8 Bo N THE November WarcHMmax
pd Bed we answered editorially the ques-
= . I rm. DIRS
Na al tion, “Is This Armageddon?”
2 but since then readers have
written msistently for a restatement of the
facts which point ominously toward the
battleground of the ages, the valley of
Megiddo. Some evidently recall the edi-
torial in the Washington Post written dur-
img World War Number One which said:
“The coming retribution is a battle of
Armageddon. All the world 1% moving to
the conflict. War and justice joined issues
when Cain slew his brother, and the quarrel
1s not vet composed, and perhaps the final
adjudication will not come until Arma-
geddon.” In speaking of the remaking of
the map of Europe at the close of World
War Number One, H. (i. Wells concluded a
statement with the words: “Europe will
blunder mto a new set of ugly complica-
tions, and prepare a still more colossal
¥ “The advent of
stern war conditions
. . . has revived wn-
lerest in the subject
of religion.”
ARS 27L
srs AY
Armageddon.’
While they spoke
meaningfully of a»
armageddon, =eri-
ous-minded men
and women are
asking the ques-
tion as to whether
weareapproaching
the Armageddon.
What suggests
these Inquiries?
Surely the an-
swer 1s not that
we are engaged in a titanic struggle, for
men and nations have been at war before.
True, the question was raised during the
first World War, but not to the degree that
it 15 met in the present planetary
<truggle. Does its frequency sugeest an
awareness of new issues, a convietion born
of knowledge rather than fear of a titanic
encounter?
Just before the turn of the present cen-
tury, when the United States Congress was
about to declare war against Spain, Presi-
dent William McKinley wrote his old army
chaplain to ask whether, if he signed the
bill, 1t would usher in Armageddon. Presi-
dent McKinley was a deeply pious man, a
student of Bible prophecy. He knew
Germany and a number of other nations
were very sympathetic with Spain, and
might declare war against us should we
strike at the Iberian nation. He had seen
his old army chaplain under fire, knew him
to imagine that you can produce the high-
est kind of character and citizenship by
concentrating upon the physical and
mental development of boys and girls, and
neglecting the definite attempt to develop
the religious instinet in them by the sound
teaching of the Christian faith, which our
Lord, anyway, was convinced was the root
from which all true character is produced.”
Jesus, our great Exemplar, never lost
the balance between knowledge and prac-
tice, not even when He was rebuking the
extremists. “Woe unto vou, seribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of
mint and amse and cummin, and have
MARCH, 1942
omitted the weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye
to have done, and not to leave the other 1un-
done.” Matthew 23:23.
There can be no conflict between the
theory and practice of Christianity, pro-
vided each 1s assigned its proper place.
For one 1s the complement of the other,
and the only way to preserve the balance
between them is to keep in close and con-
stant touch with the One who never erred
on the one side or the other. And this
most certainly cannot be done without
reading and re-reading again and again the
Bible story of His life and teaching.
lo THIS
ARMAGEDDUNY
By the Editor
to be a man of God, and he wanted his
candid opinion as to whether if we de-
clared war, it would end in the ancient
Valley of Megiddo.
The answer of that army chaplain was
“No!” He had made a careful study of
the prophecy of Revelation 16: 12-16. He
knew that disturbances would arise in the
territory contiguous to the Euphrates
River, the cradle of the human race, that
these would involve the entire world. Tor
years the Mohammedans had ruled those
territories. At that time the “Sick Man
of the East’ Turkey—was just as sick
as he could possibly be without dying and
ceasing to trouble Europe, the Near Bast,
and the rest of the world, and that chaplain
could understand from a study of the Word
that the Turk would finally come to his
end, but that following his national de-
mise, the “kings of the sun-rising” would
march to Armageddon to engage the so-
called Christian nations mn deadly combat.
At that time no nations of the East were
in a position to fulfill that prophecy. True,
Napoleon Bonaparte was reputed to have
said, “China is a sleeping giant; disturb
him not, for when he awakens, his tread
will shake the world.” But he was still
docilely following the Empress Dowager,
who chose to shut China's frontiers against
the vulgar foreigners from the West. There
was no thought of world conquest. Sea-
faring men, who had often crossed the
Pacific Ocean to carry on commerce with
America, had been successful throughout
the East in comercial conquests, but they
conquered with a sword of gold rather than
with military weapons.
Japan had not yet fully awakened from
her centuries of slumber. True, she had
worsted China in 1895, driving her out of
Korea—*"the land of the morning calm.”
Her imported Western artillery had mowed
down the flower of China's army, who
sought to drive the invaders from the tomb
of Korea's founder, Kweija, which 1s ad-
jacent to the ancient capital of the coun-
try, Ping Yang. They came confidently,
courageously, in their long black robes, each
with a birdeage in one hand and a musket
in the other. Ten thousand of them fell in
one field, which for years thereafter grew
rank with Kaftir corn. But Japan had not
vet measured strength with a Western na-
tion, hence the chaplain knew that the
hour had not struck for Armageddon, for
the East was still devoid of military
leadership.
(Continued on page S)
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