The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-03-26

ly prophetic texts of the Bible in
sensational manner, as we'll as people
who take delight in the reading of
manifold cataclysms brought about
either by the commissions of natural
forces or by the savage instincts of
man, SO long as they themselves are
unframed.
The mystics insist that this out
break in the region of the earliest
dawn will inevitably lead up to and
terminate in the gathering Or the
kings of power of the whole world to
fight the final battle of the worlds
history, called in the book of Rev
elation Armageddon, which means the
plain of Megiddo, portion of the
plain of Esdraelon, near Megiddo,
victory over the Canaanites when they
were taking possession of Canaan, at
ter coming from Egypt. Although
many writer's on the second coming of
Christ have declared that the war of
the great day of the Lord" referred
to in Revelation, foreshadows all
actual warfare Of the nations with a
desicive battle in favor of the right.
the name, as is generally the case in
this prophetic book, is doubtless to be
taken automatically for a place of
slaughter and mourning, a moral
rather than titanic physical con-
fict
1t is a somewhat gratuitous assump-
ton, moreover, to predict that all the
world powers will be drawn inevitably
into the present conflict. Sensational
maginations and announced various
combinations. the most improbab BILE of
which is coalition between Russia,
France and Germany against Great
Britain, which. Of course, might en-
broil all Europe
But France and England have only
recently entered into treaty relations
to refer all their own differences to
arbitration of a peace prolonging char
acter, the sword eliminated, while
Germany is not ready to lombard the
tight little isle and land an army for
hostile exploitation. She prefers to
wait for the disintegration of Turkey.
for she has Il definite plan to secure
Anatolia and perfect her railway sys-
tenn down the Euphrates valley TO
Bagdad on the lower Tigris.
Russia would have an interesting
time getting assistance from France
alone in her fight with Japan. The
English navy could control the situa-
ton between the Baltic ana the
French coast; Germany would not
permit the passage of a French army
over her territory; the forcing of the
Dardanelles would be opposed by Ger
many Austria Hungary and Italy, and
France would have to aid her ally at
very long range. Moreover, France
has about reached the limita ton of her
assets and taxing power to keep up
her burdensome military and naval
establishments, and, although the
chauvinists still abound, there are
more thoughtful statesmen in France
than there used to be. The practical
IS mastering the frothy theoretical.
Altogether the prospect of an
Armageddon battlefield as the out
come of the Russo Japanese war is
rather doubtful. During the thirty
years war in the seventeenth CEN
fury, it was thought that Armageddon
was near, but the ferocious fighting of
those distressful days of religious
warfare resulted in detaching northern
Europe from the control and dictation
OF absolutsm. The quarter century
of Napoleonic wars which devastated
all Europe, brought no Armageddon,
but brought about the resistless prop
uganda Of liberalism and constitution
al government which, during the nine
teenth century, struck a deadly blow
at the absolute principle of govern
ment by the sole will of the sovereign