a phenomenal people, they have also, in a measure, raised the standards or living and its demands in the older countries of Europe. The Indian laborer can live under a thatch in at single room with breech clout for clothes and a pan of rice for food. Bat the American mechanic wants his home with its several rooms. He has learned, and his children have learned, the value of w^orks of art. They have all become familiar with the better food and the better clothing and the better life which constitute not luxury but comfort, and which make up and ought to make up the citizens of our Republic. “Masterful men of great foresight and courage have seized upon the American opportunity to accumulate vast fortunes. The masses, who have not been equally fortunate, look upon them and say: ‘ We have not an equal share in these opportunites.' This is not the place nor have I time to even hint at the solution of these difficulties, or the solv¬ ing of these problems. That the genius exists among us to meet them if need be by legislation, if need be by other processes, no man in his senses can doubt. We require for 444 The Day of Vengeance. our time more education, more college students and more college opportunities. Every young man who goes out from these foundations into the world goes out as a mis¬ sionary of light and knowledge. He will stand in the community where he will settle, for an intelligent, broad and patriotic appreciation of the situation in the country and in the neighborhood. The graduates of the four hundred universities of the country are the lieutenants and the captains, the colonels, the brigadier-generals and the major-generals of that army of American progress to which we all belong. “The world which our young man enters to-day is a very different one from that which his father or grandfather or ancestors of one hundred years ago knew anything about. Fifty years ago he would have graduated at a denomina¬ tional college and fallen into the church of his fathers and of his faculty. Fifty years ago he would have dropped in¬ to the party to which his father belonged. He would have accepted his religious creed from the village pastor and his political principles from the National platform of his father’s party. But to-day he graduates at a college where the denominational line is loosely drawn, and finds that the members of his family have drifted into all churches and are professing all creeds, and he must seledl for him¬ self the church in which he shall find his home, and the dodlrines upon which he shall base his faith. He discovers that the ties of party have been loosened by false leaders or incompetent ones, and by the failure of party organiza¬ tions to meet the exigencies of the country and the de¬ mands of the tremendous development of the times. Those who should be his advisers say to him, * Son, judge for thy¬ self and for thy country. 4 Thus, at the very threshold, he requires an equipment which his father did not need for his duties as a citizen or for the foundations of his faith and principles. He starts out at the close of this marvelous nineteenth century to oe told from the pulpit and the plat¬ form and by the press, and to see Irom his own observa¬ tions, that there are revolutionary conditions in the politi¬ cal, the financial and the industrial world which threaten the stability of the State, the position of the church, the foundations of society and the safety of property. But The Conflict Irrepressible. 445 while precept and prophecy are of disaster, he should not despair. Every young man should be an optimist. Every young man should believe that to-morrow will be better than to-day, and look forward with unfaltering hope for the morrow, while doing his full duty for to-day. “That the problems are difficult and the situation acute, we all admit. But it is the province of education to solve problems and remove acute conditions. Our period is the paradox of civilization. Heretofore our course has been a matter of easy interpretation and plain sailing by the nav¬ igation books of the past. But we stand five years from the twentieth century, facing conditions which are almost as novel as if a vast convulsion had hurled us through space and we found ourselves sitting beside one of the canals of Mars. “Steam and electricity have made the centuries of the Christian era down to ours count for nothing. They have brought about a unity of production and markets which upsets all the calculations and all the principles of aCtion of the past. They have united the world in an instantaneous communication which has overthrown the limitations which formerly were controlled by time and distance, or could be fixed by legislation. The prices of cotton on the Ganges or the Amazon of wheat on the plateaus of the Himalayas or in the delta of the Nile, or in the Argentines, of this morning, with all the faCtors of currency, of climate and wages, which control the cost of their production, are in¬ stantly reflected at noon at Liverpool, at New Orleans, at Savannah, at Mobile, at Chicago and at New York. They send a thrill or a chill through the plantations of the South and the farm houses of the West. The farmers of Europe and America are justly complaining of their condition. The rural populations are rushing to the cities and infinitely increasing the difficulties of municipal government. Cap¬ italists are striving to form combinations which shall float with the tide or stem it, and labor organizations, with lim¬ ited success, are endeavoring to create a situation which they believe will be best for themselves. The tremendous progress of the last fifty years, the revolutions which have been worked by steam, eleClricity and invention, the cor¬ relation of forces working on one side of the globe and The Day of Vengeance. 446 producing instantaneous effedls on the other have so changed the relations of peoples and industries that the world has not yet adjusted itself to them. The reliance of the present and future must be upon education, so that supreme intel¬ ligence may bring order out of the chaos produced by this nineteenth century earthquake of opportunities and powers. “There have always been crises in the world. They have been the efforts and aspirations of mankind for something better and higher, and have ultimately culminated in some tremendous movement for liberty. These revolutions have been attended by infinite suffering, the slaughter of millions and the devastation of provinces and kingdoms. The Crusades lifted Europe out of the slavery of feudalism, the French revolution broke the bonds of caste. Napoleon was the leader and wonder worker, though selfishly so, of modern universal suffrage and parliamentary government. The as¬ piration of all the centuries has been for liberty, and more liberty. The expedlation has been that when liberty was gained there would be universal happiness and peace. The English speaking peoples have secured liberty in its largest and fullest sense; that liberty where the people are their own governors, legislators and masters. The paradox of It all is that with the liberty which we all hold as our great¬ est blessing has come a discontent greater than the world has ever known. The socialist movement in Germany grows from one hundred thousand votes ten years ago to some millions in 1894. The Republican elements in France become more radical and threatening month by month. The agrarian and labor troubles of Great Britain are beyond any ability of her statesmen to overcome except by make¬ shifts from day to day. There was an Anarchist riot in Chicago, when only the disciplined valor of a small corps of policemen saved the great city from the horrors of pil¬ lage and the sack. A single man created an organization of railway employees in a few months, so strong that under his order twenty millions of people were paralyzed in their industries and their movements, and all the elements which constitute the support of communities temporarily suspend¬ ed. So potential was the uprising that two Governors sur¬ rendered, and the Mayor of our Western metropolis took his orders from the leader of the revolt. Industrial and The Con ft IT Irrepressible. 447 commercial losses of incalculable extent were averted only by the strong arm of the Federal Government. “ Another of the paradoxes of our quarter of a century is that every artisan and mechanic and the laborer in every department to-day, with shorter hours of labor, receives twenty-five per cent., and in many cases fifty per cent., more than he did thirty years ago. While he receives thus one third more than he did thirty years ago, his dollar will buy in clothes and food twice as much as it did thirty years ago. One would think that the laborer ought to be su¬ premely happy when he compares the past with the present, and that beyond his living he ought to be laying up in sav¬ ings bank the fund which would speedily make him a capi¬ talist. And yet he feels a discontent which his father, thirty years ago, with one-third the wages and his dollar buying one-half as much, never knew. This all comes of education / ’ ’ [ Mr. Depew takes no notice of the fact that thirty years ago there was an abundance of work. The supply of human skill and muscle being far less than the demand, men were urged to work “double turn” on railroads as well as in mills and factories; while emigrants also came by the mill¬ ion and promptly found employment. But now the labor supply greatly exceeds the demand in every direction, be¬ ing superseded by machinery. Now, although wages are not bad, the people, the masses, cannot secure steady de¬ mand and employment for their services; and, inevitably, wages are falling.] “We are fighting the battles not only of to-day, but for all time; we are developing this country not only for our¬ selves but for posterity. We have overcome slavery, we have extirpated polygamy, and our only remaining enemy is ignorance. [But if the partial destruction of ignorance by education has brought all the discontent and ills above recounted, how much anarchy and what awful trouble would a thorough education cost! Mr. Depew declares that he is net here 443 The Day of Vengeance. discussing the remedy for all these ills and discontent, but doubtless he would have been glad to do so if he knew a remedy; and here he declares that it will be remedied “in some way or other ' 1 ' 1 which is a tacit admission that he knows no specific remedy to suggest.] “ The people who are discontented are the governors and rulers, and must solve their own problems. They can eledl their own Congresses and presidents. They cannot revolt against themselves nor cut their own throats. Sooner or later, and in some way or other , they will solve their problems, but it will be by and through the law. It will be by destructive or constructive methods. “ The inquiry is natural, ‘With all the prosperity and progress of the world, why this discontent?’ The rapidity of invention and the opportunities afforded by eledlricity and steam have destroyed in the last twenty-five years sixty per cent, of the capital of the world and thrown forty per cent, of its labor out of employment. The triple expan¬ sion engine, the invention of a new motor, the reduplica¬ tion of forces by a new application of machinery makes useless all the old ones. It does more, it compels the skilled artisan, in the loss of the tool by which he earned his living, and which is no longer of any use, to fall back in¬ to the vast mass of common laborers. At the same time these very forces, which have thus destroyed the majority of values and thrown out of employment so many people, have created new conditions which have added beyond the power of calculation to the wealth of the world and the opportunities of its people for living, comfort and happi¬ ness. But to enjoy its opportunities, its comforts and its happiness a better education becomes necessary.” It is very evident that Mr. Depew is well posted in labor matters and that he has made a study of the conditions which have led up to the status which now confronts the world. But what remedy does he offer ? It was perhaps only courtesy and a sense of propriety that led the gentle¬ man, in addressing a college class, to suggest that ignorance is the ‘ ‘enemy’ ’ causing present ills and threatening the future. The Conflict Irrepressible. 449 But that education cannot prove a remedy no one should know better than Mr. Depew. Very few of the millionaires of to-day ever received a college education. Cornelius Vanderbilt was uneducated, a ferryman, whose keen business instindts guided him to wealth. He foresaw the increase of travel, and invested in steamboats and railroads. The original John Jacob Astor was uneducated, a trader in furs and skins. Foreseeing the growth of New York City he invested in its real estate and thus laid the basis of the fortunes of the present generation of Astors. The following list of American millionaires who have given a million dollars or more to colleges is going the rounds of the press, together with the statement that not one of these wealthy and intelligent men ever enjoyed a college education:— “Stephen Girard, to Girard college, $8,000,000; John D. Rockefeller, to Chicago university, $7,000,000; George Peabody, to various foundations, $6,000,000; Leland Stan¬ ford, to Stanford university, $5,000,000; Asa Parker, to Lehigh university, $3,500,000; Paul Tulane, to Tulane university, New Orleans, $2,500,000 ; Isaac Rich, to Boston university, $2,000,000; Jonas G. Clark, to Clark univer¬ sity, Worcester, Mass., $2,000,000; the Vanderbilts, to Vanderbilt university, at least $1,775,000: James Lick, to the university of California, $1,600,000; John C. Green, to Princeton, $1,500,000; William C. DePauw, to Asbury, now DePauw university, $1,500,000; A. J. Drexel, to the Drexel Industrial school, $1,500,000; Leonard Case, to the Cleveland School of Applied Sciences, $1,500,000: Peter Cooper, to Cooper Union, $1,200,000; Ezra Cornell and Henry W. Sage, to Cornell University, each $1,100,- 000; Charles Pratt, to the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, $2,700,000.” As though to prove the exception to this rule, Mr. Seth Low, a college graduate and President, has recently donated a million dollars to Columbia College for a library. Although a college education is valuable, it isbyno means 29 D The Day of Vengeance. 45 ° a remedy for present conditions. Indeed, if every man in Europe and America v/ere a college graduate to-day, the conditions would be worse, instead of better, than they now are. Mr. Depew admits this in the above quotations, when he says that the mechanic “ feels a discontent which his father, thirty years ago, with one-third the wages, and his dollar buying one-half as much, never knew. All this comes of education." Yes, indeed, and the more general the education the more general the discontent. Educa¬ tion is excellent, and greatly to be desired; but it is not the remedy. While it is true that some righteous, noble men have been rich, it is also true that some of the most wicked men have been educated men and some of the most holy men have been “unlearned,” like the Apostles. The more education a wicked man has the greater his discon¬ tent and the greater his power for evil. The world needs new hearts—‘ 4 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me!” (Psa. 51:10.) The world’s need is thus prophetically declared, and the dem¬ onstrations that much more than education and intelligence is necessary to happiness and peace, are coming, and will ultimately be generally recognized. “Godliness with con¬ tentment is great gain;” and only if this foundation be first laid can education be guaranteed to be a great bless¬ ing. The selfish hearts and the spirit of the world are at vari¬ ance with the spirit of love, and no compromise will avail. Education, “knowledge increased,” among the masses is bringing the social crisis and its ultimate result, anarchy. BISHOP WORTHINGTON INTERVIEWED. While attending a convocation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York city, Bishop Worthington’s views ; sspedting the social commotion were gleaned by a news- The Conjiiffi Irrepressible. 45 1 paper man and published broadcast on 061 . 25, ’96. He is reported to have said: — “ The trouble with the farmer, in my judgment, is that we have carried our free educational system entirely too far. Of course, I know that this view will be considered as a bit of heresy, but still I believe it. The farmer’s sons—a great many of them—who have absolutely no ability to rise, get a taste of education and follow it up. They will never amount to anything—that is, many of them—and they be¬ come dissatisfied to follow in the walk of life that God in¬ tended they should, and drift into the cities. It is the overeducation of those who are not qualified to receive it that fills our cities while the farms lie idle.” The Bishop takes an opposite view from that advocated by Mr. Depew. He agrees better with the Diredlor Gen¬ eral of Education in Russia, to whose declaration against educating the poorer classes we have already referred. We agree with both as to the fall that education generally en¬ larges the ambitions and restless discontent. But surely the Bishop will concede that matters have already gone too far, in this land of liberty and education, to hope to stifle the rising discontent by extinguishing the lamp of knowl¬ edge. Good or bad, the education and the discontent are here and cannot and will not be ignored. HON. W. J. BRYAN’S REPLY. As to the justice of the Bishop’s suggestion, we leave it for Mr. W. J. Bryan to answer, quoting from his press- reported reply as follows :— “ To talk about the overeducation of the farmer’s sons and to attribute the difficulties which surround us to-day to overeducation, is, to my mind, one of the most cruel things a man ever uttered. The idea of saying that farmers’ sons, who are not able to rise in life, get a taste of educa¬ tion, and enjoy the taste so much that they follow it up and become dissatisfied with the farm and drift into the 452 The Day of Vengeance. cities! The idea of saying that there is overeducation among our farmers’ sons! My friends, do you know what that language means? It means a reversal of the progress of civilization and a march toward the dark ages again. 1 ‘How can you tell which one of the farmers’ sons is going to prove a great man until you have educated them all? Are we to seleCt a commission to go around and pick out the ones that are to be educated? “Ah, my friends, there is another reason why people have gone into the cities and left the farms. It is because your legislation has been causing the foreclosure of mortgages on the farmers and the farms. It is because your legislation has been making the farmer’s life harder for the farmer; it is because the non-producing classes have been producing the laws and making it more profitable to gamble in farm products than to produce them. “The idea of laying the blame of the present condition at the farmer’s door! The idea of suggesting as a remedy the closing of schools in order that the people may not be¬ come dissatisfied! Why, my friends, there will be dissatis¬ faction so long as the cause for dissatisfaction exists. Instead of attempting to prevent people realizing their condition, why don’t these critics try to improve the condition of the farmers of this country?” An English journal, The Rock, April 24, ’96, asks for light, but sees none. We quote:— “ Throughout the world seething unrest, conflicting in¬ terests, and cr -ss currents keep civilized mankind in a per¬ petual state o' excitement. The tension of nerve and mind becomes more intense week by week almost; at short in¬ tervals some startling event shakes the political and com¬ mercial world with seismic force, and men realize what ac¬ cumulated elements of disaster lurk beneath the surface of society. Politicians, while they strive to modify the course of these forces, frankly admit they cannot thoroughlv con¬ trol them or foretell their results. “In the confusion of endless theories, proposals, experi¬ ments and prophecies, on two points the greatest thinkers are agreed. On the one hand they see impending a great catastrophe which shall convulse the whole world and shat- The Conflict Irrepressible. 453 ter the present structure of political and social life, the forces of destruction having to exhaust themselves before the formative ones can reconstruct the social fabric on a surer foundation. On the other hand they agree that never did nations more long for peace, or more clearly see the duty and advantages of cultivating unity and fraternal concord, than at the present moment.” It is the same throughout the whole civilized world. All intelligent people see the dilemma more or less clearly, but few have anything to suggest as a remedy. Not all how¬ ever: some well-meaning people think that they can solve the problem, but only because they fail to get the situation clearly outlined before their mental optics. These will be examined in a subsequent chapter. mr. Bellamy’s statement of the situation. The following, culled from an address by Mr. Edward Bellamy, at Boston, will be read with interest. He said :— “If you would form a vivid conception of the econom¬ ical absurdity of the competitive system in industry, con¬ sider merely the faCt that its only method of improving the quality or reducing the price of goods is by overdoing their production. Cheapness, in other words, can only result under competition from duplication and waste of effort. But things which are produced with waste of effort are really dear, whatever they may be called. Therefore goods produced under competition are being made cheap only by being made dear. Such is the redultio ad absurdum of the system. It is a faCt often true that the goods which we pay the least for, are in the end the most expensive to the na¬ tion owing to the wasteful competition which keeps down the price. All waste must in the end mean loss, and there¬ fore about once in seven years the country has to go into insolvency as the result of a system which sets three men to fighting for work which one man could do. “To speak of the moral iniquities of competition would be to enter on too large a theme for this time, and I only advert in passing to one feature of our present industrial 454 The Day of * vengeance . system, in which it would be hard to say whether inhu¬ manity or economic folly predominated, and refer to the grotesque manner in which the burden of work is distrib¬ uted. The industrial press-gang robs the cradle and the grave, takes the wife and mother from the fireside, and old age from the chimney-corner, while at the same time hun¬ dreds of thousands of strong men fill the land with clamors for an opportunity to work. The women and children are delivered to the taskmasters, while the men can find nothing to do. There is no work for the fathers, but there is plenty for the babies. “What, then, is the secret of this alarm over the ap¬ proaching doom of a system under which nothing can be done properly without doing it twice, which can do no business without overdoing it, which can produce nothing without overproduction, which in a land full of want can¬ not find employment for strong and eager hands, and finally which gets along at all only at the cost of a total collapse every few years, followed by a lingering convalesence? “ When a bad king is mourned by his people, the conclu¬ sion must be that the heir to the throne is a still worse case. That appears to be, in fadt, the explanation of the present distress over the decay of the competitive system. It is because there is fear of going from bad to worse, and that the little finger of combination will be thicker than the loins of competition ; that while the latter system has chas¬ tised the people with whips, the Trusts will scourge them with scorpions. Like the children of Israel in the desert, this new and strange peril causes the timid to sigh even for the iron rule of Pharaoh. Let us see if there be not also in this case a promised land, by the nrospeCt of which faint hearts may be encouraged. “ Let us first inquire whether a return to the old order of things, the free competitive system, is possible, A brief consideration of the causes which have led to the present world-wide movement for the substitution of combination in business for competition will surely convince any one that, of all revolutions, this is the least likely to go back¬ ward. It is a result of the increase in the efficiency of capital in great masses, consequent upon the inventions of the last and present generations. In former epochs the The Con flic! Irrepressible. 455 size and scope of business enterprises were subjeCt to natural restrictions. There were limits to the amount of capital that could be used to advantage by one management. To¬ day there are no limits, save the earth’s confines, to the scope of any business undertaking ; and not only no limit to the amount of capital that can be used by one concern, but an increase in the efficiency and security of the busi¬ ness proportionate to the amount of capital in it. The economics in management resulting from consolidation, as well as the control over the market resulting from the mo¬ nopoly of a staple, are also solid business reasons for the ad¬ vent of the Trust. It must not be supposed, however, that the principle of combination has been extended to those businesses only which call themselves Trusts. That would be greatly to underestimate the movement. There are many forms of combination less close than the Trust, and com¬ paratively few businesses are now conducted without some understanding approaching to a combination with its for¬ mer competitors,—a combination tending constantly to be¬ come closer. “From the time that these new conditions began to pre¬ vail, the small businesses have been disappearing before the larger; the process has not been so rapid as people fancy whose attention has but lately been called to it. For twenty years past the great corporations have been carrying on a war of extermination against the swarm of small industrial enterprises which are the red blood corpuscles of a free competitive system, and with the decay of which it dies. While the economists have been wisely debating whether we could dispense with the principle of individual initiative in business, that principle has passed away, and now belongs to history. Except in a few obscure corners of the busi¬ ness world there is at present no opportunity for individual initiative in business unless backed by a large capital; and the size of the capital needed is rapidly increasing. Mean¬ while the same increase in the efficiency of capital in mass¬ es, which has destroyed the small businesses, has reduced the giants which have destroyed them to the necessity of making terms with one another. As in Bulwer Lytton’s fancy of the coming race, the people of the Vril-yahad to give up war because their arms became so destructive as to The Day of Vengeance. 45 6 threaten mutual annihilation, so the modern business world finds that the increase in the size and powers of the organi¬ zations of capital, demands the suppression of competition between them for the sake of self-preservation. “The first great group of business enterprises which adopted the principle of combining instead of competing, made it necessary for every other group sooner or later to do the same or perish. For as the corporation is more powerful than the individual, so the syndicate overtops the corporation. The adtion of governments to check this logical necessity of economical evolution can produce nothing more than eddies in a current which nothing can check. Every week sees some new tradl of what was once the great open sea of competition, wherein merchant ad¬ venturers used to fare forth with little capital beside their courage and come home loaded,—every week now sees some new tradl of this once open sea inclosed, dammed up, and turned into the private fish-pond of a syndicate. To say that from the present look of things the substantial consolidation of the various groups of industries in the country, under a few score great syndicates, is likely to be complete within fifteen years (1889-1905) is certainly not to venture a wholly rash statement. “So great an economic change as is involved in taking the conduct of the country’s industries out of the hands of the people and concentrating them in the management of a few great Trusts, could not of course be without im¬ portant social reaction; and this is a reaction which is go¬ ing to effedt peculiarly what is called the middle class. It is no longer a question merely for the poor and uneducated, what they are to do with their work; but for the educated and well-to-do, also, where they are to find business to do and business investments to make. This difficulty cannot fail constantly to increase, as one tradl after another of the formerly free field of competition is inclosed by a new syn¬ dicate. The middle class, the business class, is being turned into a proletarian class. “It is not difficult to forecast the ultimate issue of the concentration of industry if carried out on the lines at present indicated. Eventually, and at no very remote period, society must be divided into a few hundred families The Conflicl Irrepressible . 457 of prodigious wealth on the one hand, a professional class dependent upon their favor but excluded from equality with them and reduced to the state of lackeys, and, under¬ neath, a vast population of working men and women, ab¬ solutely without a hope of bettering a condition which would year by year sink more and more hopelessly into serfdom. This is not a pleasant pidture, but I am sure it is not an exaggerated statement of the social consequences of the syndicate system.” Mr. Bellamy suggests Nationalism as the cure for all these evils. We will examine it later REV. DR. EDWARD MC GLYNN’S VIEW. It will be remembered that a few years ago Mr. McGlynn came in conflidt with his ecclesiastical superiors in the Roman Catholic Church, because of his advocacy of Labor Reform, and specially of Single Tax theories. Although reconciled to the Church of Rome, he is still a Single Taxer. The following extracts are from an article from his pen in Donahoe's Magazine (Boston, July, ’95). Introduc¬ ing his subjedt, “The Prevention of Large Fortunes, and ' Raising the Standard of the Laboring People,” he says :— “It is possible for men to make honestly, as the world holds business honesty at present, fortunes such as the Van¬ derbilts possess, or the Astors, which run into the hundreds of millions. It is not because these people are dishonest that their fortunes grow, but that the leaders of the people are either ignorant or indifferent in watching the channels through which wealth flows from the individual laborer in¬ to the common treasury. It is the machinery of distribu¬ tion which is at fault. When, therefore, labor has made its daily contribution to the world’s support, if the processes of that contribution are carefully studied, from the mom¬ ent the laborer touches the raw material which he is to cofl- vert into wealth until the finished produdt is placed in the hands of its user, it will be seen that the makers of colos¬ sal fortunes have, under cover of law and custom, taken The Day of Vengeance. 45 3 possession of every important point of the process, and are turning the wealth, which should fall into the treasuries of the millions, into their own.” Dr. McGlynn urges that in seeking to account for large fortunes and low wages three principal matters should be carefully studied: (1) land and other natural bounties up¬ on which man exercises his faculties; (2) the means of transportation; and (3) money, the medium which facili¬ tates the exchanges of products. It will be found, he says, that the people have been indifferent to these points to which money-makers have been exceedingly attentive. We quote:— “To take possession of these natural bounties, to mo¬ nopolize them under cover of law and custom, and to make all men who would use them pay beforehand for the privi¬ lege, have been the aim of the money-makers since time began. It is an easy matter to run up a fortune of one hundred millions when you can tax for two or three decades the millions who must buy bread and meat, timber and coal, cotton and wool, which all come from the land. This is what has been done diredlly in European countries, where, as in the British nation and in Ireland, millions of acres have been seized by the few under cover of the law, and the people have been compelled to pay first for permission to get at the land, then for permission to continue their labor on it. “The same thing happened indirectly in this country when millions of acres were given to the great railroads, and capitalists were permitted to get hold of millions more by various subterfuges, all to be held with a tight grip un¬ til the tide of immigration had swelled these properties to untold values, when they were sold off at rates that made millionaires as common in this country and in Europe as knights in England. The readers of newspapers are well acouainted with the career and the methods of the coal- X barons of Pennsylvania and elsewhere, who got hold of the great coal-producing districts under cover of law, and for forty years have levied tribute on consumers and miners The Conflict L'repressible. 459 alike by every device that human ingenuity could invent without regard to justice. . . . “Just as the few get control, almost absolute control, of the natural bounties, so they also get control of the means of transportation in a country. What this means is best comprehended by the statement that society makes no ad¬ vance without a proper exchange of commodities; for civil¬ ization to improve on every side, men must have the great¬ est facilities for exchanging the work of their hands. . . . Ease of transportation is, therefore, as vitally necessary to the laborer as ease in getting at the natural bounties; and as all men are laborers in the true sense of the word, the few who have placed themselves in charge of the transpor¬ tation facilities of a nation get incredibly rich in the brief¬ est time, because they tax more thoroughly and absolutely every human being in their jurisdiction than does the gov¬ ernment itself. “The Vanderbilts are worth perhaps a third of a billion to-day. How did they get it? By hard labor? No. By using the privileges foolishly granted them by the foolish people: the right of way over the state of New York; the right to fix what rates of freight and passage the citizens of the community must pay to use their own roads; the right to hold immense domains of the State as the creation of their own hands. . . . No individual or corporation should be allowed to amass billions out of these public proper¬ ties. . . . “The same may be said of the medium of exchange— money. Here again the world seems to be all at sea as to the elementary principles of this problem ; the money-lend¬ ers alone have fixed and profitable principles, which enable them to tax every human being who uses money, for the use and for the continuance of the favor to use it. They have placed themselves between men and the medium of exchange, just as others have placed themselves between men and the natural bounties, between men and the facili¬ ties of transporting goods to market. How can they help getting millions together as the Rothschilds have done; millions, again, that should be in greater part passing into the treasury of the community.” Dr. McGlynn summarizes his conclusions thus: — 460 The Day of Vengeance. “ Organization is good to keep up the price of labor, to secure sound legislation, to force employers to house their workers well, landlords to provide good tenements, and so on; but the root of all our difficulties, the explanation of our unequal social conditions, and the cause of our large fortunes and low wages, is to be found in the common in¬ difference to the three necessities of social and civilized life. Before we can raise wages permanently, and make the Vanderbilt and the Carnegie fortunes as impossible as they are unnecessary, we must learn how to keep the nat- tural bounties, the means of exchange, and the medium of exchange free from the speculator’s tax, his interference, his tyranny.” Dr. McGlynn’s remedy is a “Single Tax,” which we will examine in the chapter following. It is but proper here, however, to call attention to the fadt that the Astors and Vanderbilts have gained their wealth under the same laws that controlled their fellow citizens, and which heretofore have been esteemed the most just and equitable laws that the world has ever known. It is to be noted, also, that the Vanderbilt millions were won in connexion with great public service and great public be?iefit; although self-interest and not interest in the public welfare was the inspiring motive. The important point to be noted is, that science and invention have wrought a complete revolution in the social equilibrium, by which both brain and muscle are dis¬ counted by the possession of land, machinery, wealth. A properly adjusted new code of laws, suited to the new con¬ ditions, is needed. But here lies the difficulty: a satisfactory adjustment cannot be made because the parties interested —Capital and Labor—will neither of them take a moder¬ ate, reasonable view of the situation. It may indeed be said that neither can view the matter righteously because both are governed by selfishness which is generally quite blind to equity until compelled to see it. The new con¬ ditions call for a readjustment of affairs on a basis of love; The ConfliTt Irrepressible. 461 and because this quality is possessed by but a small minor¬ ity in either party to the controversy, therefore the trouble will come, which will not only wreck the present social order based on selfishness, but will prepare all classes by experience to appreciate the new social order, the “new heavens and new earth ” to be established under the domin¬ ion of Messiah. PROFESSOR W. graham’s OUTLOOK. Another writer, Prof. W. Graham, in The Nineteenth Century (Feb. ’95), discusses the social question from the standpoint known in England as “ Collectivism ”—the doc¬ trine that the people as a whole should own or control the material and means of production : opposed to individual¬ ism. Prof. Graham’s conclusion is that, since a transfor¬ mation of the hearts of men is not supposable, the method could only be introduced to a limited degree and after a long time. He says :— “It is impracticable, at least, unless human nature in its fundamental essence and desires, either eternally innate or deeply rooted as the result of thousands of years of slow social evolution tending to intensify them, be simultaneously changed in the majority of men by a sort of general mir¬ acle. I believe, further, that if anything resembling Col¬ lectivism in its fulness were ever attempted to be established in this country, even by a supposed majority in some new ‘Mad’ Parliament representing even a majority of voters, that it would be forcibly resisted by the minority, which, on the boldest supposition, can never be a small one; and it would be resisted because it would necessarily involve confiscation as well as revolution, political, economical and social. If, finally, it were ever, by any extraordinary com¬ bination of chances, momentarily established, as it might conceivably be in a country like France, which has a great leaning toward it, as well as some Collectivist memories, it could not possibly last. It could not even be reduced to 462 ‘Hie Day of Vengeance. practice save nominally, owing to its inherent impractic¬ ability; while, so long as it did exist, even partially or nominally, it would bring, after the first grand general di¬ vision, the shares of which would soon be dissipated, in addition to general social chaos, evils including poverty to all classes, and greater poverty than now prevails.” The Professor proceeds to offer proof of the correctness of these views, and then inquires, Would Collectivism oper¬ ate satisfactorily even if it were somehow installed and set in motion? He answers in the negative. He says:— “ There would be slackness of effort all throughout, in in¬ ventors, organizers, foremen, even in the better class of workers, if they were not stimulated by extra remuneration to put forth their utmost and their best efforts; in short, if the present enormous and lar-extending stimulus of private interest be removed or ever seriously lessened, the inevitable result would be a production greatly reduced in quantity and inferior in kind. There would have to be given at least ‘bounties on production/ and so long as men are as they are, and are long likely to be, they would have to be on a liberal scale—that is to say, equality of remuneration would have to be departed from as respeCts these higher laborers. Otherwise there would be poverty in which all would equally share, and ordinary laborers would have to set against their poverty only the poor satisfaction that the former rich classes had all been dragged down to share it with them.” To prevent the decline of civilization and a return to barbarism, the Professor continues, it would soon be neces¬ sary to reintroduce inequality of wages and private enter¬ prise. Gradually competition, private loans, exchange, interest, would have to be allowed, and in the end the new system would be found to differ but little from the present order. He concludes: — “ Things would be modified more and more and more in the old direction, till, finally, there would be the inev¬ itable counter-revolution, probably without any fresh civil war, for which the governing class would no longer have The Conflict Irrepressible. 463 1 heart in face of the falling-off of their supporters and their own failing fanaticism. There would be a grand restora¬ tion, not of a dynasty, but of a Social System; the old system based on private property and contracts, which has emerged, as a slow evolution under every civilization, as the system most suited to human nature in a state of aggre¬ gation, and which is still more suitable and more necessary under the circumstances, physical and social, of our com¬ plex modern civilization.” We believe that considerable has already been done for the masses by colledlivism, as for instance in the Public School system of the United States, the postal systems of the civilized world, municipal ownership of water-works, etc., and that much more could yet be accomplished along the same lines. Yet all reasonable people must consent to the argument that if the sinews of selfishness, which now move the world, be cut, by putting all men on the same level, a new motive power (Love) would need to take their place, or the world’s business would suddenly come to a standstill: sloth would take the place of industry, and poverty and want would supplant comfort and affluence. But we present these difficulties not because we have a “patent” theory of our own to advocate, but that these looking for the wisdom which cometh from above, through the Bible, may the more clearly see the helplessness of man¬ kind in the present crisis, and that they may the more con¬ fidently and more firmly lay hold by faith upon the Lord and the remedy which he will apply in due season. THE VIEWS OF A MEMBER OF THE SUPREME COURT. Justice Henry B. Brown, addressing the Alumni of the Law Department of Yale College, took as his theme, “The Twentieth Century.” He pointed out that the changes of the twentieth century promise to be social rather than po- 464 The Day of Vengeance. litical or legal, and then named the three most prominent perils which threaten the immediate future of the United States,—(1) Municipal Corruption, (2) Corporate Greed, and (3) The Tyranny of Labor. Among other things he said “Probably in no country in the world is the influence of wealth more potent than in this, and in no period of our history has it been more powerful than now. Mobs are never logical, and are prone to seize upon pretexts rather than upon reasons to wreak their vengeance upon whole classes of society. There was probably never a flimsier ex¬ cuse for a great riot than the sympathetic strike of last summer[i895], but back of it were substantial grievances. If wealth will not respect the rules of common honesty in the use of its power, it will have no reason to expect modera¬ tion or discretion on the part of those who resist its en¬ croachments. “I have spoken of corporate greed as another source of peril to the state. The ease with which charters are pro¬ cured has produced great abuses. Corporations are formed under the laws of one state for the sole purpose of doing business in another, and railways are built in California un¬ der charters granted by the states east of the Mississippi for the purpose of removing their litigation to federal courts. The greatest frauds are perpetrated in the construction of such roads by the directors themselves, under guise of a construction company, another corporation, to which is turned over all the bonds, mortgages and other securities, regardless of the actual cost of the road. The road is equipped in the same way by another corporation, formed of the directors, which buys the rolling stock and leases it to the road, so that when the inevitable foreclosure comes the stockholders are found to have been defrauded for the benefit of the mortgagees, and the mortgagees defrauded for the benefit of the directors. Property thus acquired in defiance of honesty and morality does not stand in a favor¬ able position to invoke the aid of the law for its protection. “Worse than this, however, is the combination of cor¬ porations in so-called trusts, to limit production, stifle com¬ petition and monopolize the necessaries of life. The ex- The Conflifl Irrepressible . 465 tent to which this has already been carried is alarming; the extent to which it may hereafter be carried is revolution¬ ary. The truth is that the entire corporate legislation is sadly in need of overhauling, but the difficulty of procur¬ ing concurrent adtion on the part of the forty-four states is apparently insuperable. “From a wholly different quarter proceeds the third and most immediate peril to which I have called your atten¬ tion—the tyranny of labor. It arises from the apparent inability of the laboring man to perceive that the rights he exadts he must also concede. Laboring men may defy the laws of the land and pull down their own houses and those of their employers about their heads, but they are power¬ less to control the laws of nature—that great law of supply and demand, in obedience to which industries arise, flour¬ ish for a season, and decay, and both capital and labor re¬ ceive their appropriate rewards. ’ ’ Judge Brown sees no hope of a reconciliation between Capital and Labor, being of too logical a mind to suppose that bodies moving in opposite diredtions would ever come together. He says further:— “The conflidt between them has been going on and in¬ creasing in bitterness for thousands of years, and a settle¬ ment seems further off than ever. Compulsory arbitration is a misnomer—a contradidlion in terms. One might as well speak of an amicable murder or a friendly war. It is possible that a compromise may finally be effedted upon the basis of cooperation or profit-sharing, under which every laborer shall become, to a certain extent, a capitalist. Per¬ haps, with superior education, wider experience and larger intelligence, the laboring man of the twentieth century may attain the summit of his ambition in his ability to command the entire profits of his toil.” In referring to the social disquietude arising from the corporate evils mentioned he proposes as a palliative, but not as a remedy, the public ownership of what are called “natural monopolies.” He thinks these privileges should be exercised by the state or the municipality diredtly, rather 30 D 466 Mie dj-ay of Vengeance. than that corporations should compete and quarrel for fran« chises with bribes. He says :— “There would seem to be no sound reason why such franchises, which are for the supposed benefit of the public, should not be exercised directly by the public. Such is, at least, the tendency in modern legislation in nearly every highly civilized state but our own. Here great corporate interests, by parading the dangers of paternalism and social¬ ism, have succeded in securing franchises which properly belong to the public/' The gentleman evidently speaks forth his honest con¬ victions, untrammeled;—membership in the United States Supreme Court being of life tenure. He therefore could, and probably did, suggest everything he has knowledge of in the nature of a remedy for the conditions he deplores. But what is the suggested temporary relief? Only an item of Socialism (the public ownership of “national monopolies”) which all men except bankers and corporation stockholders admit would be a temporary benefit,—nothing more; and even this he seems to concede is doubtful of accomplish¬ ment, so powerfully entrenched is Capital. CLEMENCEAU’s “SOCIAL MELEE.” The editor of La Justice , Paris, has recently published a book, Le Melee Sociale, which is having much attention because of the prominence of its author as a legislator and editor. It deals with the social question vigorously, main¬ taining that cruel, remorseless struggling for existence is as characteristic of human society as in the animal and vege¬ table kingdoms, and that civilization, so-called, is but a thin veneer which disguises man’s essential brutality. He sees the whole history of society symbolized in Cain, the first murderer, and claims that while the modern Cain does not murder his brother directly, he systematically endeav¬ ors to crush his brother wer whom, by force or fraud, he I tie Conflict Irrepressible. 467 has gained an advantage of power. We give a few striking extrads from this book, as follows:— “It seems to me remarkable that humanity should have needed the meditation of centuries and the investigation of the greatest minds to discover the simple and apparent fad that man has ever been at war with man, and that this war has lasted ever since the human race began. Indeed, the imagination fails to completely conjure up a vision of the tremendous, the bloody and universal slaughter which has been going on upon this earth ever s nee it first emerged from chaos. “The forced labor of the chained slave and the free toil of the paid workman both rest on the common basis of the defeat of the weakest and his exploitation by the strong¬ est. Evolution has changed the conditions of the battle, but under a more pacific appearance the mortal strife is still going on. To seize the life and body of others to turn them to one’s own purposes—that is what has been the aim and fixed purpose of the majority of men from the savage can¬ nibal, the feudal baron, the slave proprietor, down to the employer of our own day. ’ ’ The chief problem of civilization is thus stated by M. Clemenceau: — “Hunger is the enemy of the human race. As long as man shall not have conquered this cruel and degrading ene¬ my the discoveries of science will appear only as irony on his sad lot. It is like giving a man luxuries when he is not even provided with the necessaries of life. It is the law of nature, and the crudest of all her laws. She forces mankind to contrive, to torture itself and destroy itself, to preserve at any cost that supreme good or evil called life. “ Other lives dispute man’s right to life. He defends himself by organizing into communities. To his physical weakness, the first cause of his defeat, is now added his social weakness. And now the question can be asked, Have we arrived at such a degree of civilization that we can conceive of and establish a social organization in which the possibility of death by poverty or hunger may be elimi¬ nated? The economists do not hesitate. They reply boldly in the negative The Day of Vengeance. 45S It is the duty of the State and of the rich members of the community, in M. Clemenceau’s view, to abolish hun¬ ger and recognize the ‘‘right to live.” Not only as a mat¬ ter of right, but of expediency as well, should the com¬ munity take care of the unfortunate and incapable. We quote again:— “ Is it not the duty of the rich to succor the unfortunate ? The da}>- will come when the speCtacle of one man dying [of hunger], while another man has more millions than he knows what to do with, will be intolerable to all civilized com¬ munities,—as intolerable, in faCt, as the institution of slavery would be in this community to-day. The troubles of the proletariat are by no means restricted to Europe. They seem to be just as bad in ‘free’ America, the paradise of every poor wretch on this side of the Atlantic.” The foregoing is a French view. It may or may not im¬ ply that matters are worse in France than in the United States. Of one thing, at least, we are thankful,—that here, by liberal taxation as well as by generous contributions, death by starvation is not necessary. What is desired is something more than bare existence. Happiness is neces¬ sary to make existence desirable. M. Clemenceau sees and denounces the faults of the present social system, but he offers no reasonable solution of them; hence his book is but a firebrand anddisquieter. It is easy enough to make ourselves and others more dis¬ satisfied and uncomfortable; and every book or article that offers no healing balm, no theory or hope of escape from the troubles would far better be unwritten, unpub¬ lished. The Scriptures , thank God, supply not only a com¬ forting balm, but the only and infallible cure for the world’s disease, sin, selfish-depravity and death, at the hands of the great Mediator, the Good Physician and Life-giver. And Millennial Dawn endeavors to call attention to these heavenly specifics. But incidentally we are presenting the desperate character of the disease and the hopelessness of the world’s available remedies. STUDY X. PROPOSED REMEDIES—SOCIAL AND FINANCIAL. Prohibition and Female Suffrage.—Free Silver and Protective Tariff.— “Communism.”—“They Had All Things in Common.”—“Anarchism.”— “ Socialism” or “Collectivism.”—Babbitt on Social Upbuilding.—Her¬ bert Spencer on Socialism.—Examples of Two Socialist Communities.— “Nationalism.”—General Mechanical Education as a Remedy.—The “ Single Tax ” Remedy.—Henry George's Answer to Pope Leo xiii. on Labor.— Dr. Lyman Abbott on the Situation.—An M. E. Bishop’s Sugges¬ tions.—Other Hopes and Fears.—The Only Hope.—“That Blessed Hope.”—The Attitude Proper for God’s People Who See These Things. — In the World but Not of It. “ Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no physician there ? ” “ We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one unto his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven.”—Jer. 8:22; 51: 7-9. ^ VARIOUS are the remedies advocated as “ cure-alls ” ’ for the relief of the groaning creation in its present, admittedly serious, condition; and all who sympathize with the suffering body-politic must sympathize also with the endeavors of its various dodtors, who, having diagnosed the case, are severally anxious that the patient should try their prescriptions. The attempts to find a cure and to apply it are surely commendable, and have the appreciation of all kind-hearted people. Nevertheless, sober judgment, en¬ lightened by God’s Word, tells us that none of the pro¬ posed remedies will cure the malady. The presence and ser¬ vices of the Great Physician with his remedies—medicines, 469 \ 47 ° The Day of Vengeance. splints, bandages, straitjackets and lancets will be requisite; and nothing short of their efficient and persistent use will effedt a cure of the malady of human depravity and selfish¬ ness. But let us briefly examine the prescriptions of other dodtors, that we may note how some of them approximate the wisdom of God and yet how far they all fall short of it;—not for the sake of controversy, but in order that all may the more clearly see the one and only diredtion from which help need be expedted. PROHIBITION AND FEMALE SUFFRAGE AS REMEDIES. These two remedies are usually compounded, it being conceded that prohibition can never command a majority support unless women have a free ballot—and doubtful even then. The advocates of this remedy show statistics to prove that much of the trouble and poverty of Christen¬ dom are traceable to the liquor traffic, and they aver that if it were abolished, peace and plenty would be the rule and not the exception. We heartily sympathize with much that is claimed along this line: drunkenness is certainly one of the most noxious fruits of civilization; it is rapidly spreading, too, to the semi- civilized and barbarous. We would rejoice to see it abol¬ ished now and forever. We are willing to grant, too, that its abolition would relieve much of the poverty of to-day, and that by it hundreds of millions of wealth are annually far worse than wasted. But this is not the remedy to cure the evils arising from present, selfish social conditions, and to meet and parry the grinding pressure of the “Law of Supply and Demand,” which would progress as relentlessly as ever, squeezing the life-blood from the masses. Who, indeed, squander the millions of money spent annu¬ ally on liquors?—the very poor? No, indeed; the rich! The Proposed Kemein 471 rich specially, and secondly the middle class. If the liquor traffic were abolished to-morrow, so far from relieving the financial pressure, upon the very poor, it would have the reverse effeCt. Thousands of farmers who now grow the millions of bushels of barley and rye and grapes and hops used in the manufacture of liquor would be obliged to culti¬ vate other crops, and thus in turn further depress farm produce prices in general. The vast army of tens of thou¬ sands of distillers, coopers, bottlers, glass-workers, team¬ sters, saloon-keepers and bar-tenders, now employed in and by this traffic, would be forced to find other employment and would further depress the labor market, and hence thescale of daily wages. The millions on millions of capital now in¬ vested in this traffic would enter other lines and force busi¬ ness competition. All this should not deter us from desiring the removal of the curse, if it were possible to get a majority to con¬ sent to it. But a majority will never be found (save in ex¬ ceptional localities). The majority is composed of slaves to this appetite and those interested in it financially, either di¬ rectly or indireCtly. Prohibition will not be established until the Kingdom of God is established. We merely point out here that the removal of this curse, even if practicable, would not cure the present social-financial malady. THE FREE SILVER AND PROTECTIVE TARIFF REMEDIES. We freely concede that the demonetization of silver by Christendom was a masterstroke of selfish policy on the part of money-lenders to decrease the volume of standard money and thus to increase the value of their loans; to per¬ mit the maintenance of high rates of interest on such debts because of the curtailment of the legal money, while all other business investments, as well as labor, are suffering 472 The Day of Vengeance. constant depreciation as the results of increasing supply and competition. Many bankers and money-lenders are “honest” men according to the legal standard of honesty; but, alas! the standard of some is too low. It says, Let us bankers and money-lenders look out for our interests, and let the farmers, less shrewd, look out for themselves. Let us delude the poorer and less shrewd by calling gold “hon¬ est money” and silver “dishonest money.” Many of the poor desire to be honest, and can thus be brow-beaten and cajoled into supporting our plans/ which, however, will go hard with the “reapers.” Under the influence of our talk about “honest money,” and our prestige as honorable men, our standing as financiers and wealthy men, they will con¬ clude that any views contrary to ours must be wrong; they will forget that silver money has been the standard of the world from earliest history, and that gold, like precious stones, was formerly merchandise, until added to silver to meet the increasing demand for money sufficient to do the world’s business. As it is the rate of interest is falling in our money centers; how much lower the rate of interest would be if all silver had a coin value and money were thus more plentiful! Our next move must be to retire all paper money and thus bolster up the rate of interest. Under the law of supply and demand every borrower is interested in having plenty of money,—silver, gold and paper; under the same law every banker and money-lender is interested in abolishing paper money and in discrediting silver; for the less money there is of a debt-cancelling value, the more that little is demanded. Hence, while labor and commercial values are dropping, money is in demand and interest nearly holds its own. As already shown, the indications of prophecy seem to be that silver will not be restored to equal privileges with gold as standard money in the civilized world. But it is Proposed Remedies. 473 \ manifest that, even if it were fully restored, its relief would be but temporary : it would remove the peculiar incentive now being given to manufacturers in Japan, India, China and Mexico ; it would relieve the farming element of Chris^ tendom, and thus remove part of the present pressure un¬ der which every one labors “to make both ends meet;” and thus it might put off the crash from five to fifteen years. But apparently God does not wish to thus postpone the “evil day;” and hence human selfishness, blind to all reason, will rule and ruin the more quickly; as it is writ¬ ten, “the wisdom of their wise men shall perish;” and “neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath.”—Zeph. i:18; Ezek. 7:19; Isa. 14:4-7, margin; 29:14. Protection, wisely gauged so as to avoid creating mon¬ opolies and to develop all the natural resources of a land, is undoubtedly of some advantage in preventing the rapid leveling of labor the world over. However, at the very most it is but an inclined plane down which wages will go to the lower level, instead of with a ruder jolt over the precipice. Soon or later, under the competitive system now con- troling, goods as well as wages will be forced to nearly a common level the world over. Neither “Free Silver ” nor Protective Tariff, therefore, can claim to be remedies for present and impending evils, but merely palliatives. COMMUNISM AS A REMEDY. Communism proposes a social system in which there will be community of goods; in which all property shall be owned in common and operated in the general interest, and all profits from all labor be devoted to the general welfare— “to each according to his needs.” The tendency of Com- 474 The Day of Vengeance. munism was illustrated in the French Commune. Its defL nition by Rev. Joseph Cook, is ,—“ Communism means the abolition of inheritance, the abolition of the family, the abolition of nationalities, the abolition of religion, the abolition of property.” Some features of Communism we could commend (see Socialism), but as a whole it is quite impracticable. Such an arrangement would probably do very well for heaven, where all are perfebt, pure and good, and where love reigns; but a moment’s reflection should prove to any man of judg¬ ment and experience that in the present condition of men’s hearts such a scheme is thoroughly impracticable. The tendency would be to make drones of all. We would soon have a competition as to who could do the least and the worst work; and society would soon lapse into barbarism and immorality, tending to the rapid extinction of the race, But some fancy that Communism is taught in the Bible and that consequently it must be the true remedy,—God’s remedy. With many this is the strongest argument in its favor. The supposition that it was instituted by our Lord and the Apostles, and that it should have continued to be the rule and practice of Christians since, is very common. We therefore present below an article on this phase of the sub¬ ject from our own magazine, Zion’s Watch Tower: — “they had all things in common.” “ And all that believed were together, and had all things common ; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, ae every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor ■with all the people.”—Adis 2 : 44-47. Such was the spontaneous sentiment of the early Church: selfishness gave place to love and general interest. Blessed experience! And without doubt a similar sentiment, more or less clearly defined, comes to the hearts of all who Proposed Remedies. 475 are truly converted. When first we got a realizing sense of God’s love and salvation, when we gave ourselves completely to the Lord and realized his gifts to us, which pertain not only to the life that now is, but also to that which is to come —we felt an exuberance of joy, which found in every fel¬ low-pilgrim toward the heavenly Canaan a brother or a sister in whom we trusted as related to the Lord and hav¬ ing his spirit; and we were disposed to deal with them all as we would with the Lord, and to share with them our all, as we would share all with our Redeemer. And in many instances it was by a rude shock that we were awakened to the fadt that neither we nor others are perfedt in the flesh; and that no matter how much of the Master’s spirit his people now possess, they 1 i have this treasure in earthen vessels” of human frailty and defection. Then we learned, not only that the weaknesses of the flesh of other men had to be taken into account, but that our own weaknesses of the flesh needed constant guarding. We found that whilst all had shared Adam’s fall, all had not fallen alike, or in exadtly the same particulars. All have fallen from God’s likeness and spirit of love, to Satan’s likeness and spirit of selfishness; and as love has diversities of operations, so has selfishness. Consequently, selfishness working in one has wrought a desire for ease, sloth, indo¬ lence; in another it produced energy, labor for the pleas¬ ures of this life, self-gratification, etc. Among those actively selfish some take self-gratification in amassing a fortune, and having it said, He - is wealthy; others gratify their selfishness by seeking honor of men; others in dress, others in travel, others in debauchery and the lowest and meanest forms of selfishness. Each one begotten to the new life in Christ, with its new spirit of love, finds a conflidt begun, fightings within and without; for the new spirit wars with whatever form of selfishness or depravity formerly had control of us. The “new mind of Christ,” whose principles are justice and love, asserts itself; and reminds the will that it has assent¬ ed to and covenanted to this change. The desires of the flesh (the selfish desires, whatever their bent), aided by the outside influence of friends, argue and discuss the question, urging that no radical measures must be taken—that such The Day of Vengeance. 476 a course would be foolish, insane, impossible. The flesh insists that the old course cannot be changed, but will agree to slight modifications, and to do nothing so extreme as before. The vast majority of God’s people seem to agree to this partnership, which is really still the reign of selfishness. But others insist that the spirit or mind of Christ shall have the control. The battle which ensues is a hard one (Gal. 5:16, 17); but the new will should conquer, and self with its own selfishness, or depraved desires, be reckoned dead.—Col. 2:20; 3:3; Rom 6: 2-8. But does this end the battle forever? No;—■ “ Ne’er think the vidtory won, Nor once at ease sit down ; Thine arduous task will not be done Till thou hast gained thy crown.” Ah, yes, we must renew the battle daily, and help di¬ vine implore and receive, that we may finish our course with joy. We must not only conquer self, but, as the Apos¬ tle did, we must keep our bodies under. (1 Cor. 9:27.) And this, our experience, that we must be constantly on the alert against the spirit of selfishness, and to support and promote in ourselves the spirit of love, is the exper¬ ience of all who likewise have “put on Christ” and taken his will to be theirs. Hence the propriety of the Apostle’s remark, “ Henceforth know we no man [in Christ] after the flesh.” We know those in Christ according to their new spirit, and not according to their fallen flesh. And if we see them fail sometimes, or always to some degree, and yet see evidences that the new mind is wrestling for the mas¬ tery, we are properly disposed to sympathize with them rather than to berate them for little failures; “remembering our¬ selves, lest we also be tempted [of our old selfish nature in violation of some of the requirements of the perfedt law of love].” Under “the present distress,” therefore, while each has all that he can do to keep his own body under and the spirit of love in control, sound judgment, as well as experi¬ ence and the Bible, tells us that we would best not compli¬ cate matters by attempting communistic schemes ; but each make as straight paths as possible for his own feet, that that Proposed Remedies. 477 which is lame in our fallen flesh be not turned entirely out of the way, but that it be healed. (1) Sound judgment says that if the saints with divine help have a constant battle to keep selfishness subjedt to love, a promiscuous colony or community would certainly not succeed in ruling itself by a law utterly foreign to the spirit of the majority of its members. And it would be impossible to establish a communism of saints only, be¬ cause we cannot read the hearts—only “the Lordknoweth them that are his.” And if such a colony of saints could be gotten together, and if it should prosper with all things in common, all sorts of evil persons would seek to get their possessions or to share them; and if successfully excluded they would say all manner of evil against them; and so, if it held together at all, the enterprise would not be a real success. Some saints, as well as many of the world, are so fallen into selfish indolence that nothing but necessity will help them to be, “not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. ’ ’ And many others are so selfishly ambi¬ tious that they need the buffetings of failure and adversity to mellow them and enable them to sympathize with others, or even to bring them to deal justly with others. For both these classes “community” would merely serve to hinder the learning of the proper and needed lessons. Such communities, if left to the rule of the majority, would sink to the level of the majority; for the progressive, adtive minority, finding that nothing could be gained by energy and thrift over carelessness and sloth, would also grow careless and indolent. If governed by organizers of strong will, as Life Trustees and Managers, on a paternal principle, the result would be more favorable financially; but the masses, deprived of personal responsibility, would degenerate into mere tools and slaves of the Trustees. To sound judgment it therefore appears that the method of individualism, with its liberty and responsibility, is the best one for the development of intelligent beings; even though it may work hardships many times to all, and some¬ times to many. Sound judgment can see that if the Millennial King¬ dom were established on the earth, with the divine rulers 478 The Day of Vengeance. then promised, backed by unerring wisdom and full power to use it, laying “judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet,” and ruling not by consent of majorities, but by righteous judgment, as “ with a rod of iron ”—then communism could succeed; probably it would be the very best condition, and if so it will be the method chosen by the King of kings. But for that we wait; and not having the power or the wisdom to use such theocratic power, the spirit of a sound mind simply bides the Lord’s time, pray¬ ing meanwhile, “ Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.” And after Christ’s King¬ dom shall have brought all the willing back to God and righteousness, and shall have destroyed all the unwilling, then, with Love the rule of earth as it is of heaven, we may suppose that men will share earth’s mercies in common, as do the angels the bounties of heaven. (2) Experience proves the failure of communistic methods in the present time. There have been several such com¬ munities; and the result has always been failure. The Oneida community of New York is one whose failure has long been recognized. Another, the Harmony Society of Pennsylvania, soon disappointed the hopes of its found¬ ers, for so much discord prevailed that it divided. The branch known as Economites located near Pittsburg, Pa. It flourished for a while, after a fashion, but is now quite withered; and possession of its property is now being dis¬ puted in the Society and in the courts of law. Other communistic societies are starting now, which will be far less successful than these because the times are differ¬ ent ; independence is greater, respedl and reverence are less, majorities will rule, and without super-human leaders are sure to fail. Wise worldly leaders are looking out for them¬ selves, while wise Christians are busy in other channels,— obeying the Lord’s command, “Go thou and preach the Gospel.” (3) The Bible does not teach Communism, but does teach loving, considerate Individualism, except in the sense of family communism—each family adling as a unit, of which the father is the head and the wife one with him, his fellow- heir of the grace of life, his partner in every joy and bene« fit as well as in every adversity and sorrow. Proposed Remedies* 479 True, God permitted a communistic arrangement in the primitive Church, referred to at the beginning of this ar¬ ticle; but this may have been for the purpose of illustrat¬ ing to us the unwisdom of the method; and lest some, thinking of the scheme now, should conclude that the apos¬ tles did not command and organize communities, because they lacked the wisdom to devise and carry out such methods; for not a word can be quoted from our Lord or the apostles advocating the communistic principles; but much can be quoted to the contrary. True, the Apostle Peter (and probably other apostles) knew of, and cooperated in, that first communistic arrangement, even if he did not teach the system. It has been inferred, too, that the death of Ananias and Sapphira was an indication that the giving of all the goods of the believers was com¬ pulsory ; but not so : their sin was that of lying , as Peter declared in reviewing the case. While they had the land there was no harm in keeping it if they got it honestly; and even after they had sold it no harm was done: the wrong was in misrepresenting that the sum of money turned in was their all , when it was not their all. They were at¬ tempting to cheat the others by getting a share of their alls without giving their own all. As a matter of fa6t, the Christian Community at Jerusa¬ lem was a failure. “ There arose a murmuring ”—“ be¬ cause their widows were negleCted in the daily ministra¬ tions. ’ ’ Although under the Apostolic inspection the Church was pure, free from “tares,” and all had the treasure of the new spirit or “mind of Christ,” yet evidently that treasure was only in warped and twisted earthen vessels which could not get along well together. The apostles soon found that the management of the community would greatly interfere with their real work— the preaching of the gospel. So they abandoned those things to others. The Apostle Paul and others traveled from city to city preaching Christ and him crucified; but, so far as the record shows, they never mentioned communism and never organized a community; and yet St. Paul declares, “I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole coun¬ sel of God.” This proves that Communism is no part of the gospel, nor of the counsel of God for this age. 480 The Day of Vengeance. On the contrary, the Apostle Paul exhorted and instruct¬ ed the Church to do things which it would be wholly im¬ possible to do as members of a communistic society—to each “provide for his own;” to “ lay by on the first day of the week” money for the Lord’s service, according as the Lord had prospered them : that servants should obey their masters, rendering the service with a double good will if the master were also a brother in Christ; and how mas¬ ters should treat their servants, as those who must them¬ selves give an account to the great Master, Christ.—1 Tim. 5:8; 6:1; 1 Cor. 16:2; Eph. 6:5-9. Our Lord Jesus not only did not establish a Community while he lived, but he never taught that such should be es¬ tablished. On the contrary, in his parables he taught,— that all have not the same number of pounds or talents given them, but each is a steward and should individually (not colledfively, as a commune) manage his own affairs, and render his own account. (Matt. 25:14-28; Luke 19:12- 24. See also James 4:13, 15.) When dying, our Lord commended his mother to the care of his disciple John, and the record of John (19:27) is, “And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.” John, there¬ fore, had a home, so had Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Had our Lord formed a Community he would doubtless have commended his mother to it instead of to John. Moreover, the forming of a Commune of believers is op¬ posed to the purpose and methods of the Gospel age. The objeCt of this age is to witness Christ to the world, and thus to “ take out a people for his name;” and to this end each believer is exhorted to be a burning and a shining light before men—the world in general—and not before and to each other merely. Hence, after permitting the first Christian Community to be established, to show that the fail¬ ure to establish Communities generally was not an over¬ sight, the Lord broke it up, and scattered the believers everywhere, to preach the gospel to every creature. We read, —“And at that time there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scat¬ tered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles,” and they went everywhere preaching the gospel.—ACts8:i, 4; 11:19. Proposed Remedies. 48 r It is still the work ol God’s people to shine as lights in the midst of the world, and not to shut themselves up in convents and cloisters or as communities. The promises of Paradise will not be realized by joining such communi¬ ties. The desire to join such “confederacies” is but a part of the general spirit of our day, against which we are fore¬ warned. (Isa. 8:12.) “Trust in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” “Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things, and to stand before the Son of Man.”—Luke 21:36. ANARCHY AS A REMEDY. Anarchists want liberty to the extent of lawlessness. They have apparently reached the conclusion that every method of human cooperation has proved a failure, and they propose to destroy all cooperative human restraints. Anarchy is therefore the exadt opposite of Communism, although some confound them. While Communism would destroy all Individualism and compel the whole world to share alike, Anarchy would destroy all laws and social re¬ straints so that each individual might do as he please. Anar¬ chism is merely destrudlive: so far as we can ascertain, it has no construdtive features. It probably considers that it has a sufficient task on hand to destroy the world, and will better let the future battle for itself in the matter of re¬ construction. The following extracts from a sixteen page booklet published by the London Anarchists and distributed at their last May-day parade, gives some idea of their wild and desperate notions:— “The belief that there must be authority somewhere, and submission to authority, are at the root of all our mis¬ ery. As a remedy we advise a struggle for life or death against all authority—physical authority, as embodied in the State, or dodtrinary authority, the result of centuries 31 *> 482 The Day of Vengeance. of ignorance and superstition, such as religion, patriotism, obedience to laws, belief in the usefulness of government, submission to the wealthy and to those in office;—in short, a struggle against all and every humbug designed to stupefy and enslave the workingmen. The workingmen neces¬ sarily must destroy authority: those who are benefited by it certainly will not. Patriotism and religion are sanc¬ tuaries and bulwarks of rascals; religion is the greatest curse of the human race. Yet there are to be found men who prostitute the noble word ‘ labor' by combining it with the nauseating term ‘church’ into ‘Labor-Church.’ One might just as well speak of a ‘Labor-Police.’ “We do not share the views of those who believe that the State may be converted into a beneficent institution. The change would be as difficult as to convert a wolf into a lamb. Nor do we believe in the centralization of all produdlion and consumption, as aimed at by the Socialists. That would be nothing but the present State in a new form, with increased authority, a veritable monstrosity of tyranny and slavery. “ What the Anarchists want is equal liberty for all. The talents and inclination of all men differ from each other. Every one knows best what he can do and what he wants; laws and regulations only hamper, and forced labor is never pleasant. In the state aimed at by the Anarchists, every one will do the work that pleases him best, and will satisfy his wants out of the common store as pleases him best.” It would seem that even the poorest judgment and the least experience would see in this proposal nothing but the sheerest folly. In it there is no remedy either proposed or expedted: it is but the gnashing of teeth of the hopeless and despairing; yet it is the extremity toward which mul¬ titudes are being driven by the force of circumstances pro¬ pelled by selfishness. SOCIALISM OR COLLECTIVISM AS A REMEDY. Socialism as a civil government would propose to secure the reconstrudlion of society, the increase of wealth, and a Proposed Remedies. 483 more nearly equal distribution of the produ&s of labor through the public collective ownership of land and capi¬ tal (wealth other than real estate), and the management of all industries by the public collectively. Its motto is, “ Every one according to his deeds.’' It differs from ‘‘Nationalism” in that it does not propose to reward all individuals alike. It differs from “Communism” in that it does not advocate a community of goods or prop¬ erty. It thus, in our judgment, avoids the errors of both, and is a very practical theory if it could be introduced gradually and by wise, moderate, unselfish men. This principle has already accomplished much on a small scale in various localities. In many cities in the United States the water supply, street improvements, schools and fire and police departments are so conducted, to the general welfare. But Europe is in advance of us along these lines; for many of their railroads and telegraphs are so conducted. In France the tobacco business with all its profits belongs to the government, the people. In Russia the liquor business has been seized by the government and is hereafter to be conducted by it for the public benefit financially, and it is claimed also morally. The following interesting statistics are from “social upbuilding” By E. D. Babbitt, LL. D., of the College of Fine Forces, New Jersey:— “Sixty-eight governments own their telegraph lines. “Fifty-four governments own their railroads in whole or in part, while only nineteen, the United States among them, do not. “In Australia one can ride 1,000 miles (first-class) across the country for $5.50, or six miles for 2 cents, and railroad men are paid more for eight hours labor than in the United States for ten hours. Does this impoverish the country? 484 The Day of Vengeance. In Victoria, where these rates prevail, the net income foi 1894 was sufficient to pay the federal taxes. “In Hungary, where the roads are state-owned, one can ride six miles for a cent, and since the government bought the roads, wages have doubled. “In Belgium, fares and freight rates have been cut down one-half and wages doubled. But for all that the roads pay a yearly revenue to the government of $4,000,000. “In Germany, the government-owned roads will carry a person four miles for a cent, while the wages of the em¬ ployees are 120 per cent, higher than when the corporations owned them. Has such a system proved ruinous? No. During the last ten years the net profits have increased 41 per cent. Last year (1894), the roads paid the German government a net profit of $25,000,000. “It has been estimated that government ownership of railroads would save the people of the United States a bill¬ ion dollars in money and give better wages to its employees, two millions of whom would doubtless then be needed in¬ stead of 700,000 as at present. “Berlin, Germany, is called the cleanest, best paved and best governed city in the world. It owns its gas works, eledtric lights, water works, street railways, city telephones, and even its fire insurance, and thus makes a profit every year of 5,000,000 mark, or $1,250,000, over all expenses. In that city the citizens can ride five miles as often as they please every day in the whole year for $4.50, while two trips a day on the elevated railroads of New York would cost $36.50. “Mr. F. G. R. Gordon has given in the Twe?iticth Century the statistics with reference to lighting a number of American cities and finds that the average price of each arc light by the year, when under municipal control, is $52.12^ while the average price paid to private parties by the various cities is $105.13 per light each year, or a little more than twice as much as when run by the cities them¬ selves. The average price for telegrams in the United States in 1891 was thirty-two and a half cents. In Germany, where the telegraphs are owned by the government, messages oi ten words are sent to all parts of the country for five cents. Proposed Remedies. 48q From the greater distances and higher prices for labor, here, we would probably have to pay from five to twenty cents, according to the distance. The remarkable advan¬ tage of having each municipality control its own gas, water, coal and’ street railways, has been demonstrated by Bir¬ mingham, Glasgow and other cities in Great Britain.” Very good, we answer, so far as it goes. But still no sane man will claim that the poor of Europe are enjoying the Millennial blessings, even with all these Socialist theories in operation in their midst. No well informed man will un¬ dertake to say that the working classes of Europe are any¬ where near on a par with workmen in general in the United States. This is still their Paradise, and laws are even now being formed to limit the thousands who desire still to come to share this Paradise. But while we rejoice in every amelioration of the con¬ dition of Europe’s poor, let us not forget that the national¬ ization movement, except in Great Britain, results not from greater sagacity on the part of the people, nor from benevolence or indolence on the part of Capital, but from another cause which does not operate in the United States; —from the governments themselves. They have taken pos¬ session of these to avoid bankruptcy. They are under im¬ mense expense in supporting armies, navies, fortresses, etc., and must have a source of revenue. The cheap rates of travel are with a view to please the people and also to draw business; for if the rates were not low the many who earn small wages could not ride. As it is, the fourth-class cars in Germany are merely freight cars, without seats of any kind. In full view of such fa< 5 ts let us not delude ourselves with the supposition that such measures would solve the Labor Problem, or even relieve matters for more than six years, and that but slightly. We have reason to believe that Socialism will make great progress during the next ten years. But frequently it will 4 86 The Day of Vengeance. not be wisely or moderately advanced: success will intoxi¬ cate some of its advocates, and failure render others des¬ perate, and as a result impatience will lead to calamity. Capitalism and Monarchism see in Socialism a foe, and already they oppose it as much as they dare in view of public opinion. The Church nominal, though full of tares and worldliness, is still a powerful fadtor in the case; for she represents and largely controls the middle classes in whose hands is the balance of power as between the upper and the lower classes of society. To these Socialism has hitherto been considerably misrepresented by its friends, who hitherto have generally been infidels. Rulers, capi¬ talists and clergymen, with few exceptions, will seize upon the first extremes of Socialism to assault it and brand it with infamy, and temporarily throttle it, encouraging themselves with specious arguments which self-interest and fear will suggest. We can but rejoice to see principles of equity set in mo¬ tion, even though they be but temporary and partial. And all whose interests would be affedled thereby should endeavor to take a broad view, and to relinquish a portion of their personal advantage for the general good. As intimated the movement will be crushed under the combined power of Church, State and Capital and later lead to the great explosion of anarchy, in which, as indi¬ cated in the Scriptures, all present institutions will be wrecked;—“a time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation.” But even should Socialism have its own way entirely, it would prove to be but a temporary relief, so long as selfish¬ ness is the ruling principle in the hearts of the majority of mankind. There are “ born schemers ’ ’ who would speedily find ways of getting the cream of public works and com¬ pensations for themselves; parasites on the social structure Proposed Remedies. 487 would multiply and flourish and “rings” would be every¬ where. So long as people recognize and worship a prin¬ ciple, they will more or less conform to it: hence Social¬ ism at first might be comparatively pure, and its represent¬ atives in office faithful servants of the public for the public good. But let Socialism become popular, and the same shrewd, selfish schemers who now oppose it would get in¬ side and control it for their own selfish ends. Communists and Nationalists see that so long as differ¬ ences of compensation are permitted selfishness will warp and twist truth and justice; and in order to gratify pride and ambition it will surmount every barrier against poverty that men can eredt. To meet this difficulty they go to the impractical extremes which their claims present—impracti¬ cal because men are sinners, not saints; selfish, not loving. HERBERT SPENCER’S VIEW OF SOCIALISM. Mr. Herbert Spencer, the noted English philosopher and economist, noticing the statement that the Italian Socialist Ferri supports his theories, writes:—“The assertion that any of iny views favor Socialism causes me great irritation. I believe the advent of Socialism to be the greatest disas¬ ter the world has ever known.” While great thinkers agree that competition or “indi¬ vidualism ” has its evils that require drastic remedies, they deprecate the enslavement of the individual to social organ¬ ization : or rather the burial of all individuality in Social¬ ism, as eventually the greater disaster; since it would create armies of public employees, make politics still more of ? trade than at present, and consequently open the way more than ever to rings and general corruption. The following from the Literaiy Digest (Aug. 10, ’95), has a bearing upon the subjedt in hand as going to show TJie Day of Vengeance, 488 that Socialistic principles would not endure unless support¬ ed by some kind of force,—so strong is selfishness in all mankind:— “two socialist communities.” “Two pra< 5 lical trials of Socialism attradl the attention of students of social economy abroad. In both cases the orig¬ inal promoters of Socialist communities are doing fairly well, in one they are even prosperous. But the attempt to live up to the teachings of Socialistic theorists has failed in both instances. The erstwhile communists have returned to methods which scarcely differ from those of the bourgeoise around them. A little more than two years ago a party of Australian workingmen, tired of a life of wage-slavery re¬ lieved only by the hardships of enforced idleness, set out for Paraguay, where they obtained land suitable for farmers who have no large machines at their disposal. They called their settlement New Australia, and hoped to convert it into a Utopia for workingmen. The British foreign Office, in its latest official report, gives a short history of the move¬ ment which caused many men to exchange Australia, 1 the workingman’s Eldorado,’ for South America. We take the following from the report mentioned:— “The aims of the colony were set forth in its constitu¬ tion, in which one of the articles runs as follows: * It is our intention to form a community in which all labor will be for the benefit of every member, and in which it will be impossible for one to tyrannize another. It will be the duty of each individual to regard the well-being of the com¬ munity as his chief aim, thus insuring a degree of comfort, happiness and education which is impossible in a state of society where no one is certain that he will not starve.’ “This ideal was not realized. Eighty-five of the col¬ onists soon tired of the restridlions imposed upon them by the majority, and refused to obey. New arrivals from Aus¬ tralia made up the loss occasioned by this secession; but the new arrivals, dissatisfied with the leader of the movement, elected a chief of their own, so that there were now three parties in the colony. The equal division of the proceeds Proposed Remedies. 489 of their labor soon dissatisfied a number of the workers, who, in opposition to Socialist rules, demanded a share in proportion to the work they had done. The stridt enforce¬ ment of Prohibition was another cause of dissatisfaction, especially as its infringement was punishable by expulsion without a chance of getting the original capital sunk in the undertaking refunded. The colony was on the point of breaking up, when the erstwhile leader of the movement succeeded in getting himself appointed judge by the Para¬ guayan authorities, and surrounded himself with a police force. There is hope that the colony will now become prosperous, but Socialistic regulations have been discarded.’ “The experience of the miners of Monthieux is some¬ what different. In their case it was prosperity that caused the Socialistic theories to be set aside. The Gewerbe Zei- tungy Berlin, tells their story as follows:— “‘At Monthieux, near St. Etienne, is a pit which was given up by the company which owned it a couple of years ago, and the miners were discharged. As there was # no chance for employment in the neighborhood, the workmen begged the company to turn over the pit to them, and as the owners did not believe that the pit could be made to pay, they consented. The miners had no machinery, but they worked with a will and managed to find new veins. They made almost superhuman efforts and managed to save enough of their earnings to purchase machinery, and the discarded mines of Monthieux became a source of wealth to the new owners. The former owners then endeavored to regain possession, but lost their suit, and the labor press did not fail to contrast the avarice of the capitalists with the nobility of the miners who shared alike the proceeds of their labor. The mines of Monthieux were pointed out as an in¬ stance of the triumph of Collectivism over the exploitation of private capital. “‘Meanwhile the miners extended their operations un¬ til they could no longer do all the work without help. Other miners were called in, and did their best to further the work. But the men who had first undertaken to make the pit a paying one refused to share alike with the newcomers. They knew that the wealth which lay beneath their feet had been discovered by them with almost superhuman efforts j 490 Hie JJay of Vengeance. they had, so to speak, made something out of nothing, why should they share the results of their labors with the new¬ comers, who had, indeed, worked all this time, but else¬ where? Why should they give to the new comrades of the harvest they had not planted? The newcomers should be paid well, better than in other mines, but they should not become joint owners. And when the newcomers created a disturbance, the ‘capitalistic* workingmen fetched police and had them thrown out of their council room. ’ * * NATIONALISM AS A REMEDY. Nationalism is a recent development of theory along the lines of socialism. It claims that all industries should be conduced by the nation, on the basis of common obliga¬ tion to work and a general guarantee of livelihood;—all workers to do the same amount of work, and to get the same wages. Nationalists claim that,— “The combinations, trusts and syndicates, of which the people at present complain, demonstrate the practicability of our basic principle of association. We merely seek to push this principle a little further and have all industries operated in the interest of all, by the nation—the people organized—the organic unity of the whole people. “ The present industrial system proves itself wrong by the immense wrongs it produces; it proves itself absurd by the immense waste of energy and material which is ad¬ mitted to be its concomitant. Against this system we raise our protest: for the abolition of the slavery it has wrought and would perpetuate, we pledge our best efforts. ’ * Some favorable points, common to both, we have men¬ tioned favorably under the caption “Socialism or Collect¬ ivism as a remedy; ” asa whole, however, Nationalism is quite impracticable; the objections to it being in general the same that we urged foregoing against Communism. Al¬ though Nationalism does not, like Communism, direCtly threaten the destruction of the family, its tendency would Proposed Remedies. 49 * surely be in that direction. Among its advocates are many broadminded, philanthropic souls, some of whom have helped, without hope of personal advantage, to found col¬ onies where the principles of Nationalism were to be worked out as public examples. Some of these have been utter fail¬ ures, and even the pradlically successful have been forced to ignore Nationalist principles in dealing with the world outside their colonies : and, as might be expedted, they have all had considerable internal fridtion. If, with “ one Lord, one faith and one baptism ” God’s saints find it difficult to “preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,” and need to be exhorted to forbear one another in love; how could it be expedted that mixed companies, claiming no such spirit as a bond, could succeed in vanquishing the self¬ ish spirit of the world, the flesh and the devil ? Several colonies on this Nationalist plan have started and failed within the past few years, in the United States. One of the most recent failures is that known as the Altruria Colony, of California, founded by Rev. E. B. Payne, on the theory “One for all and all for one.” It had many advan¬ tages over other colonies in that it picked out its members, and did not accept all sorts. Moreover, it had a Lodge form of government of very thorough control. Its founder, giv¬ ing the reasons for the failure, in the San Francisco Exam¬ iner, Dec. io, ’96, says:— “ Altruria was not a complete failure; ... we demon¬ strated that trust, good will and sincerity—which prevailed for a part of the time—made a happy community life, and on the other side, that suspicion, envy and selfish motives diabolize human nature and make life not worth wLile. . . . We did not continue to trust and consider one another as we did at first, but fell back into the ways of the rest of the world.” What some people demonstrate by experience others know by indudtive reasoning, based upon knowledge of human 49 2 The Day of Vengeance. nature. Any one wanting a lesson on the futility of hope from such a quarter while selfishness still controls the hearts of men, can get his experience cheaply by boarding for a week each at three or four second-class “boarding houses .’* GENERAL EDUCATION OF MECHANICS A REMEDY. In The Forum , recently, there appeared an article by Mr. Henry Holt, in which he ~.ideavors to show that education should be largely industrial, to fit a mechanic to readily turn from one employment to another—he should “learn a dozen ” trades. While this might for a time help a few individuals, it is manifest that such a measure would not solve the prob¬ lem. It is bad enough as it is, when plasterers and brick¬ layers may be busy while shoemakers and weavers are idle; but what would be the effeCt if the latter also understood bricklaying and plastering? It would multiply competi¬ tion in every trade, if all the unemployed could compete for the busy jobs. The gentleman, however, deals well with two comprehensive truths, respecting which education is needed. He says:— “ The simpler of these truths is the inevitable, even if cruel,—the necessity of Natural selection. I do not say its justice. Nature knows nothing of justice. Her machinery pounds remorselessly along in a set of hard conditions, but, after all, pounds out of those conditions the best they will yield. True, she has evolved in us intelligences to slightly direCt her course; and it is in using them the function of justice comes up. But we can direCt her only in channels fitted to her own currents : otherwise we are overwhelmed. Now, no one of her courses is broader and more clearly marked than that of Natural Selection, and in the exercise of our little liberties and suffrages, we are never so wise as when we fall in with it—when, for example, we raise a Lincoln from his cabin. But so far, we are vastly more apt to prefer the demagogue, and then we suffer. Socialism pro¬ poses to extend the danger of this suffering into the field of Proposed Re??iedies. 493 production. The captains of industry are now chosen pure¬ ly by natural selection—at least with a very moderate ab¬ normality in the aCtion of heredity, which rapidly cures itself: if the son does not inherit fitness, he soon ceases to survive. But with increasing freedom of competition, and increasing facilities for able men without capital, to hire it, it is substantially true that industry is at present directed by natural selection. For this, the Socialist proposes to 'substitute artificial selection, and that by popular vote. A general knowledge of the superiority of Nature’s way would cure this madness. “ The other truth so difficult to impart clearly, but not impossible to give some conception of, is the more impor¬ tant. It is difficult, not so much because it calls for some preliminary education, as because dogma has been fighting it for thousands of years, and fights it still. To most who read this, every one of these assertions will probably ap¬ pear strange, when the truth is named in the familiar phrase¬ ology—The Universal Reign of Law. Yet it is the faCt that hosts of men who think they believe in it, pray every day that it may not be—that exceptions may be made in their cases. People generally—and legislators generally— in a matter of physiology, would send for a doCtor; or in a matter of machinery, for an engineer; or in chemistry, for a chemist; and would follow his opinion with child¬ like faith; but in economics they want no opinions but their own. They have no idea that such matters are, like physical matters, under the control of natural laws—that to find those laws, or learn those already found, requires special study; and that to go counter to them, in ignorance, must bring disaster as fatal as in perversity. . . . “The workingman needs, then, not only instruction in the trade-school and in certain economic fads, but the kind of instruction in science and history that will give him some conception of Natural Law. On the basis thus provided could be built some notion of its control in the social as well as in the material world; and also some reali¬ zation that human law is futile, or worse, except as, by close study and cautious experiment, it is made to conform to the Natural Law. Hence would come the faith that no human law could make the unfit survive, except at some- 2he Day of Vengeance. ^94 body else’s expense; and that the only way to enable them to survive at their own, is to make them fit. ’ ’ Yes, it is well that all should learn that these two laws control in our present social system, and that it is not in the power of man to change nature or nature’s laws; and hence that it is impossible for him to do more than tinker present social conditions, and temporarily improve them a little. The new and more desirable laws necessary to the perfect, the ideal society, will require supernatural powers for their introduction. Learningthis lesson will help to bring (instead of a discontent which aggravates itself) “godliness with contentment,” while waiting for the Kingdom of God and praying, “ Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” THE SINGLE TAX REMEDY. Doubtless because he saw the effedts of Communism and Nationalism and Socialism, as pointed out above, Mr. Henry George devised a scheme of some merit, known as the “Single Tax Theory.” This may be said to be the re¬ verse of Socialism in some respedts. It is Individualism in many important features. It leaves the individual to the resources of his own charadter, efforts and environment ; except that it would preserve to each an inalienable right to share, as the common blessings of the Creator,—air, water and land. It proposes very little diredt alteration of the present social system. Claiming that the present in equal- ities of fortune, so far as they are oppressive and injurious, are wholly the results of private ownership of the land, this theory proposes that all lands become once more the property of Adam’s race as a whole; and claims that thus the evils of our present social system would speedily right themselves. It proposes that this re-distribution of the land Proposed Remedies. 495 shall be accomplished, not by dividing it proportionately among the human family, but by considering it all as one vast estate, and permitting each person as a tenant to use as much as he may choose of what he now possesses, and to colledl a land-tax or rental from each occupant proportional to the value of the land (aside from the value of the build¬ ings or other improvements thereon). Thus a vacant lot would be assessed as heavy a rental or tax as an adjoining lot, built upon, and the untilled field as much as the ad¬ joining fruitful one. The tax thus raised would constitute a fund for every purpose for the general welfare;—for schools, streets, roads, water, etc., and for local and general gov¬ ernment;—hence the name of the theory, “Single Tax.” The effedl would of course be to open to adlual settle¬ ment thousands of town lots and barren fields now held for speculative purposes; because all taxes being consolidated into one, and being removed from cattle, machinery, busi¬ ness and improvements of every kind, and all concentrated upon the land would make the land-tax quite an item;— graduated, however, so as to show no favoritism, poor farm lands or remote from transportation being taxed less in proportion than better lands, and those nearer to trans¬ portation. City lots similarly would be assessed according to value, location and surroundings considered. Such a law, made to become operative ten years after its passage, would have the immediate effe< 5 t of reducing real estate values, and by the time it would become operative millions of acres and thousands of town-lots would be open to any one who could make use of them and pay the assessed rents. Mr. Henry George took advantage of the fa6t that Pope Leo xm. issued an Encyclical on Labor, to publish a pamphlet in reply, entitled, “ An Open Letter to Pope Leo xm.,” etc. As it contains some good thoughts along the lines of our topic and besides is a further statement 496 The Day of Vengeance. of the theory under discussion, we make liberal extracts as follows:— AN EXTRACT FROM AN OPEN LETTER BY MR. HENRY GEORGE TO POPE LEO XIII., IN ANSWER TO THE LATTER’S ENCYCLICAL ON THE PERPLEXING LABOR QUESTION. “It seems to us that your Holiness misses its real signi¬ ficance in intimating that Christ, in becoming the son of a carpenter and himself working as a carpenter, showed merely that ‘ there is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking one’s bread by labor.’ To say that is almost like saying that by not robbing people he showed that there is nothing to be ashamed of in honesty? If you will consider how true in any large view is the classification of all men into workingmen, beggarmen and thieves, you will see that it was morally impossible that Christ, during his stay on earth, should have been anything else than a workingman, since he who came to fulfil the law must by deed as well as word obey God’s law of labor. “ See how fully and how beautifully Christ’s life on earth illustrated this law. Entering our earthly life in the weak¬ ness of infancy, as it is appointed that all should enter it. He lovingly took what in the natural order is lovingly rendered, the sustenance, secured by labor, that one genera¬ tion owes to its immediate successors. Arrived at maturity he earned his own subsistence by that common labor in which the majority of men must and do earn it. Then pass¬ ing to a higher—to the very highest—sphere of labor, he earned his subsistence by the teaching of moral and spiritual truths, receiving its material wages in the love offerings of grateful hearers, and not refusing the costly spikenard with which Mary anointed his feet. So, when he chose his dis¬ ciples, he did not go to land owners or other monopolists who live on the labor of others, but to common laboring men. And when he called them to a higher sphere of labor and sent them out to teach moral and spiritual truths, he told them to take, without condescension on the one hand, Proposed Remedies. 497 or sense of degradation on the other, the loving return for such labor, saying to them that the ‘ laborer is worthy of his hire,’ thus showing, what we hold, that all labor does not consist in what is called manual labor, but that who¬ ever helps to add to the material, intellectual, moral or spiritual fullness of life is also a laborer.* “In assuming that laborers, even ordinary manual labor¬ ers, are naturally poor, you ignore the faCl that labor is the producer of wealth, and attribute to the natural law of the Creator an injustice that comes from man’s impious viola¬ tion of his benevolent intention. In the rudest state of the arts it is possible, where justice prevails, for all well men to earn a living. With the labor-saving appliances of our time it should be possible for all to earn much more. And so, in saying that poverty is no disgrace, you convey an un¬ reasonable implication. For poverty ought to be a disgrace, because in a condition of social justice, it would, where un¬ imposed by unavoidable misfortune, imply recklessness or laziness. “ The sympathy of your Holiness seems exclusively di¬ rected to the poor, the workers. Ought this to be so ? Are not rich idlers to be pitied also ? By the word of the Gos¬ pel it is the rich rather than the poor who call for pity. And to any one who believes in a future life, the condition of him who wakes to find his cherished millions left be¬ hind must seem pitiful. But even in this life, how really pitiable are the rich. The evil is not in wealth in itself— * “Nor should it be forgotten that the investigator, the philosopher, the teacher, the artist, the poet, the priest, though not engaged in the production of wealth, are not only engaged in the production of utilities and satisfactions to which the production of wealth is only a means, but by acquiring and diffusing knowledge, stimulating mental powers and elevating the moral sense, may greatly increase the ability to produce wealth. For man does not live by bread alone. . . . He who by any exertion of mind or body adds to the aggregate of enjoyable wealth in¬ creases the sum of human knowledge, or gives to human life higher ele¬ vation or greater fulness—he is, in the large meaning of the words, a “ producer,” a “ working man,” a “ laborer.” and is honestly earning honest wages. But he who without doing aught to make mankind richer, wiser better, happier, lives on the toil of others—he, no matter by what name of honor he may be called, or how lustily the priests of Mammon may swing their censers before him, is in the last analysis but a beggarman or a thief.” 32 D 49 8 71 le Day of Vengeance. in its command over material things; it is in the possession of wealth while others are steeped in poverty; in being raised above touch with the life of humanity, from its work and its struggles, its hopes and its fears, and above all, from the love that sweetens life, and the kindly sympathies and generous acts that strengthen faith in man and trust in God. Consider how the rich see the meaner side of human na¬ ture ; how they are surrounded by flatterers and sycophants; how they find ready instruments not only to gratify vicious impulses, but to prompt and stimulate them; how they must constantly be on guard lest they be swindled; how often they must suspedt an ulterior motive behind kindly deed or friendly word; how if they try to be generous they are beset by shameless beggars and scheming impostors; how often the family affedlions are chilled for them, and their deaths anticipated with the ill-concealed joy of ex¬ pectant possession. The worst evil of poverty is not in the want of material things, but in the stunting and dis¬ tortion of the higher qualities. So, though in another way, the possession of unearned wealth likewise stunts and dis¬ torts what is noblest in man. “God’s commands cannot be evaded with impunity. If it be God’s command that men shall earn their bread by labor, the idle rich must suffer. And they do. See the utter vacancy of the lives of those who live for pleasure; see the loathsome vices bred in a class who, surrounded by poverty, are sated with wealth. See that terrible punish¬ ment of ennui of which the poor know so little that they cannot understand it; see the pessimism that grows among the wealthy classes—that shuts out God, that despises men, that deems existence in itself an evil, and fearing death yet longs for annihilation. “When Christ told the rich young man who sought him to sell all he had and to give it to the poor, he was not thinking of the poor, but of the young man. And I doubt not that among the rich, and especially among the self- made rich, there are many who at times at least feel keenly the folly of their riches and fear for the dangers and temp¬ tations to which these expose their children. But the strength of long habit, the promptings of pride, the ex¬ citement of making and holding what has become for them Froposed Remedies . 499 the counters in a game of cards, the family expectations that have assumed the character of rights, and the real dif¬ ficulty they find in making any good use of their wealth, bind them to their burden, like a weary donkey to his pack, till they stumble on the precipice that bounds this life, “Men who are sure of getting food when they shall need it eat only what appetite dictates. But with the sparse tribes who exist on the verge of the habitable globe, life is either a famine or a feast. Enduring hunger for days, the fear of it prompts them to gorge like anacondas when successful in their quest of game. And so, what gives wealth its curse is what drives men to seek it, what makes it so envied and admired—the fear of want. As the unduly rich are the corollary of the unduly poor, so is the soul-destroying quality of riches but the reflex of the want that embrutes and degrades. The real evil lies in the injustice from which unnatural possession and unnatural deprivation both spring. “ But this injustice can hardly be charged on individuals or classes. The existence of private property in land is a great social wrong from which society at large suffers, and of which the very rich and the very poor are alike victims, though at the opposite extremes. Seeing this, it seems to us like a violation of Christian charity to speak of the rich as though they individually were responsible for the suffer¬ ings of the poor. Yet, while you do this, you insist that the cause of monstrous wealth and degrading poverty shall not be touched. Here is a man with a disfiguring and dan¬ gerous excrescence. One physician would kindly, gently, but firmly remove it. Another insists that it shall not be removed, but at the same time holds up the poor victim to hatred and ridicule. Which is right? “ In seeking to restore all men to their equal and natural rights we do not seek the benefit of any class, but of all. For we both know by faith and see by fad that injustice can profit no one and that justice must benefit all. “Nor do we seek any ‘futile and ridiculous equality.’ . . . The equality we would bring about is not the equality of fortune, but the equality of natural opportunity. . . . “ And in taking for the uses of society what we clearly see is the great fund intended for society in the divine or¬ der, we would not levy the slightest tax on the possessors 5 °° The Day of Vengeance. of wealth, no matter how rich they might be. Not only do we deem such taxes a violation of the right of property, but we see that by virtue of beautiful adaptations in the economic laws of the Creator it is impossible for any one honestly to acquire wealth, without at the same time add¬ ing to the wealth of the world. . . . “Your Holiness in the Encyclical gives an example of this. Denying the equality of right to the material basis of life, and yet conscious that there is a right to live, you assert the right of laborers to employment, and their right to receive from their employers a certain indefinite wage. No such rights exist. No one has a right to demand em¬ ployment of another, or to demand higher wages than the other is willing to give, or in any way to put pressure on another to make him raise such wages against his will. There can be no better moral justification for such demands on employers by w r orkingmen than there would be for employ¬ ers to demand that workingmen shall be compelled to work for them when they do not want to and to accept wages lower than they are willing to take. Any seeming justifi¬ cation springs from a prior wrong, the denial to working¬ men of their natural rights. . . . “ Christ justified David, who when pressed by hunger com¬ mitted what ordinarily would be sacrilege, by taking from the temple the loaves of proposition. But in this he was far from saying that the robbing of temples was a proper way of getting a living. “In the Encyclical, however, you commend the appli¬ cation to the ordinary relations of life, under normal con¬ ditions, of principles that in ethics are only to be tolerated under extraordinary conditions. You are driven to this assertion of false rights by your denial of true rights. The natural right which each man has is not that of demanding employment or wages from another man; but that of em¬ ploying himself—that of applying by his own labor to the inexhaustible storehouse which the Creator has in the land provided for all men. Were that storehouse open, as by the single tax we would open it, the natural demand for labor would keep pace with the supply, the man who sold labor and the man who bought it would become free exchangers for mutual advantage, and all cause for dispute between Proposed Remedies. 5°i workman and employer would be gone. For then, all be¬ ing free to employ themselves, the mere opportunity to labor would cease to seem a boon; and since no one would work for another for less, all things considered, than he could earn by working for himself, wages would necessarily rise to their full value, and the relations of workman and em¬ ployer be regulated by mutual interest and convenience. “ This is the only way in which they can be satisfactorily regulated. “Your Holiness seems to assume that there is some just rate of wages that employers ought to be willing to pay and that laborers should be content to receive, and to im¬ agine that if this were secured there would be an end of strife. This rate you evidently think of as that which will give workingmen a frugal living, and perhaps enable them by hard work and stridt economy to lay by a little something. “ But how can a just rate of wages be fixed without the ‘higgling of the market’ any more than the just price of corn or pigs or ships or paintings can be so fixed? And would not arbitrary regulation in the one case as in the other check that interplay that most effectively promotes the economical adjustment of productive forces? Why should buyers of labor any more than buyers of commodi¬ ties, be called on to pay higher prices than in a free market they are compelled to pay ? Why should the sellers of labor be content with anything less than in a free market they can obtain? Why should workingmen be content with frugal fare when the world is so rich? Why should they be satisfied with a life-time of toil and stinting, when the world is so bountiful? Why should not they also desire to gratify the higher instindfs, the finer tastes? Why should they be forever content to travel in the steerage when others find the cabin more enjoyable ? “Nor will they. The ferment of our time does not arise merely from the fadt that workingmen find it harder to live on the same scale of comfort. It is also, and perhaps still more largely, due to the increase of their desires with an improved scale of comfort. This increase of desire must continue; for workingmen are men, and man is the un¬ satisfied animal. “He is not an ox, of whom it may be said, so much 5 02 The Day of Vengeance. grass, so much grain, so much water, and a little salt, and he will be content. On the contrary, the more man gets the more he craves. When he has enough food, then he wants better food. When he gets a shelter, then he wants a more commodious and tasty one. When his animal needs are satisfied, then mental and spiritual desires arise. “This restless discontent is of the nature of man—of that nobler nature that raises him above the animals by so immeasurable a gulf, and shows him to be indeed created in the likeness of God. It is not to be quarreled with, for it is the motor of all progress. It is this that has raised St. Peter’s dome, and on dull, dead canvass made the an¬ gelic face of the Madonna to glow; it is this that has weighed suns and analyzed stars, and opened page after page of the wonderful works of creative intelligence; it is this that has narrowed the Atlantic to an ocean ferry and trained the light¬ ning to carry our messages to the remotest lands; it is this that is opening to us possibilities beside which all that our modern civilization has as yet accomplished seem small. Nor can it be repressed save by degrading and imbruting men; by reducing Europe to Asia. “Hence, short of what wages may be earned, when all restrictions on labor are removed, and access to natural op¬ portunities on equal terms secured to all, it is impossible to fix any rate of wages that will be deemed just, or any rate of wages that can prevent workingmen striving to get more. So far from it making workingmen more contented to im¬ prove their condition a little, it is certain to make them more discontented. “ Nor are you asking justice when you ask employers to pay their workingmen more than they are compelled to pay —more than they could get others to do the work for. You are asking charity. For the surplus that the rich employer thus gives is not in reality wages, it is essentially alms. “In speaking of the practical measures for the improve¬ ment of the condition of labor which your Holiness sug¬ gests, I have not mentioned what you place much stress up¬ on—charity. But there is nothing practical in such recom¬ mendations as a cure for poverty, nor will any one so con¬ sider them. If it were possible for the giving of alms to abolish poverty there would be no poverty in Christendom. Proposed Remedies. 5°3 “ Charity is indeed a noble and beautiful virtue, grateful to man and approved by God. But charity must be built on justice. It cannot supersede justice. “What is wrong in the condition of labor through the Christian world is that labor is robbed. And while you justify the continuance of that robbery it is idle to urge charity. To do so—to commend charity as a substitute for justice, is indeed something akin in essence to those here¬ sies, condemned by your predecessors, that taught that the gospel had superseded the law, and that the love of God exempted men from moral obligations. “All that charity can do where injustice exists is here and there to somewhat mollify the effedls of injustice. It can¬ not cure them. Nor is even what little it can do to mollify the effedls of injustice without evil. For what may be called the superimposed, as in this sense, secondary virtues, work evil where the fundamental or primary virtues are absent. Thus sobriety is a virtue, and diligence is a virtue. But a sober and diligent thief is all the more dangerous. Thus patience is a virtue. But patience under wrong is the con¬ doning of wrong. Thus it is a virtue to seek knowledge and to endeavor to cultivate the mental powers. But the wicked man becomes more capable of evil by reason of his intelligence. Devils we always think of as intelligent. “'And thus that pseudo charity that discards and denies justice works evil. On the one side it demoralizes its re¬ cipients, outraging that human dignity, which, as you say, ‘God himself treats with reverence/ and turning into beg¬ gars and paupers men who, to become self-supporting, self- respedting citizens, only need the restitution of what God has given them. On the other side it adls as an anodyne to the consciences of those who are living on the robbery of their fellows, and fosters that moral delusion and spiritual pride that Christ doubtless had in mind when he said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. For it leads men, steeped in injustice, and using their money and their influence to bolster up injustice, to think that in giving alms they are doing something more than their duty towards man and deserve to be very well thought of by God, and in a vague way to attribute to their own goodness what 5°4 The Day of Vengeance. really belongs to God’s goodness. For consider: Who is the All-provider? Who is it that as you say, ‘owes to man a storehouse that shall never fail,’ and which ‘he finds only in the inexhaustible fertility of the earth.’ Is it not God? And when, therefore, men, deprived of the bounty of their God, are made dependent on the bounty of their fellow- creatures, are not these creatures, as it were, putin the place of God, to take credit to themselves for paying obligations that you yourself say God owes? “ But worse, perhaps, than all else is the way in which this substituting of vague injunctions to charity for the clear- cut demands of justice opens an easy means for the pro¬ fessed teachers of the Christian religion of all branches and communions to placate Mammon while persuading them¬ selves that they are serving God. . . . “No, your Holiness, as faith without works is dead, as men cannot give to God his due while denying to their fel¬ lows the rights he gave them, so charity, unsupported by justice, can do nothing to solve the problem of the exist¬ ing condition of labor. Though the rich were to “bestow all their goods to feed the poor and give their bodies to be burned,’ poverty would continue while property in land continues. “ Take the case of the rich man to-day who is honestly desirous of devoting his wealth to the improvement of the condition of labor. What can he do? “Bestow his wealth on those who need it? He may help some who deserve it, but he will not improve general condi¬ tions. And against the good he may do will be the dan¬ ger of doing harm. “ Build churches? Under the shadow of churches pov¬ erty festers, and the vice that is born of it breeds. “Build schools and colleges? Save as it may lead men to see the iniquity of private property in land, increased education can effedt nothing for mere laborers, for as edu¬ cation is diffused the wages of education sink. “Establish hospitals? Why, already it seems to laborers that there are too many seeking work, and to save and pro¬ long life is to add to the pressure. Build model tenements ? Unless he cheapens house ac¬ commodations he but drives further the class he would bene- Proposed Remedies. 5°5 ■fit, and as he cheapens house accomodations he brings more to seek employment and cheapens wages. “ Institute laboratories, scientific schools, workshops for physical experiments? He but stimulates invention and discovery, the very forces that, adting on a society based on private property in land, are crushing labor as between the upper and the nether millstone. “ Promote emigration from places where wages are low to places where they are somewhat higher? If he does, even those whom he at first helps to emigrate will soon turn on him to demand that such emigration shall be stopped, as it is reducing their wages. “Give away what land he may have, or refuse to take rent for it, or let it at lower rents than the market price? He will simply make new land owners or partial land own¬ ers; he may make some individuals the richer, but he will do nothing to improve the general condition of labor. “Or bethinking himself of those public-spirited citizens of classic times who spent great sums in improving their native cities, shall he try to beautify the city of his birth or adoption ? Let him widen and straighten narrow and crooked streets, let him build parks and eredt fountains, let him open tramways and bring in railroads, or in any way make beautiful and attradtive his chosen city, and what will be the result? Must it not be those who appropriate God’s bounty will take his also? Will it not be that the value of land will go up, and that the net result of his benefadtions will be an increase of rents and a bounty to land owners? Why, even the mere announcement that he is going to do such things will start speculation and send up the value of land by leaps and bounds. “What, then, can the rich man do to improve the con¬ dition of labor? “ He can do nothing at all except to use his strength for the abolition of the great primary wrong that robs men of their birthright. The justice of God laughs at the attempts of men to substitute anything else for it.” * * * “While within narrow lines trades unionism promotes the idea of the mutuality of interests, and often helps to 5°6 The Day of Vengeance. raise courage and further political education, and while it has enabled limited bodies of workingmen to improve some¬ what their condition, and gain, as it were, breathing space, yet it takes no note of the general causes that determine the conditions of labor, and strives for the elevation of only a small part of the great body by means that cannot help the rest. Aiming at the restriction of competition—the limi¬ tation of the right to labor, its methods are like those of an army, which even in a righteous cause are subversive of liberty and liable to abuse, while its weapon, the strike, is destructive in its nature, both to combatants and non-com¬ batants, being a form of passive war. To apply the prin¬ ciple of trades unions to all industry, as some dream of do¬ ing, would be to enthrall men in a caste system. “Or take even such moderate measures as the limitation of working hours and of the labor of women and children. They are superficial in looking no further than to the eager¬ ness of men and women and little children to work unduly, and in proposing forcibly to restrain overwork while utterly ignoring its cause, the sting of poverty that forces human beings to it. And the methods by which these restraints must be enforced, multiply officials, interfere with personal liberty, tend to corruption and are liable to abuse. “As for thorough going socialism, which is the more to be honored as having the courage of its convictions, it would carry these vices to full expression. Jumping to conclu¬ sions without effort to discover causes, it fails to see that oppression does not come from the nature of capital, but from the wrong that robs labor of capital by divorcing it from land, and that creates a fictitious capital that is really capitalized monopoly. It fails to see that it would be im¬ possible for capital to oppress labor were labor free to the natural material of production; that the wage system in itself springs from mutual convenience, being a form of cooperation in which one of the parties prefers a certain to a contingent result; and that what it calls the ‘ iron law of wages’ is not the natural law of wages, but only the law of wages in that unnatural condition in which men are made helpless by being deprived of the material for life and work. It fails to see that what it mistakes for the evils of competition are really the evils of restricted competition Proposed Kennedies. 50 ? —are due to a one-sided competition to which men are forced when deprived of land; while its methods, the or¬ ganization of men into industrial armies, the direction and control of all production and exchange by governmental or semi-governmental bureaus, would, if carried to full ex¬ pression, mean Egyptian despotism. “ We differ from the Socialists in our diagnosis of the evil, and we differ from them as to remedies. We have no fear of capital, regarding it as the natural handmaiden of labor; we look on interest in itself as natural and just; we would set no limit to accumulation, nor impose on the rich any burden that is not equally placed on the poor; we see no evil in competition, but deem unrestricted competition to be as necessary to the health of the industrial and social organism as the free circulation of the blood is to the health of the bodily organism—to be the agency whereby the fullest cooperation is to be secured. We would simply take for the community what belongs to the community; the value that attaches to land by the growth of the community; leave sacredly to the individual all that belongs to the in¬ dividual; and, treating necessary monopolies as functions of the state, abolish all restrictions and prohibitions save those required for public health, safety, morals and con¬ venience. “ But the fundamental difference—the difference I ask your Holiness specially to note, is in this: Socialism in all its phases looks on the evils of our civilization as springing from the inadequacy or inharmony of natural relations, which must be artificially organized or improved. In its idea there devolves on the state the necessity of intelli¬ gently organizing the industrial relations of men; the con¬ struction, as it were, of a great machine whose complicated parts shall properly work together under the direction of human intelligence. This is the reason why socialism tends toward atheism. Failing to see the order and symmetry of natural law, it fails to recognize God. “On the other hand, we who call ourselves Single Tax Men (a name which expresses merely our practical propo¬ sitions) see in the social and industrial relations of men not a machine which requires construction, but an organ¬ ism which needs only to be suffered to grow. We see in the The Day of Vengeance. 5°3 natural, social and industrial laws such harmony as we see in the adjustments of the human body, and that as far trans¬ cends the power of man’s intelligence to order and 'diredl as it is beyond man’s intelligence to order and diredt the vital movements of his frame. We see in these social and industrial laws so close a relation to the moral law as must spring from the same Authorship, and that proves the moral law to be the sure guide of man, where his intelligence would wander and go astray. Thus, to us, all that is needed to remedy the evils of our time is to do justice and give freedom. This is the reason why our beliefs tend towards, nay, are indeed the only beliefs consistent with a firm and reverent faith in God, and with the recognition of his law as the supreme law which men must follow if they would secure prosperity and avoid destruction. This is the reason why to us political economy only serves to show the depth, of wisdom in the simple truths which common people heard from the lips of Him of whom it was said with wonder, ‘Is not this the Carpenter of Nazareth?’ “And it is because that in what we propose—the secur¬ ing to all men of equal natural opportunities for the exer¬ cise of their powers and the removal of all legal restriction on the legitimate exercise of those powers—we see the con¬ formation of human law to the moral law, that we hold with confidence, not merely that this is the sufficient reme¬ dy for all the evils you so strikingly portray, but that it is che only possible remedy. “ Nor is there any other. The organization of man is such, his relations to the world in which he is placed are such—that is to say, the immutable laws of God are such— that it is beyond the power of human ingenuity to devise any way by which the evils born of the injustice that robs men of their birthright can be removed otherwise than by doing justice, by opening to all the bounty that God has provided for all. “ Since man can only live on land and from land, since land is the reservoir of matter and force from which man’s body itself is taken, and on which he must draw for all that he can produce, does it not irresistibly follow that to give the land in ownership to some men and to deny to others all right to it is to divide mankind into the rich and the Pi'oposed Remedies. 509 poor, the privileged and the helpless? Does it not follow that those who have no rights to the use of land can live only by selling their power to labor to those who own the land? Does it not follow that what the Socialists call ‘the iron law of wages/ what the political economists term ‘the tendency of wages to a minimum/ must take from the land¬ less masses—the mere laborers, who of themselves have no power to use their labor—all the benefits of any possible advance or improvement that does not alter this unjust di¬ vision of land? For, having no power to employ them¬ selves, they must, either as labor-sellers or land-renters, compete with one another for permission to labor. This competition with one another of men, shut out from God’s inexhaustible storehouse, has no limit but starvation, and must ultimately force wages to their lowest point, the point at which life can just be maintained and reproduction carried on. “This is not to say that all wages must fall to this point, but that the wages of that necessarily largest stratum of laborers who have only ordinary knowledge, skill and apti¬ tude must so fall. The wages of special classes, who are fenced off from competition by peculiar knowledge, skill or other causes, may remain above that ordinary level. Thus, where the ability to read and write is rare, its possession enables a man to obtain higher wages than the ordinary laborer. But as the diffusion of education makes the ability to read and write general, this advantage is lost. So, when a vocation requires special training or skill, or is made difficult of ac¬ cess by artificial restrictions, the checking of competition tends to keep wages in it at a higher level. But as the prog¬ ress of invention dispenses with peculiar skill, or artificial restrictions are broken down, these higher wages sink to the ordinary level. And so, it is only so long as they are special that such qualities as industry, prudence and thrift can enable the ordinary laborer to maintain a condition above that which gives a mere living. Where they become general, the law of competition must reduce the earnings or savings of such qualities to the general level—which, land being monopolized and labor helpless, can be only that at which the next lowest point is the cessation of life. “Or, to state the same thing in another way; land be- 5 io The Day of Vengeance. ing necessary to life and labor, its owners will be able, in. return for permission to use it, to obtain from mere labor¬ ers all that labor can produce, save enough to enable such of them to maintain life as are wanted by the land-owners and their dependents. “ Thus, where private property in land has divided so¬ ciety into a land-owning class and a landless class, there is no possible invention or improvement, whether it be in¬ dustrial, social or moral, which, so long as it does not af- fedt the ownership of land, can prevent poverty or relieve the general condition of mere laborers. For whether the effedt of any invention or improvement be to increase what labor can produce or to decrease what is required to sup¬ port the laborer, it can, so soon as it becomes general, result only in increasing the income of the owners of land, with¬ out at all benefiting the mere laborers. In no events can those possessed of the mere ordinary power to labor, a power ut¬ terly useless without the means necessary to labor, keep more of their earnings than enough to enable them to live. “How true this is we may see in the fadts of to-day. In our own time invention and discovery have enormously in¬ creased the produdtive power of labor, and at the same time greatly reduced the cost of many things necessary to the support of the laborer. Have these improvements anyw'here raised the earnings of the mere laborer? Have not their benefits mainly gone to the owners of land—enormously increased land values? “I say mainly, for some part of the benefit has gone to the cost of monstrous standing armies and warlike prepara¬ tions; to the payment of interest on great public debts; and, largely disguised as interest on fictitious capital, to the owners of monopolies other than that of land. But im¬ provements that would do away with these wastes would not benefit labor; they would simply increase the profits of land owners. Were standing armies and all their incidents abolished, were all monopolies other than that of land done away with, were governments to become models of econo¬ my, were the profits of speculators, of middlemen, of all sorts of exchangers saved, were every one to become so stridfcly honest that no policemen, no courts, no prisons, no precautions against dishonesty would be needed—the result Proposed KemecCies. 511 would not differ from that which has followed the increase of productive power. “Nay, would not these very blessings bring starvation to many of those who now manage to live? Is it not true, that if there were proposed to-day, what all Christian men ought to pray for, the complete disbandment of all the ar¬ mies of Europe, the greatest fears would be aroused for the consequences of throwing on the labor market so many un¬ employed laborers? “The explanation of this and of similar paradoxes that in our time perplex on every side may be easily seen. The effect of all inventions and improvements that increase productive power, that save waste and economize effort, is to lessen the labor required for a given result, and thus to save labor, so that we speak of them as labor-saving inven¬ tions or improvements. Now, in a natural state of society where the rights of all to the use of the earth are acknowl¬ edged, labor-saving improvements might go to the very ut¬ most that can be imagined without lessening the demand for men, since in such natural conditions the demand for men lies in their own enjoyment of life and the strong in- stin&s that the Creator has implanted in the human breast. But in that unnatural state of society where the masses of men are disinherited of all but the power to labor when opportunity to labor is given them by others, there the de¬ mand for them becomes simply the demand for their serv¬ ices by those who hold this opportunity, and man himself becomes a commodity. Hence, although the natural ef¬ fect of labor-saving improvement is to increase wages, yet in the unnatural condition which private ownership of the land begets, the effeCt, even of such moral improvements as the disbandment of armies and the saving of the labor that vice entails, is by lessening the commercial demand, to lower wages and reduce mere laborers to starvation or pauperism. If labor-saving inventions and improvements could be carried to the very abolition of the necessity for labor, what would be the result? Would it not be that land owners could then get all the wealth the land is cap¬ able of producing, and would have no need at all for laborers, who must then either starve or live as pensioners on the bounty of the land owners? 512 The Day of Vengeance. ^Thus, so long as private property in land continues— so long as some men are treated as owners of the earth and other men can live on it only by their sufferance—human wisdom can devise no means by which the evils of our pres¬ ent condition may be avoided.’’ This theory of free land (except for taxes thereon) is a broad and a just theory which we would be pleased to see put into operation at once, although we would not profit by it personally. It would doubtless prove a temporary relief to society, although its destruction of land values would create as much or more of a shock than Socialism proposes, unless graduated, as above suggested, by previous announce¬ ment. It would readily combine with the more moderate features of Socialism and would give them greater lasting quality; because, the land, one source of wealth, being in the hands of all the people on such conditions, it never would be necessary for healthy, industrious people to starve: all could at least grow crops sufficient to feed themselves. While this, we believe, would be a wise and just measure, and one in accordance with the divine law, as very ably shown by Mr. George, yet it would not be the panacea for all the ills of humanity. The groaning creation would still groan until righteousness and truth are fully established in the earth and all hearts are brought into accord with it, and selfishness would still find opportunity to take all the cream, and leave only enough skimmed milk for the barest necessities of others. As a proof that a single tax upon land would not alone meet the exigencies of the social and financial trouble, nor avert the coming disaster and social wreck, we cite an in¬ stance of its marked failure. India, for long centuries, has had a single tax, a land-tax only,—the soil being held in common and operated under village control. As a re¬ sult about two-thirds of its population are agriculturalists —a larger proportion than with any other people in the Proposed Remedies . 513 world. Only of late years has private ownership of land been introduced there by the English, and thus far over a very limited area only. The people of India may be said to be contented and comfortable; but it certainly is not be¬ cause they are rich and supplied with luxuries and conven¬ iences. Modern machinery is speedily revolutionizing their affairs and cutting down their already meagre earnings and compelling them to live on still less or else starve. We have already quoted good authority showing that the poor masses can but seldom afford to eat the plainest food to satisfaction.—See page 381. When we grant that the single tax or free land proposi¬ tion would prove to be only one factor of a temporary relief, it is all that we can grant; for if selfishness be thwarted in one direction it will only break out in another: nothing- will effectually avail but “new hearts” and “right spirits;” and these neither the Single Tax theory nor any other human theory can produce. Suppose, for instance, that the people had the land; it would be an easy matter for a combination of capital to refuse to purchase the farm products except at their own figures,—barely enough to permit the producers to live— and on the other hand to control and fix high prices upon all the agriculturalist needs to purchase,—from the farm fertilizer and farm implements to his family clothing and home furnishments. This very condition is surely approaching—the Law of Supply and Demand operates too slowly to satisfy the greed for wealth to-day. Labor cannot stop the operation of this law, and is crowded both by machinery and growing pop¬ ulation; but Capital can counteract it at least partially by forming Trusts, Combines, Syndicates, etc., for nearly or quite controlling supplies and prices. The Coal Combine is an illustration. 33 d The Day of Ve?igeance. 5M Of what avail, we ask, would Single Tax be against this spirit of selfishness? It would be powerless! But suppose that the free land and single tax propo¬ sition were to go into operation to-morrow; suppose that tilled lands were exempted from all taxes; that each farm were provided with a house, horse, cow, plow and other necessities; suppose this meant the doubling of the present area of cultivation and doubling of present crops. It would insure plenty of corn and wheat and vegetables for the healthy and thrifty to eat; but the great overplus would bring so small a price that it would not pay to send it to market, except under favorable conditions. It was so last year, even under present conditions: thousands of bushels of potatoes and cabbage were left to rot, because it would not pay to handle them. The first year might draw from the cities to the aforesaid farms thousands of strong and willing men anxious to serve themselves: this would free the city labor market and temporarily raise the wages of those who would remain in the cities, but it would last only one year. The farmers, finding that they could not make clothing and household necessities out of corn and potatoes, either diredtly or by exchange, would quit farming and go back to the cities and compete vigorously for whatever they could get that would provide more for them than mere sustenance;—for whatever would grant them a share of life’s comforts and luxuries. No; free land is good as a preventive of starvation, and it is a proper condition in view of the fa6t that our bounti¬ ful Creator gave the land to Adam and his family as a com¬ mon inheritance; and it would greatly help our present difficulties, if the whole world had a Jubilee of restitution of the land and remission of debts every fifty years, as the Jews had. But such things would be merely palliatives now, as they were with the Jews, and as they still are in India, Proposed Remedies. 5115 The only real cure is the great antitypical Jubilee which will be established by earth’s coming King—Immanuel. OTHER HOPES AND FEARS. We have hastily scanned the principal theories advanced for the betterment of present conditions, but it is manifest that none of them are adequate to the necessities of the case. Besides these there are any number of people who incess¬ antly preach and pray about what they see wrong, and who want somebody to stop the course of the world, but who nei¬ ther see nor suggestanything even simulating practicability. But in this connection we should not forget to mention some honest but thoroughly impractical souls who vainly imagine that the churches, if awakened to the situation, could avert the impending social calamity, revolutionize society and reestablish it upon a new and better basis. They say, If only the churches could be awakened, they could conquer the world for Christ and could themselves establish on earth a Kingdom of God upon a basis of love and loyalty to God and equal love for fellow men. Some of them even claim that this, the Christ-spirit in the church¬ es, would be the second coming of Christ. How hopelessly impracticable this theory is, need scarcely be pointed out. What they consider its strength is really its weakness—numbers. They look at the figures 300,- 000,000 Christians and say, What a pow*er! We look at the same figures and say, What a weakness ! If this vast number were saints , moved and controlled by love, there would indeed be force behind the argument, and it would seem thoroughly practical to say that if these were awakened to the true situation they could and would re¬ volutionize society at once. But alas! ‘ tares” and “chaff ” predominate, and the “wheat ” class is small. As the great Shepherd declared, his is but a “little flock/’ like their The Day of Vengeance. 516 Master of f ‘no reputation 5 ’ or influence, and amongst them are “ not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.” (1 Cor. 1:26.) “ Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he hath prom¬ ised to them that love him? ”—James 2: 5. No, no ! The spirit of Christ in his little flock is not sufficient to give them the Kingdom! The Church has never been without those who had this spirit. As our Lord declared before he left us, that he would be with us to the end of the age, so it has been fulfilled. But he also prom¬ ised that as he went away (personally) in the end of the Jewish age, so he would come again (personally) in the end of this age. He assured us that during his absence all who would be faithful to him would ‘ ‘ suffer persecution ”—that his Kingdom joint-heirs would “suffer violence” until he should come again and receive them unto himself. Then he would reward their faithfulness and sufferings with glory, honor and immortality, and a share in his throne and its power to bless the world with righteous government and knowledge ofthe truth, and finally to destroy the wilful workers of iniquity from among the workers of righteous¬ ness. For this not only the groaning creation, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the spirit (Rom 8:23) must groan and wait—for the Father’s time and the Father’s manner of bestowal. He has shown clearly that the time for these blessings is now at hand, and that they will be in¬ troduced by scourging the world with an awful time of trouble, which the saints, the little flock, are to escape by being changed and glorified in the Kingdom. But lest any should ever say that wealth and educational advantages would have permitted them to conquer the world, God has given the nominal church—“ Christendom”—these very advantages. Yet these opportunities seem to operate proposed Remedies. 5i7 reversely, to cultivate pride, superciliousness, and infidelity called “ higher criticism;”—and will eventuate in the wreck of society. “When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find [the] faith on the earth?” THE ONLY HOPE—“THAT BLESSED HOPE.” “ Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” “Which hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast.” “ Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”—Titus 2:13; Heb. 6:19; 1 Pet. 1:13. In considering this vexed question of Supply and De¬ mand which is doing so much to divide humanity into two classes, the rich and the poor, we have as far as possible avoided harsh criticism of either side; firmly believing, as we have endeavored to show, that present conditions are the results of the constitutional law of selfishness (the re¬ sult of the Adamic fall) which dominates the vast majority of the human family, rich and poor alike. These deep- seated laws of constitutional selfishness are detested by a small number (chiefly the poor) who, having found Christ and come heartily under his spirit and law of love, would gladly aban¬ don all selfishness, but cannot. These laws often crowd small merchants and contractors as well as employees. Yet so certain is their operation that, if all the rich were dead to¬ day, and their wealth distributed pro rata, those laws would within a few years reproduce the very conditions of to-day. Indeed, many of the millionaires of to-day were poor boys. And any system of laws that the majority of men might enaCt, which would deprive men of the opportunities for exercising their acquisitive and selfish propensities, would sap the life of progress and rapidly turn civilization back toward improvidence, indolence and barbarism. The only hope for the world is in the Kingdom of our The Day of Vengeance. Lord Jesus Christ—the Millennial Kingdom. It is God’s long promised remedy, delayed until its due time, and now, thank God, nigh, even at the door. Once more man’s extremity will be God’s opportunity,—“The desire of all nations shall come,” at a juncture when human ingenuity and skill will have exhausted themselves in seeking relief without avail. Indeed, it would seem to be the divine method, to teach great lessons in schools of experience. Thus the Jews diredtly (and we and all men indiredtly) were taught by their Law Covenant the great lesson that by the deeds of the Law no (fallen) flesh could be justified before God. Thus did the Lord point his pupils to the better New Covenant of Grace through Christ. The time of trouble, the “day of vengeance,” with which this age will close and the Millennial age will open, will not only be a just recompense for misused privileges, but it will tend to humble the arrogance of men and to make them “ poor in spirit,” and ready for the great blessings God is ready to pour upon ail flesh. (Joel 2 :28.) Thus he wounds to heal. But some one unfamiliar with the divine program may perhaps inquire, How can the Kingdom of God be estab¬ lished if all these human methods fail? What different scheme does it propose? If its scheme is declared in the Word of God, why cannot men put it into operation at once and thus avoid the trouble? We answer, God’s Kingdom will not be established by a vote of the people, nor by the vote of the aristocracy and rulers. In due time He “whose right it is,” he who bought it with his own precious blood, will ‘‘ take the Kingdom.” He will “take unto himself his great power and reign.” Force will be used, “He shall rule them [the nations] with a rod of iron;—as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers.” (Rev. 2: 27.) He will “gather Proposed Remedies. 5*9 the nations and assemble the kingdoms and pour upon them his fierce anger, and the whole earth shall be devoured with the fire of his jealousy: and then [after they are humbled and ready to hear and heed his counsel] he will turn unto them a pure language that they may all call upon the Lord to serve him with one consent.—Zeph. 3:8, 9. Not only will the Kingdom be established with force, ^nd be a power that men cannot resist, but it will so con¬ tinue throughout the entire Millennial age; for the entire reign is for the specific purpose of vanquishing the enemies of righteousness. “ He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.” ‘‘His enemies shall lick the dust.” “ The soul that will not hear [obey] that Prophet [the glorious Christ—antitype of Moses] shall be destroyed from among the people,” in the Second Death. Satan will be bound—his every deceptive and mislead¬ ing influence will be restrained,—so that evil shall no longer appear to men to be good, nor good appear undesirable, evil;—truth shall no longer appear to men untrue nor false¬ hoods be caused to appear true.—Rev. 20:2. But as heretofore shown, the reign will not be one of force only; side by side with the force will be the olive branch of mercy and peace for all the inhabitants of the world, who, when the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth, will learn righteousness. (Isa. 26:9.) The sin- blinded eyes shall be opened; and the world will see right and wrong, justice and injustice, in a light quite different from now—in “seven-fold” light. (Isa. 30:26; 29:18-20.") The outward temptations of the present will largely be done away, evils will neither be licensed nor permitted: but a penalty sure and swift will fall upon transgressors, meeted out with unerring justice by the glorified and competent judges of that time who will also have compassion upon the weak.—1 Cor. 6:2; Psa. 96:13; Adts 17:31. "S' 20 The Day of Vengeance. These judges shall not judge by the hearing of the ear nor by the sight of the eye, but shall judge righteous judg¬ ment. (Isa. 11:3.) No mistakes will be made; no evil deed shall fail of its just recompense : even attempts to com¬ mit crimes must speedily cease under such conditions. Every knee shall bow [to the power then in control] and every tongue shall confess [to the justice of the arrange¬ ment]. (Phil. 2:10, 11.) Then, gradually probably with many, the new order of things will begin to appeal to the hearts of some, and what at first was obedience by force will become obedience from love , and appreciation of righteousness. And eventually all others—all who obey merely because compelled by force—will be cut off in the Second Death.—Rev. 20:7-9; A6ts 3:23. The rule and law of Love will thus be enforced; not by consent of the majority, but in opposition to it. It will be turning civilization back from its republican ideas and placing mankind temporarily under an autocratic rule—for a thousand years. Such autocratic power would be terrible in the hands of either a vicious or an incompetent ruler; but God relieves us of all fear when he informs us that the Dictator of that age will be the Prince of Peace, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has the welfare of man so at heart that he laid down his life as our ransom pince in order that he might have the authority to lift out of our sin-defilement and restore to perfection and divine favor all who will ac¬ cept his grace by obedience to the New Covenant. Early in the Millennium it will become apparent to all that this course which God has outlined is the only one adapted to the exigencies of the case of the sin-sick, selfish world. Indeed, some already see that the world’s great need is a strong and righteous government: they begin to see, more and more, that the only persons who can safely be entrusted with absolute liberty are those who have been soundly con-- Proposed Remedies. 521 verted;—who have renewed wills, renewed hearts, the spirit of Christ. THE PROPER ATTITUDE FOR GOD’S PEOPLE. But some may inquire, What must we who see these things in their true light do now? Shall we if we own vacant land give it away or abandon it? No; that would serve no good purpose unless you gave it to some poor neighbor actually needing it: and then, should he make a failure of it’s use, he doubtless W'ould censure you as the au¬ thor of his misfortunes. If we are farmers or merchants or manufacturers, shall we attempt to do business on the Millennium basis ? No; for, as already shown, to do so would bring upon you financial disaster, injurious to your creditors and to those dependent on you, as well as upon your employees. We suggest that all that can now be done is to let our moderation be known unto all men: avoid grinding any¬ body; pay a reasonable wage or a share of the profits or else do not hire; avoid dishonesty of every form; 4 ‘pro¬ vide things honest in the sight of all men; ” set an exam¬ ple of “Godliness with contentment,” and always by word as well as by example discourage not only violence, but even discontent; and seek to lead the weary and heavy laden to Christ and the word of God’s grace—through faith and full consecration. And should you, by God’s grace, be the steward of more or less wealth, do not worship it, nor seek to see how much you can accumulate for your heirs to wrangle over and misuse; but use it, according to your covenant, for God’s service and under his direction; re¬ membering that it is not yours to keep, nor yours to use for yourself, but God’s, entrusted to your care, to be used in joyful service, to the glory of our King. As a suggestion for the practical application of these re*> 522 The Day of Vengeance. marks to life’s affairs we give, following, a letter sent us by a reader of our semi-monthly journal, Zion’s Watch Tower, and our reply to it as published therein. It may be helpful to others. IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF THE WORLD. Pennsylvania. Dear Brother :—Last Sunday at our meeting we had a lesson from Romans 12:1, and among many thoughts brought out from such a prolific subjedt were some on the use we make of our consecrated time. I am engaged in the grocery business; but the condition of trade in gen¬ eral demands almost “eternal vigilance” at the present time. The question which has presented itself to me many times is, Should I, as one of the consecrated, put forth such ef¬ forts to make and maintain custom as it is now necessary to do? I issue weekly price-lists, many times offering goods at less than cost for baits, and I give away many “ gifts ' with more profitable goods; not of preference to that sort of dealing, but because all my competitors are doing the same thing, and, to maintain my trade and living (as I am not wealthy), I am compelled to follow suit. Another objectionable feature about that kind of method is that it squeezes my weaker brother in the same line of business. I am acquainted with many of them; some are widows trying to make an honest living by selling goods: but I am compelled to throw all my better feelings to the wind and “wade in,” no matter whom it injures. This is a sad confession for one who is bidding for the position of assisting our Lord in the lifting of mankind out of the chasm of selfishness from which they must be saved in the age which we believe to be so close at hand. I am not trying to get you to justify my adtions in this matter, but desire your opinion as to the advisable course of God’s pro¬ fessed children engaged in business during the present time, when it is a case of the big fish eating the smaller ones. Yours in Christ, - In reply:—The conditions you name are common to nearly every form of business, and prevail throughout the Proposed Remedies . 5 2 3 civilized world increasingly. It is a part of the general “trouble” of our times. The increase of machine capac¬ ity and the increase of the human family both contribute to reduce wages and make steady employment more pre¬ carious. More men seek do engage in business; and com¬ petition and small profits, while beneficial to the poor, are commercially killing the small store and high prices. In consequence, small stores and small fadtories are giving way to larger ones which, by reason of better and more eco¬ nomical arrangements, permit better service and lower prices. Larger stocks of fresher goods at lower prices and with better service are to the general advantage of the public as compared with the old-time small shops with stale goods, high prices and careless service ; even though temporarily some poor widows or worthy ones may suffer through men¬ tal, physical or financial inability to keep up with the new order of things And even these, if they can take a broad, benevolent view of the situation, may rejoice in the public welfare, even though it enforces an unfavorable change in their OAvn affairs. They may rejoice with those that are benefited and wait patiently for the coming Kingdom which will make God’s blessings more common to all than at pres¬ ent. But only those who have the “new nature” and its love can be expedted to view things thus unselfishly. The present commercial competition is not, therefore, an un¬ mixed evil. It is one of the great lessons being given to the world as a preparatory study before entering the great Millennial age, when the business of the world will be largely, if not wholly, on a socialistic footing—not for the wealth or advantage of the individual, but for the general welfare. Meantime, however, the selfish competitive strain grows more galling continually to those possessed of noble, gen¬ erous impulses, whether Christians or not. We are glad to 5 2 4 The Day of Vengeance. note your own appreciation of the subjeCt and your dis¬ satisfaction with present conditions. Our advice is that you keep a sharp lookout, and, if you see some other branch of business less beset with compe¬ tition and therefore more favorable, make a change. If not, or until you find a more favorable business, or more favor¬ able conditions, we advise that you continue where you are and modify your course to some extent; i. e., divide mat¬ ters as evenly as you can between the three conflicting in¬ terests,—your own, your competitors’ and your patrons’ or neighbors’ interests. If your business is meeting expenses and affording a reasonable profit, endeavor to keep it there, but do not push it in the endeavor to become “ rich;” for “they that will [to] be rich fall into temptation and a snare.” (i Tim. 6:9.) We should avoid all dishonorable compe¬ tition or meanness toward competitors, and any misrepre¬ sentation of goods to customers. Justice and honesty must be carefully guarded at any cost: then add all the “modera¬ tion” in favor of your competitor that love may suggest and that circumstances permit. We are not forgetting the injunction, “ Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil” (Exod. 23 :2), nor counsel¬ ing the slightest compromise with injustice. Your question, we take it, is not whether you may do injustice, but whether love will permit you to do all that justice would not objeCt to and that custom sanctions. The worldly heart does not scruple about such “trifles:” it is your “new nature,” whose law is love, that would prefer to see your competitor prosper, and longs to do good unto all men as it has oppor¬ tunity—especially to the household of faith. Cultivate this “new nature” by obeying its law of love in every way pos¬ sible. “If it be possible, so much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men,”—dealing generously and accord¬ ing to love. He who is imbued with the spirit of love Proposed Pemedies. 5 2 5 thinketh no evil toward his competitor, and seeketh not his own welfare merely, and would not rejoice in a com¬ petitor s failure. The difficulty is that the whole world is running on the depraved basis of selfishness, which is quite incongruous to love. With some the plane is higher, and with some lower: some limit their selfishness to the line of justice , others de¬ scend in selfishness to injustice and dishonesty, and the tendency is always downward. The “ New Creature ” in Christ must never go below justice and honesty, and must seek as much as possible to rise above this highest worldly standard, toward perfect love. It is the fault of the present competitive system that the interests of the buyer and those of the seller are ever in conflict. No power can correct, control and alter all this except the one power that God has promised,—the Millennial Kingdom, which shall enforce the rule of love and liberate from the propensities and bonds of selfishness all who, when they see and know the better way, will accept the help then to be provided. * * * We have seen as inevitable under the present social law either the crush of the masses of humanity into the mire, as the slaves of wealth and intellect, or the crash of the present social order under the reign of anarchy, and the Scriptural declaration that it will be the latter; and that this will bring an awful retribution upon all men, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, and by actual demonstration teach men the folly of selfishness, and help them in future to ap¬ preciate the wisdom of God’s law of love; and that the “great tribulation” will teach all a fearful, but eventually a most profitable lesson. We are therefore prepared to examine in our next chapter what the Scriptures have to tell us respect¬ ing the fall of “Babylon ”—“Christendom”—in the great struggle in which this age shall end. 526 The Day of Vengeance. As we have viewed the failure of Christendom to adopt the spirit of Christ's teaching, and seen how the knowledge and liberty gained from his teachings were blended with the spirit of evil, selfishness, and as from present fore¬ shadowings we mark the sure approach of the dread calam¬ ity—anarchy and every evil work—we see the justice of its permission, and read therein the divine law of retribution. And though we lament the evils which incur the retribu¬ tion, yet realizing its necessity and justice, and having learned also the ends of mercy to be attained eventually by this very means, our hearts exclaim, “Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways, thou king of nations.”—Rev. 15 : 3.—Margin. “ Wait for the morning—it will come indeed, As surely as the night has given need; The yearning eyes at last will strain their sight. No more unanswered by the morning light: No longer will they vainly strive through tears To pierce the darkness of thy doubts and fears. But, bathed in balmy dews and rays of dawn, Will smile with rapture o’er the darkness gone. •' Wait for the morning, O thou smitten child, Scorned, scourged, persecuted and reviled, Athirst and famishing, none pitying thee, Crowned with the twisted thorns of agony— No faintest gleam of sunlight through the dense Infinity of gloom to lead thee thence— Wait thou for morning—it will come indeed, As surely as the night hath given need.” —James Whitcomb Riley. STUDY XI. THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT DAY. The Approaching Trouble Variously*Symbolized by the Prophets.— Typi« fied in Israel's Fall, A. D. 70, and in the French Revolution.—Its Gen¬ eral Character and Extent.—The Lord’s Great army.—“ The Worst of the Heathen .”—“ The Time of Jacob’s Trouble.”— His Deliverance.— The Discomfiture of Gog and Magog. “ For lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name [“Christendom”—“Babylon”]; ... I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . The Lord will call aloud from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall cry out very loudly over his [nominal] habitation [Christendom]; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabit¬ ants of the earth. “ A tumultuous noise shall come even to the ends of the earth ; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations , he holdeth judgment over allflesh : he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. “ Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from na- tion to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the farthest ends of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth : they shall not be lamented, neither gathered nor buried: they shall be dung upon the ground.”—Jer. 25 : 26-29-38. C O complex and peculiar will be the conflidt of this Day ^ of Vengeance that no one symbol could describe it. In the Scriptures, accordingly, many forceful symbols are used, such as battle, earthquake, fire, storm, tempest and flood. 527 5 2 8 The Day of Vengeance. It is the il Battle of that Great Day of God Almighty,'* when he shall gather the nations and assemble the king¬ doms to pour upon them his indignation, even all his fierce anger; for the Lord of hosts himself mustereth the hosts of the battle.—Rev. 16: 14; Zeph. 3:8; Isa. 13:4. It is “ a Great Earthquake such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great /' which shall “shake, not the earth only, but also heaven .’* —Rev. 16:18; Heb. 12:26. It is “ The Fire of fehovah's fealousy , which shall devour all the earth.” Both the present heavens (the ecclesiastical powers of Christendom) and the earth (the social organi¬ zation under both church and state influence) are reserved unto fire against this day of judgment. “ The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements [of present ecclesiasticism] shall melt with fervent heat; the earth [society] also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. . . . The heavens, being on fire, shall be dis¬ solved.” All the proud and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and this fire shall burn them up. It shall leave them neither root nor branch.—Zeph. 3:8; 2 Pet. 3: 10, 12; Mai. 4:1. His way is in the Whirlwind and in the Storm. 7 7 “Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?”—Nahum 1:3, 6, 7. “ Behold, it cometh mighty and strong from the Lord, as a Tempest of Hail and a Destroying Storm , as a Flood of Mighty Waters overflowing, and shall cast down to the earth with power the crown of pride,” “ He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers. . . . The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth [symbols of the entire present order of things] is burned at his presence; yea, the world and all that dwell therein. . . . With an overrunning flood will he make an utter end The Battle of the Great Day . 529 of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.*' —Isa. 28:2; Nahum 1:4, 5, 8. That these are not to be literal floods and fires, destruc¬ tive of our planet Earth, and its population, is evident from the statement (symbolic) that the present order of things, when destroyed, will be followed by a new order— “ a new heavens [ecclesiasticism, God’s glorified Church] and a new earth [human society reorganized under God’s Kingdom on a basis of love instead of selfishness]. ’ ’ Refer¬ ring to that new order of things after the fire of God’s retributive vengeance shall have burned up present evils, God, through the Prophet, says:—“ Then will I turn to the people a pure language [ the truth ], that they 7 nay all call upon the name of the Lordto serve him with one consent.” —Zeph. 3 : 9. TWO REMARKABLE TYPES OF THE IMPENDING CATASTROPHE. But let no one conclude because these various descrip¬ tions are not literal, but symbolic, that they may therefore represent merely a battle of words, a quaking of fear, or a trivial storm of human passion. For though controversy, and words of passion and arguments will be and are among the weapons used in this battle, especially in the beginning of it, yet it will not end with these. Every prophetic de¬ tail indicates that before it ends it will be a most sanguin¬ ary conflidl, a fierce and terrible storm. We have already observed* the typical character of the great tribulation which came upon fleshly Israel in the end of the Jewish age; and now, having come to the parallel period—the harvest of the Gospel age, we see all the indications of a similar, though much greater trouble, upon “Christendom,” its antitype. While the judgments visited upon Judea and Jerusalem were terrible in the extreme, they were only on * Chap. 3, and Vol. II., Chap. 7, 34 D 530 The Day of Vengeance. a small scale as compared with the great tribulation, now fast approaching, upon Christendom, and involving the whole world. The Roman army and regular warfare caused but a small portion of the trouble in the end of the Jewish age, noted as the most terrible on the pages of history, and approached only by the French Revolution. It sprang mainly from national disintegration, the overthrow of law and order— anarchy. Selfishness apparently took complete control and arrayed every man against his neighbor—just as is predidted of the coming trouble upon Christendom (in the midst of which the great spiritual temple, God’s eledt Church, will be completed and glorified). “Before those days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast [see margin) ; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in, because of the afflidtion: for I set all men every one against his neighbor.”—Zech. 8 : 9-11. That times have not so changed as to make such a calam¬ ity either impossible or improbable in our day is too mani¬ fest to require proof. But if any should be inclined to doubt it, let them call to mind the great Revolution that only a century ago brought France to the verge of social ruin and threatened the peace of the world. Some have the erroneous idea that the world has out¬ grown the barbarities of earlier days, and they rest in fan¬ cied security and assume that such calamities as have oc¬ curred in the past could not befall the world again ; but the fadt is that our nineteenth century refinement is a very thin veneer, easily peeled off: sound judgment and an acquaint¬ ance with the fadts of even recent history and with the present feverish pulse of humanity are sufficient to guaran¬ tee the possibility of a duplication of the past, even with¬ out the sure word of prophecy, which foretells a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation. The Battle of the Great Day. 53* In the symbolic language of Revelation, the French Re¬ volution was indeed a “ great earthquake ”—a social shock so great that all “ Christendom’’ trembled until it was over; and that terrible and sudden outburst of a single nation’s wrath, only a century ago, may give some idea of the fury of the coming storm, when the wrath of all the angry nations will burst the bands of law and order and cause a reign of universal anarchy. It should be remem¬ bered, too, that that calamity occurred in what was then the very heart of Christendom, in the midst of what was regarded as one of the most thoroughly Christian nations jn the world, the nation which for a thousand years had been the chief support of Papacy. A nation intoxicated with Babylon’s wine of false dodtrines in church and state, and long bound by priestcraft and superstition, there vom¬ ited forth its pollution and spent the force of its maddened rage. In fadt, the French Revolution seems referred to by our Lord in his Revelation to John on Patmos as a prelude to, and an illustration of, the great crisis now approaching. It should be observed also that the same causes which operated to bring about that great calamity, are now operat¬ ing to produce a similar, but far more extensive revolution, a revolution which will be world-wide. The causes of that terrible convulsion have been briefly summed up by the historian as follows:*— “The immediate and most effedtive cause of the French Revolution must be referred to the distresses of the people and the embarrassments of the government occasioned by the enormous expenses of the war in which France sup¬ ported the independence of the American colonies. The profligacy of the court, the dissensions of the clergy, the gradual progress of general intelligence, the dissemination of revolutionary principles occasioned by the American contest, and the long established oppressions to which the * Campaigns of Napoleon, p. 12. S3 2 The Day of Vengearice. masses of the people were subjected, all contributed to the same effect. . . . Exhausted by oppression, irritated by the continual presence of insulting tyranny, excited to re¬ sentment of thtir wrongs, and instructed in the knowledge of their rights, th people of France awakened to one univer¬ sal spirit of complaint and resentment. The cry of Liberty ! resounded from the capital to the frontiers, and was rever¬ berated from the Alps to the Pyrenees, the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Like all sudden and violent alterations in corrupt states, the explosion was accompanied z>y evils and atrocities, before which the crimes and the miseries of the ancient despotism faded into insignificance. ’ 9 Says another historian :*— “First among the causes of the revolution in France was the hostility felt toward the privileged classes—the king, the nobles and the clergy—on account of the disabilities and burdens which law and custom imposed on the classes beneath them. “ The Land .—Nearly two-ihirds of the land in France was in the hands of the nobles and of the clergy. .A great part of it was illy cultivated by its indolent owners. The nobles preferred the gayeties of Paris to a residence on their estates. There were many small land-owners, but they had individually too little land to iurnish them with subsistence. The treatment of the peasant was often such that when he looked upon the towers of his lord's castle, the dearest wish of his heart was to burn it down with all its registers of debts [mortgages]. The clergy held an immense amount of land, seigniorial control over thousands of peasants, and a vast income from tithes and other sources. In some provinces there was a better state of things than in others; but in general, the rich had the enjoyments, the poor car¬ ried the burdens. “ Monopolies .—Manufactures and trades, although en¬ couraged, were fettered by oppressive monopolies and a strict organization of guilds. “ Co 7 'rupt government .—The administration of govern¬ ment was both arbitrary and corrupt. “Loss of respedl for royalty .— Respect for the throne was lost. * Universal History [by Prof. Pisker, of Yale College), p. 497. The Battle of the Great Day. 533