{0} In the printed book the “By the same Author” (i.e. Edward Hoare)
section is at the start of the book, before the title page. It has been
moved to the end for clarity in this Project Gutenberg eText.—DP.
{10} For further developments on this point, the reader is referred to
“The Returning King,” pp. 25–29 (Morgan and Scott, 1/- net.)
{19} R.V. “He.”
{26} Hume, ii. 67.
{28} According to the census of 1911, the population of the British
Isles was 45,365,599, of which number five millions were Romanists, so
that clearly the proportion is still diminishing. But it must be borne
in mind that her leading false doctrines and non-Scriptural claims are
being increasingly taught in this country.
{37} Thirty-six years have elapsed since these words were penned, and
although Turkey has been upheld by the European Powers, and has herself
made one or two brave efforts on the battlefield and in the matter of
constitutional reform, the process of decay has been rapidly advancing;
yet even so who, at the beginning of the year 1912, could have foreseen
the catastrophe which in a few short weeks has almost wiped Turkey from
the Map of Europe?
{45} And actually the very walls of Vienna.
{47} Now in April, 1913, the four Balkan States and Greece in a brief
but bloody campaign have brought Turkey apparently to her last gasp, and
it is still a matter of speculation whether she will be allowed to retain
possession of Constantinople and with it the merest thread of the
littoral of Europe. This has now taken place, and _The Times_ of May 30,
in a leader upon the signing of the Treaty of London, uses these
epoch-making words—“The Ottoman Empire in Europe has now ceased to
exist.” June, 1913.
{48} The word “almost” may be removed, as Turkey in Africa has ceased to
exist. The war with Italy in 1912 deprived Turkey of Tripoli, and thus
the very last spot in Northern Africa emerged from the once overflowing
waters of Mahommedan power by which it had been overwhelmed many
centuries ago.
{50} The number is rapidly diminishing, and day by day streams of
Turkish refugees are pouring across the Bosphorus to the Asiatic side.
{69} If the faithful preacher whose clear foresight is recorded here
were to witness what we now see, would he not say, like St. Paul—“as we
also forewarned you and testified?”
When this book was published, Spiritualism, then recently imported from
America, was only beginning to make itself felt, the destructive Higher
Criticism, whose dry rot has now spread its subtle influence on all
sides, had not landed on our coasts from Germany; the very names of
Modernism, New Theology, and its offspring the Liberal Christian League,
were non-existent; Christian Science had not then been imported to
America from its Eastern home; and several other heresies and imitations
(2 Timothy iii. 8), which under the guise of deep spiritual teaching are
now crippling true spirituality and doing the Devil’s work, were still
unborn. But they are with us now, and they have come to stay. Let us
recognize their _source_ and their _significance_.
{79} The significance of this clarion note of warning in connection with
the events now taking place is of the greatest possible importance.
{102} It would be simply impossible in a brief note even to enumerate
all the recent amazing changes in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Since the
fulfilment of a prophetic epoch a few years ago, pointed out at the time
by the writer as an indication that the “Times of the Gentiles” had
virtually ceased, Jerusalem has for the first time in her history been
“inhabited as towns without walls” (Zechariah ii. 4), the dwellings
having spread outside in rapidly increasing suburbs, which make it more
like a modern city than the Jerusalem of old.
Jews are permitted to hold magistracies and to perform civic functions;
they are also allowed to practice in medicine and in the legal
profession. Elementary and secondary schools are established in which
only the Hebrew language is used; banks and various institutions are
flourishing, and a new Hebrew university is about to be founded. Jewish
agricultural and manufacturing colonies in large numbers are at work in
different parts of the land, and a recent number of the _Jewish World_
gives a long account of a visit a few weeks ago to these colonies by the
newly appointed Governor of Jerusalem. The visit was an official
inspection, and the result one of the greatest possible importance to the
Jewish nation. Amongst many other things, the Governor (himself an
Albanian) stated that he was directed by the authorities in
Constantinople to grant to these colonies the right of electing their own
councils and appointing their own mayors, fixing rates, retaining some of
the Government taxes for their own use, enrolling their own police, whose
uniform and ammunition should be supplied by the Turkish Government,
granting title deeds for land, permits for building, besides other
privileges of considerable importance. I submit that it can no longer be
said of the city or of the land that it is “trodden down of the
Gentiles.”
How startlingly significant are these facts in connection with our Lord’s
words regarding His Return!