Signs of the Times.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 86, 2 March 1876, Page 6

Signs of the Times.

if--' ~. " ..-+-' y [By Moses Solomon.]

REOPENING OF THE EASTERN QUESTION.

feTURICtS-- EMPIRE ABOUT TO FALET ify i .-.*.:■ .-.. j KPEOTED BRITISH OCCUPATION OF I- .", . •-,.' ..EGYPT.. | Events are again on the march with rapid strides. ' The progress witliinthe ast four months has exceeded the hopes if the most sanguine of Zion's watch-' goien. Some time ago; the Eastern question (in which pur highest 1 hopes are involved), was quiescent, and the resolution of 'three { mighty Emperors was advertised to the world that they were |e||rmined to' keep it quiet, and on no account to- allow any one to open ; it. |The horizon' in' that quarter gave no Ejromise ' of: Tain. However, the EmRer6rs could no more coritrol the politi|cal Weather than they can the atmosphere. God, who has command of both, pias- defeated ; their councils, and tilled lihe-sVy with clouds ; and wind. | Asa speck on the horizon, a telegram [.announcing t he' refusal of the peasants |of Herzegovina to pay the usual taxes fto the Turkish officials," gTadd.ned the flbearts* of those who hunger and thirst Ifor the promised day of righteousness. |But : there was just a possibility that Ithe** • hopeful > speck,- no bigger than a rinatfs hand} might dissolve and dissapEpearlike other specks before ;•' therefore bthey did not rejoice over much.- They > Vat6hed the little cloud with the hope ;that-it might enlarge, yet with 'fear lest i their ! hopes might again be deferred. j The : little cloud grew larger. The telegram spoke of tbe refusal to pay the i taxes as a "revolt," and intimated that ;it Then they spoke of "Turkish troops hastening to the spot, •Then they .poke of encounters in which sometimes the Turks and sometimes the insurgents were victorious. Then- fov some weeks there was a lull, and the report was given out that the insurrection, was suppressed, and that political agents had besn despatched to the disturbed districts with a mission of ■ pacification. Still these news were of a reassuring character, showing the movement to be alive and formidable. ;Tust while it was becoming doubtful -which way the hopeful sign would shape itself, down came the rotten- house of Turkish finance' with a crash, which awoke up the whole world,' as announced last month. This event has entirely changed the scene. Mr Disraeli, the British • Prime Minister, well describes it in a speech delivered a short time ago at the Lord Mayor's banquet. He said : — "My Lord, I wish I c mid say" with regard to foreign affairs nearer iiome that ;they were in a position as satisfactory as I think we now consider our relations with China.- It would be an affectation to deny that the partial revolt in the Provinces of European Turkey has brought about a state of affairs which, in that part of the world, very often becomes critical. In the present instance the wise forbearance of the great Powers i__oiediatfily interested, to; which I beg to offer my testimony, and which cannot be Hob- highly appreciated, produced an effect so happy that at one moment (some months ago) we had a- right to believe that those serious disturbances would immediately cease. My Lord Mayor, an/unfortunate event, which I will not dwell upon (the financial catastrophe of one of our allies) revived the expiring struggle, gave a new shape to all the questions, and created hopes and fears in quarters and in circles in which before they did not exist. It is impossible to deny that circumstances of this character are critical." One of the "new shapes" referred to by Mr Disraeli—the most important as affecting .^developments looked for by those who wait on Jehovah's promise — is the attitude assumed by Russia, which definitely reopened the Eastern question^ and^ as is generally conceded, ensured the fall of the Turkish Empire. Russia so far as official utterances are concerned, had been silent as to her views and intentions with regard to the questions involved in the Herz.govinian insurrection. Shortly after the announcement of Turkish insolvency (Turkey's friends having thereby been turned into Turkey's enemies.) Russia who is believed to have brought that declaration about at the particular time it was made, came to the front in a formal' declaration published in the 1 Official Gazette.' This declaration couched in the oily language of diplomacy opene& as follows :— " The important.events in the Balkan Peninsula found Russia not alone, but in alliance with two other States, prepared to maintaihEuropean peace simply. and without any: political egotistical afterthought or intentions whatever. All who sincerely : wish for the maintenance of peace are free to join the Alliance. Af the -same time Russia, has not sacrificed to -the Alliance its sympathies for the Sclavonic - Christians, and the sacrifices made by the • Russian nation for the oppressed Sclavonic population of Turkey are so great; that Russia is justified in stepping forth- with sympathies before the whole of Europe." Therinhe declaration proceeds to describe what had been done. "Russia, Germany, and the Austro Hungarian Monarchy," had called upon Turkey "to come to some arrangements with the; insurgents* ; ? ' the demand had been

.supported .by^/FranceilMlyi and 'Eng* : I land." Turkey, in Tepjy, " promised to introduce substantial i_aprdvemetots," and forthw.ipf. issued an imperial decree, ordering greafc^easUres of relief/ "But," continues the JftaMlfi; decoration, in vitjw 6F_o!^er||S%! promises^ fidence is. mo #h|fei: "placed tin;-* such (decisions,?/ and^fa^ndjShust oe< piitk i toUhe. present.. sad;- Comlition ; of the' j opposed population ; of T^ey." The I serious Significance of the_e "words, as involving the reopening of the Eastern Question, is much dreaded by all politicions and the whole class of newspaper writers. : As< the, ; ' Rock . observes :— "At length there ,. is a sudden awakening from a long slumber- From the 1 Times' to the « Pall. Malt Gazette,".all ar_ ' Russophobists nosy. Even the farceurs. oi the period have taken the! alarm, and given us, in their own way,' more or less accurate presentiments of the amis and attitude of, the. " great Bear," One of them which caiught -our eye on . Saturday," !re^resehts " Bruin clambering" up the pole of the cage, having just, torn " the" treaty of 1856 in td ; tatters with' -his ugly paws. He is j howling -savagely at two female figures 1 who regard his movements with evident anxiety. One of these is Brit-' tahia, scowling darkly, and the other a well-favored Indian maiden, ; belight with gems, who leans tenderly and trustfully upon her arm; and now that we are" alive! to the danger of the situation, wehave little fear that her confidence will be 'misplaced: Our only misgiving has respect to the position nearer home' . . . When during the war of the Fr ench Revolution a friend of Wilberforce essayed to drawMr Fox's attention to what the prophet Daniel 1 had- said of the " Little Horn," the conference was abruptly cut atthe very thre.hhold by the statesman asking Mr ■ ■in inaffected bewilderment, " what on earth ivas the Little Horn ?" And whoever should attempt to' enlighten Mr Disraeli in regard to the progress of Russia in the East, by a reference to Ezekiel'_ prophecy of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel thirty-eight,) would probably meet with no better success. But be this as it may, the great muscovite power is now assuredly preparing, after the lapse of so many ages; to, assume the' part which the determinate council and foreknowledge of God assigned/ "in the latter lays " to the chief prince of the vast countries described under the name of « Meshech and Tubal,"—- (v 2.) Six months ago we expressed our conviction that the important statements bf Sir Henry Rawlison — who had then just published his book — must compel attention to the constant progress and encroachment of Russia in the steps of Tartary and threatened our Eastern possessions j but we were " coun ted as them that mocked." It seemed as if there were a compact among statesmen of every party, and newspaper writers of every hue, to avoid an embarassing topic and ignore a peril which they could not deny." — 'Rock:'

It would appear that Major Richardson's lecture is going to come true: regarding Central Asia. Besides these troubles the • following clipping from the ' LondonTimes ' accounts for the diseases so prevalent throughout the earth. At the present time you cannot take up a newspaper but it teams with accounts of diseases of • all kinds—and scarcely a sh:p arrives but has to be put in quarantine — but there is one disease or rather plague mentioned in the twenty-fourth chapter of Zechariah which is probably reserved till about the year 1885.

Regarding it I clip the following from a home paper :— ■" Dr Trail, a gentleman of some scientific, and literary reputation in the United States, calls attention in the New York papers to the fact, as he alleges, that ' we are now approaching a very pestilential period,' consequent on the conincident approach to us of the leading planets of the solar system. slt has always been observed,' he says, ' that the near approach of one or more of the larger planets of the solar system occasioned' great disturbances of the temperature of our atmosphere, resulting in seasons of extreme heat and cold, excessive droughts, long rains,; and attended with blights of the crops and fruits ; epidemics among human' beings, and epizootics among animals.' ADr Khapp, of Mexico, in a communication of a somewhat lengthy character in the ' New Medical Journal,' has shewn that all the wide-spread pestilences we have had in the last three hundred years, are exactly conincident with the perihelia of the larg^ planets. In the sixth century, and again in the sixteenth century ; the first there were the most pestilential periods of the Christian era. The perihelion periods of Jupiter and Saturn coincide with the extensive prevalence of plague, cholera, and other epidemics. But in the near future,. from, 1880 to 1885, we are to have what has not yet happened for more than eighteen hundred, years, the nearest approach to the sun of all four of these large planets coincidently. The obvious deduction from this, fact, and this theofy is, , that the vicissitudes of the earth's temperature, and' the changed condition of its atmosphere, consequent on the interference with or. abstraction of its usual amount and regularity -of light and heat, will.be increasingly unfavorable to life and health on our globe from the present time to 1880; that from 1880 to 1885 the adverse influences willbe in their. full intensity^ and that after 1885 they willjgradttally diminish.