THESE days are filled with intensity. Mighty events are shaping themselves. Men everywhere are wondering with perplexed forebodings what will be the outcome of it all.
Many good and influential men and women have been working to secure peace among the nations; but in spite of their efforts the nations are driving madly on into greater and still greater war preparations. Over half a billion dollars more a year is being spent on war now than was being spent ten years ago.
Official, and particularly municipal, corruption is increasing so rapidly that it is alarming to all thoughtful people.
The strife between the great combines of capital and the combines of labor is becoming more and more bitter and intense.
Great earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, and other convulsions and phenomena in nature are causing men to tremble and fear.
These things and many others that might be mentioned are all the subject of prophecy and will be carefully considered in these columns during the next six months. This journal has always made a special study of the prophecies, but we have come into the unfolding of events that makes the present particularly interesting and important. The one great event that is even now at the very doors is shown to be a certainty by the fulfilling of prophecy right in these very days. It is the one event that should fill every soul with joy and gladness and remove the gloom that is cast by the outlook that is before the world.
The foregoing indicates just one of the leading features of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES for the next six months. Many other important themes will be presented.
Every believer in these mighty truths should work with us now as never in the past to place those soul-stirring and joyous facts of Bible truth before the world.
Many subscriptions will expire during the next few weeks. No one should allow himself to miss a single number. Our missionary societies, and especially our young people, should be more than ever vigilant and active in these thrilling days.
The Washington Foreign Mission Seminary.
THERE has come to our desk a copy of the “announcement” for 1907-1908 of the “Washington [D. C.] Foreign Mission Seminary.” This school opened its doors on September 25, and has set before it the task of the selection and special training of missionaries to answer the calls that come with ever-increasing force from the wide-open fields. It is one of the most important moves that has been inaugurated in modern times for the great work of evangelizing the world in this generation.
The announcement sets forth the object and plan of the school, outlines the course of study and training needed to enter the mission fields, and has an application-blank in the back for the applicant to fill out.
Interested persons should address the president of the faculty, Homer R. Salisbury, Takoma Park, Washington, D. C.
Volcanic Eruptions Along the Alaskan Coast.
THE following is a despatch from Seattle, Wash., under date of September 24:
"Captain A. J. Henderson, of the revenue cutter Thetis, on arrival here to-day from an Arctic expedition, confirms with official reports accounts of a violent volcanic eruption of Mount Makushin on September 1st and the existence of a new peak rising from the sea, forming a part of the Bogoslov formation. The latest addition is the fourth, and with its appearance the bottom of the ocean has raised until channels formerly sufficiently large for the passage of ships are now dry land.
"The Makushin volcano was threatening for six hours, and ashes heavily impregnated with sulphur fell to a depth of three-eighths of an inch. The mountain is twenty-five miles from Unalaska. Reports made to Captain Henderson in the north state that three other volcanic disturbances of similar character have occurred along the Alaskan coast during the present summer."
The daily papers present such items merely as matters of news. But we present them so that those who are with us in the study of the prophecies may see how the evidence is accumulating that shows that this old earth will become more and more unsteady till the end of time is reached.
France is suffering from heavy floods. Much of the territory in the vicinity of the rivers, which are said to be overflowing in all sections, is under water, and the grape crop in the lowlands is a total loss.
There have been flurries of snow in the vicinity of Fort Wayne, Ind., as early as September 11 this year.
The Moroccans have surrendered to the French and the insurrection is at an end.
