p. 271 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 17. (4/27/1915)

Earlier text: Christ, the Papacy, and the Sabbath

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A MAN IN IOWA DID IT

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES MAGAZINE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

Request for Copies of Signs of the End

New York City, N. Y., February 25, 1915.

Pacific Press Pub. Assn., Mountain View, Cal.

Gentlemen:

Inclosed find postage stamps to the amount of six cents, for which please send me six copies of your tract No. 194, Bible Students' Library, entitled "Signs of the End." A copy was given me, and after reading it I thought I would like to have some to give to friends.

Yours truly.

(Signed)

The Creator and Evolution

Prof. Edgar Lucien Larkin, of Mount Lowe Observatory, says, “The only possible way to make a perpetual motion machine is to arrange it so that it will start itself.” That is the one trouble with most of the theories of evolutionists. They can build up a great story when they have material already at hand to begin with; but what about the Creator that is required to produce the original material? We cannot get away from the fact that a Creator is essential to everything we see in the universe, and the Bible alone consistently and satisfactorily presents Him. The knowledge that comes from Him through the study of His word would save us from many foolish and useless speculations—such, for instance, as perpetual motion, evolution, and the like.

A brief dispatch states that Elder Frank F. Oster, one of our missionaries in Persia, had a perilous flight on horseback by night before the infuriated Kurds. Elder Oster is well known to our Pacific coast people. His wife, who is the adopted daughter of Elder W. B. White, in charge of our work in Africa, together with their four weeks’ old baby, was with Brother Oster in the flight.

According to figures prepared by socialist leaders, 5,950,000 men have been killed during the first eight months of the European war, and the nations engaged in the strife have expended $8,400,000,000. This expenditure allows nothing for the damage to property, which would total many billions more.

A Menace to the Future

A REPORT has been passed out to the effect that Ex-president Roosevelt has written a letter to a secretary of one of the women's peace societies denouncing those who are working for the abolition of war. It is affirmed that Mr. Roosevelt declares “pacifists” in general constitute a “menace to the future welfare of the United States.”

However that matter may be, we will leave it to Mr. Roosevelt and the ladies to “fight it out.” But this we do know,—that one of the greatest menaces to the individual in this time is the deception that will be created through the false cry of peace and the false impressions concerning peace.

An assemblage of women is just meeting at The Hague, and they confidently announce that they are going to end all wars. Many of these women are professing Christians, and claim to believe the Bible. But if they would study their Bibles more closely, they would see that peace can never come to this wicked world.

One of our greatest dangers is in being swept off our feet through popular teaching, carried along with intense enthusiasm. Men and women are inclined to follow the prevailing styles of thought, without doing any personal thinking themselves, and it is a very easy matter in this way to be deceived.

All true Christians believe in peace, and will work for it with all their powers. But at the same time, they will ever know that this world will see no permanent peace. Says the Master, “Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars.”

Photograph by Buck, from Underwood and Underwood
DISAPPEARING GUN ON THE PANAMA CANAL — Photograph by Buck, from Underwood and Underwood DISAPPEARING GUN ON THE PANAMA CANAL

French Diplomat and Soldier in Rome

GABRIEL HANOTAUX, former minister of foreign affairs of France and a member of the French Academy, has just visited Rome, where he has had an audience with Pope Benedict and the papal secretary of state, Gaspari. About the same time that Mr. Hanotaux was in Rome, General Pau, one of France's greatest military heroes, was in Rome on a visit, which the dispatch says was “both mysterious and significant.”

The dispatch concerning Mr. Hanotaux's visit says:

“A feeling exists in Rome that negotiations, perhaps totally unofficial, are proceeding with the object of bringing about an understanding between France and the holy see, which is considered more necessary as Russia's successes increase.”

“Through France the Vatican, it is understood, hopes to bring influence to bear upon Russia in connection with her treatment of Polish Catholics. Another question which has attracted the attention of the holy see authorities is contained in a report published in Rome to the effect that Russia, in the event of victory, would not be satisfied with Constantinople, but would claim possession of the Holy Land, because it is visited by 50,000 Russians yearly.”

France has been one of the nations, particularly during the last hundred years, that has given the papacy the greatest amount of trouble. The independence and the skepticism of the leaders in French thought have combined to cause them to snub the papacy, and much of the time to oppose her openly. But we see that one after another of the great powers is coming to the papal court, and France among the rest.

The prophecy says specifically that all the world is to wonder after the papal church. And this is not a charge that Protestantism makes against the papacy. It is a statement of Bible prophecy and literal fact. This is not a question for the Catholic to become incensed over, but it is a question for him to study.

With men, political influence in church and state counts for a great deal. The Frenchman has gone to the Vatican in the attitude of a diplomat and a politician. He is seeking to gain some ends by securing the political influence of the papal power. But while all of these things seem great and count for much among men, they count for nothing with God. We must stand before Him on what His word teaches. Be careful how you treat the convictions that come into your heart as you study His word, and particularly as the prophecies are brought before you that pertain to this time in which we are living.

Prayers for Peace

POPE BENEDICT has composed prayers for peace that are to be recited in the Catholic churches throughout the world during the month of May. The activity of the papacy in peace plans and peace proposals is very marked; but if we study them closely, we will see that there is a political element running through them all. The papacy is working to gain again supreme power in the world. The prophecies of the Bible show that she will succeed; and when her success is achieved, it will be found that the great Protestant world, in so far as its massive organizations are concerned, has taken its stand with the papal power.

Christianity is a thing for the individual heart in the individual life. Christ, through His word and by His Spirit, works upon the individual. Organizations working in a political way are no part of the divine plan. His church, as the Bible clearly shows, is carefully organized; but it is organized for the purpose of winning the individual soul, and working upon the individual heart, and not to make nations Christian in a wholesale way.

The idea of a temporal kingdom for Christ, or the “Christian nation” plan, has been one of the most pleasing delusions for mankind during all the ages. The disciples were misled through false notions concerning the kingdom; the Jewish nation went down because of its wrong conceptions of the kingdom teaching of the Bible; all through the centuries, the prevailing opinions concerning the temporal kingdom of Christ have resulted in persecutions and tyrannies, and have worked havoc; and the greatest and most deceptive manifestation of this kind is to come at the close of time, and in it Catholicism and federated Protestantism will be united.

As individuals, we need to study the Bible, and to know God’s plan of salvation for ourselves; and whether we be Protestant or Catholic, mere professions will not save us. We must have the abiding knowledge of Christ in our own lives, and this knowledge must be based upon our personal acquaintance with Him through His word.

The Master has warned us against deceptions, and particularly so in the closing years of probationary time; and if ever there was a time when men needed to depend upon a personal acquaintance with God and Christ through a personal knowledge of His word, that time is now. We cannot afford to trust to either minister, priest, or bishop, however good or learned we may think them to be; for if these good men are what they ought to be, they will show us in God’s own word the things we ought to know, so that we can see them for ourselves. They should impress it upon us that we must depend not upon men nor human teaching, but upon a personal knowledge of the Word. The Book plainly tells us to “put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.” Ps. 146:3. And, “Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.” Hosea 10:13.

We are to be in sympathy with men; we are to respect them. For Christ’s sake, we are to learn to love them. But under no circumstances should we allow them to stand for us in the place of our own personal knowledge of God’s word.

Motives and Deeds

By M. C. W.

ONE noted newspaper correspondent who has been for some time on the bloody battle fields of Europe, and who has also been in other wars, declares that he never saw manifest such intense feelings of hatred among men as he has seen in this war among “Christian” nations. Others have remarked to the same effect.

The deeds have been on a par with the motives. The killing of non-combatants, the sinking of neutral ships by submarines, the spreading of floating mines, the ravaging of women, are in evidence. Some of these things have been characterized by the great journals of America as “brutal,” “cold-blooded,” “cowardly,” “atrocious,” “murder,” as “assassination,” “shocking blood-thirstiness,” “a massacre,” “piracy,” “barbarism run mad,” “a triumph of honor,” “a humiliation to all the world.” Floating mines and submarines are about on the same moral level.

One journal, the New York Globe, declares that if such warfare is admissible, so also are the poisoning of water supplies, introduction of disease germs, and the hiring of assassins to murder leading enemies.

How far below the conceptions of honor by the great heathen warriors! When Alexander, with his inferior force in numbers, was arrayed before Darius, Parmenio, one of Alexander’s greatest generals, suggested a night attack. Alexander refused to consider it, for he would have no man say that Alexander took an unfair advantage of an enemy. When a Greek traitor offered to poison the Greek warrior king Pyrrhus, the Romans spurned his offer, revealed the plot to Pyrrhus, and indignantly delivered up the treacherous scoundrel who made the proposal.

Twenty-five centuries have not greatly improved the morals of the world. War may humble many in these days, but it will not change the heart; and the motives and deeds manifest in this struggle do not argue for the world’s conversion, nor does a profession of Christianity justify the awful deeds.

It is better to believe with God’s word that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” 2 Tim. 3:13. Nay, more, the devout student of prophecy can see, what the Word declares, that it is the demons from the pit that are stirring men to hatred and to war. Rev. 16:13-16. The great day of God is at hand.

M. C. W.

Kaiser Wilhelm in Recent Conference with His Staff Commanders and Naval Aides

United States Troops on the Mexican Border