The K ing’s Business
Voi. 5
NOVEMBER, 1914
No. 11
Is the Present War a Misfortune or a Crime? W E constantly read of the war as if it were merely a calamity that had over taken the nations without their fault, and of which they were simply the unfortunate victims. Undoubtedly, the war has overtaken many as a cal amity for which they are not to blame, but the war itself is a crime for which man must be held responsible. It may be impossible at the present moment for us to fix the responsibility for the present war, but God knows at what man’s door it lies, and it lies at the door of not only one but many. It is one of the most infamous crimes in the whole world’s history. No murder of an indi vidual, no matter how monstrous, is so enormous in the sight of God and of all intelligent men as this appalling crime that is now devastatirig many lands. The names of the persons who are responsible for this war ought to go down to posterity despised and loathed and regarded with horror. A World-Wide Revival Has Come: Is it God’s or the Devil’s? F OR some years a large number of devout people in different lands have been praying for a World-Wide Revival. In a sense there has been a world-wide revival, there have been manifestations of God’s quickening power in many different parts of the earth, and some marvelous ingatherings in many lands; but many of God’s people who have been living closest to Him have not been satisfied and have been looking for something deeper, more sweeping and general. At last a revival has come that is indeed world-wide, a revival of the war spirit and of war itself in forms that many dreamed were no longer possible. But whose revival is this ? Who is the animating spirit ? Beyond a question, the Devil. The present war is diabolical in its origin, in its spirit, in its methods and in its results. And it is world-wide. It is an appalling demonstration that all of man’s optimistic dreams that there was no personal Devil, or that the Devil was now chained and we were in the midst of the Millennium, had no basis in fact. There is a Devil, and he is just that mighty, cunning, subtle person that the Bible represents him to be. Whatever emperor, king or nation may-be immediately responsible for the present war, back of him stands the Devil, and through him works the Devil. He is simply the blinded dupe o f Satanic cunning and malignity. This does not in any sense lessen his responsibility and his guilt, but it does show how softly all kings and emperors and nations and individuals need to walk. There is reason, however, to hope that inthis case, as in countless other cases in the past history of the human race, God “will make the wrath of men to praise Him,” and even the wrath o f Satan to praise Him, and that as the result of this Devil’s revival, a true revival of God’s quickening grace and power manifested among men may soon appear. In this day o f the utter collapse of man and his culture and civilization, man may once more turn to God.
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