Editor’s Table: A Modern Apostle’s Prophecies

EDITOR'S TABLE. 131

and ordinances of the gospel brings men within the influence of God's grace and unto salvation.

St. Paul is right, then, when he says : ' 'By grace are ye saved through faith." And yet St. James is right when he says, "By works a man is justified, and not by faith only;" for it is through a union of the grace of God and the faithful obedience of man that he at last shall see salvation.

A MODERN APOSTLE'S PROPHECIES.

When Elder Parley P. Pratt in the early fifties remarked to some of his friends in New York that the time would come when an elder would be able to preach one Sunday in Manchester or Liverpool, England, and during the week cross the ocean and preach the following Sunday in New York or Boston, some who heard him thought it a prophecy not very likely of fulfillment; and others considered it altogether visionary in the sense of it being impossible. On September 26th, 1897, however, the New York German Lloyd steamship, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, completed the trans-Atlantic run from Southampton, England, to New York, in five days, twenty-two hours and thirty-five minutes. So that it would now easily be possible to do all that Elder Pratt predicted so long ago, and at a time when there was little probability of it ever being accomplished.

---

The same apostle in the early fifties published his noble little work called the "Key to Theology;" and in speaking of the gathering of Israel in the last days, and their restoration to the lands promised to their fathers, he said:

Physically speaking, there seems to need but the consummation of two great enterprises more, in order to complete the preparations necessary for the fulfillment of Isaiah and other prophets in regard to the restoration of Israel to Palestine, from the four quarters of the earth, and the annual reunion of all nations to the new standards, holy shrines and temples of Zion and Jerusalem, under the auspices of that great universal and permanent theocracy which is to succeed the long reign of mystery. One of these is the Great Eastern Railway from Europe to India and China, with its branches, and accompanying telegraphic wires, centering at Jerusalem.

The other is the Great Western Railway, with its branches and accompanying telegraph lines from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

This prophetic suggestion, too, at the time the book containing it was published, was looked upon by many, even among the saints, as pointing to a condition likely to exist in some far-away millenium; while among the unbelieving it was esteemed to be the idle speculations of a vivid imagination. We live at a time, however, when the words of this apostleprophet are likely of fulfillment. Thrice over the Atlantic and Pacific are united by great western railways across the American continent, "with their branches and accompanying telegraph lines." And the main line of the apostle's "Great Eastern Railway" may be said to be a reality with the completion of the trans-Siberian railway, which will connect all Europe with the Eastern or Pacific shores of Russia and China. This event, that is, the completion of the trans- Siberian railroad, is scheduled for 1902, five years hence; and the work is now so far advanced by the Russian government that it is not likely to fail of completion by that time. And this road with its accompanying branches penetrating into all parts of China and India will bring the hitherto slow and sleepy orient into immediate contact with progressive Europe and America, and make possible the great annua assemblies contemplated by Elder Pratt. What progress is being made towards the establishment of conditions favorable to this is readily seen in the following from a popular magazine of recent date:

Twenty years ago Jules Verne wrote his story, "Around the World in Eighty Days," and it met with the greatest success — as an extravaganza; then some pioneer, a Marco Polo of our day, went around the world in eighty days and said so, for which he was, of course, denounced as a liar. But in the year 1902, when in all human probability the trans-Siberian railway will be completed, a journey about the earth will not require much more than a month. Starting from New York, the circumnavigating tourist will reach Vancouver in six days. From this point to Vladivostok— or to Talienwan, in Chinese territory, which will in all probability become the terminus, on the Pacific, of the longest railway in the world — he will spend eleven or twelve days in great circle sailing. Crossing Siberia by rail, he will reach St. Petersburg in eight days, London in four, and turn up in New York in five or six days, so completing his jaunt in thirty-five days or under. The actual cost of such a journey will be next to nothing; the round the

EDITOR'S TABLE. 133

world tickets, which sell at present for a little more than five hundred dollars, will then be sold for three hundred at an outside figure. By this route the longest and the most expensive strip of the route — and also, it should be added, by far the most interesting — that down the east coast of Asia from Japan to the Malay Peninsula, and then on to India, Egypt, and southern Europe — will be left out for those travelers, who, though on pleasure bent, are of a frugal mind and disposed to economize; for the trans- Siberian railway proposes to take tourists across Asia and half of Europe for about fifty dollars.

Until flying machines are gotten under better control, and balloons more thoroughly domesticated, the journey will continue to occupy, as outlined, from thirty to thirty-five days. When the great trunk line through the Canadian Northwest is completed to some Alaskan port, and the passenger cars are ferried accross the Straits to connect with the trans-Siberian schedule, the journey will be lessened by another five or six days at least. Then we may read a notice upon the office door of our hardworking professional and business men, when the time for the summer vacation has come: "Mr. Blank is out of town; has gone around the world; will be back in three weeks."

It may be said that while there does seem to be in course of construction those mighty highways necessary to make possible the fulfillment of the apostle's prediction, Jerusalem appears far from being a center of this mighty system of intercontinental communication. But such a conclusion should not be too hastily reached. When the geographical position of Palestine is taken into account; when we remember what Jerusalem is to the civilized world, to Jew, Christian, and Mohammedan alike; when we remember its wonderful place in history and prophecy; when we call to mind its holy shrines, its temples of the past and those that will be built there in the future; when we remember that only on the 31st of August last, the Zionists'* conference, held at Basle, Switzerland, adopted schemes for the centralization of

*The "Zionite movement," as it is called, is an organized effort to colonize Palestine with Jews. In other words Zionists are seeking to bring to pass the restoration of the Jews to the land of their fathers; and their dearest wish may be said to be the creation of a Jewish state in that land. It was the purpose of the conference at Basle, according to Mr. Rosenberg, of New York, president of a branch of the Hoveve Zion [Lovers of Zion] society — "To pave the way for a more rousing and effective agitation of the cause everywhere, to better organize and verify with one another the various societies, associations, clubs or other bodies having Zionistic tendencies or objects, to centralize the scattered, disunited forces of the movement, and to give them unity of purpose, aim and direction." The result of that conference is stated above.

the movement of Zionist societies, and the raising of a fund of 150,000,000 to accomplish the redemption of Palestine and give it back to Jewish control, create, in fact, a Jewish state in the land promised to their fathers — when one thinks of all this in connection with Judah and Jerusalem, he must be convinced that Jerusalem is not to be left on one side in the great movements now on foot, and which seem to have for their purpose that preparation work which Apostle Pratt had in mind when he wrote the passage we have quoted, and which shall surely go on until

The whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.