Part 49 (2/2)

”When, with the fall of Ottoman sovereignty at Constantinople, the Turk is driven out of Europe, there will arise once more the eternal question of the possession of Asia Minor. That land is the corridor between Europe and Asia, along which have pa.s.sed most of the European conquerors--the Russians alone excepted--who have invaded Asia, and most of the Asiatic conquerors who have invaded Europe.”

The fall of the Turkish power in this Euphrates region will, in some manner, prepare the way for ”the kings of the East” to come up to the final conflict.

The Awakening of the East

The same spirit that has been stirring up the West in preparation for the contest has been working in the East also. Year after year observers have pointed out the great changes taking place in Asia. September, 1909, the London _Contemporary Review_ said:

”The whole of Asia is in the throes of rebirth. At last we may see these three--the yellow race, the Indian race, and the Arab-Persian Mohammedan race. And all that is making for the Armageddon.”

A writer in the May, 1913, issue of the London _Nineteenth Century and After_, reviewing the situation at the close of the Balkan War, said:

”A new spirit is abroad in the East. It arose on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific when j.a.pan proved that the great powers of Europe are not invulnerable. North and south and west it has spread, rousing China out of centuries of slumber, stirring India into ominous questioning, reviving memories of past glory in Persia, breeding discontent in Egypt, and luring Turkey onto the rocks.”

With all the nations stirred up by the spirit agencies of the G.o.d of this world, the prophet next saw the armies of earth gathering to the last great battle. The prophecy continues:

”And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” Rev. 16:16.

Armageddon means the hill, or mount, of Megiddo, which overlooks the plain of Esdraelon, the historic battle ground of northern Palestine.

Carmack says of it:

”Megiddo was the military key of Syria; it commanded at once the highway northward to Phoenicia and Coele-Syria and the road across Galilee to Damascus and the valley of the Euphrates. It was moreover the chief town in a district of great fertility, the contested possession of many races. The vale of Kishon and the region of Megiddo were inevitable battle fields. Through all history they retained that qualification; there many of the great contests of southwestern Asia have been decided. In the history of Israel it was the scene of frequent battles. From such a.s.sociation the district achieved a dark n.o.bility; it was regarded as a pre-destined place of blood and strife; the poet of the Apocalypse has clothed it with awe as the ground of the final conflict between the powers of light and darkness.”--_”Pre-Biblical Syria and Palestine,” p. 82._

Thus Armageddon, as the ”military key of Syria,” marks Palestine and the Near East as the great international storm center in the final conflict.

The Political Storm Center

In vision, nearly two thousand years ago, the prophet saw the forces of the last days gathering around this pivotal region. Today observers recognize the eastern Mediterranean as indeed the pivotal point around which international interests involving East and West naturally revolve.

Some years ago, in discussing railway development in Asia and Africa, and the great highways of sea transportation, the London _Fortnightly Review_ said:

”Palestine is the great center, the meeting of the roads.

Whoever holds Palestine, commands the great lines of communication, not only by land, but also by sea.”

Again, the Manchester _Guardian_, emphasizing the importance attaching to this strategic center, said during the great war:

”Egypt, as things are,--and the fact cannot be too often emphasized,--is the weak spot in our system of imperial defense by sea power. Not until Palestine is in our possession can Egypt be regarded as safe.”--_Quoted in Literary Digest, Feb.

12, 1916, p. 369._

Other nations have recognized the strategic value of a territory so situated. Thus political considerations make this region pointed out by the prophecy a center of conflicting interests. Hogarth, in his book, ”The Near East,” calls it ”the time-honored storm center of the eastern Mediterranean.”

The Religious Storm Center

To the conflict of political interests is added the rivalry of religious sentiment. Commenting on the religious a.s.sociations of Palestine in relation to the international political situation, the London _Spectator_ some years ago stated the matter thus:

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