p. 277 | WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE WORLD?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 29, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 18

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE WORLD?

Is it growing old, or getting the chills, or drying up for kindling in the final conflagration? That something is going wrong, is not a new or unusual thing; but matters are growing worse. This world, this earth of ours, is either groaning under the burden of the creature's sin, or it is suffering from his folly, or getting ready for better or worse. Conjecture is useless, but something is the matter. Look at the record of famine, pestilence, earthquakes, drouth, and deluge, besides revolutions and wars without number.

There was a terrible famine in China. Perhaps it is not entirely over yet. People eat the bodies of the dead, eat their children and a number equaling the entire population of the United States is said to have perished. That famine might have been averted, if a stupid superstition had not prevented the building of railroads in China.

Then we hear the same calamitous cry from India. A long drouth, a fearful famine, followed by pestilence. Next in Russia, parts of Turkey, then in Germany (Silesia), Ireland, and also in Brazil, all within a year or two.

In the latter country, which ought to interest us very much, the famine has been long continued. For three years, it is stated, has drouth stricken the earth with barrenness. In the province of Ceara alone, we are told, has it swept away 200,000 of its inhabitants, out of a total of 900,000. Three hundred thousand more followed, as victims of pestilence. Whole districts have become depopulated, fleeing from famine to be overtaken by death in fatigue or pestilence. The government is doing all it can to afford relief, by furnishing employment to the starving thousands; but its resources are limited.

The question recurs, What's the matter with the world? There seems to be an increasing disposition on its part to refuse life and sustenance to the human family. Is there any important physical change in progress to which these catastrophes can be charged? or is the sun getting the chills? Does diminished heat produce diminished evaporation and rain, and are drouths, famine and pestilence the first symptoms of the approaching dissolution of this world of ours? Who can tell? We cannot.—Evangelical Messenger.