::R1173 : page 8::

RESTITUTION PROGRESSING

We have heretofore called attention to the great improvement of late years in the climate of Palestine from the increase of rain-falls and the consequent increased productiveness of its soil; and we have remarked that similar and other changes will be in order gradually throughout the earth to fit and prepare it for the Millennial reign of Christ and for the support of the millions of the dead as they shall be gradually awakened, “every man in his own order.”

Below we print a clipping which bears pointedly upon this subject, and shows that, as we have anticipated, some features of the restitution will glide in very imperceptibly.

“A paper called The Iron comes forward with the remark that what were supposed to be deserts are rapidly vanishing before the advance of civilization. There was a time when the United States had one of no small size, when it was considered that all the land west of the Missouri River was a barren waste. The farmers of Kansas, Nebraska and Dakota have disposed of much of the great American Desert. Once upon a time large portions of the interior of Africa were believed to be arid and uncultivable. Now we learn that they are fruitful and well populated. The interior of Australia has been held up as an awful example of a howling wilderness, destitute of water and of animal or vegetable life. That illusion is now being rapidly dispelled. Recent explorers report that inner Australia is no Saharan waste, and that, though uninhabited, it can support a large population. There are grassy plains, large lakes, and also traces of gold and precious stones. A north and south railway is now being made through the center of Australia, and doubtless with its completion the last trace of desert will vanish. The iron horse is a wonderful dispeller of illusions of that kind. The truth is that there are vast regions in America, Asia and Australia, which are barren from the standpoint of primitive and ignorant agriculture, but which when taken in hand by the educated farmer of the present day, with his implements, develop into fertile fields and pastures.”

And as with the natural changes, so with many of the moral and political reforms also: Many of these are coming in

::R1174 : page 8::

gradually. It would be a mistake, however, to expect that all would glide in smoothly. The words of the Lord and the apostles and the prophets most clearly indicate that the progress of nature’s new birth will be marked by grievous spasms and throes in the old order of things,—cloudbursts, storms, earthquakes, etc., in nature, in politics, in religion, in everything. All the selfish and evil arrangements of the present shall be thoroughly shaken out, so that nothing but good shall remain.—Heb. 12:26-29; Jas. 5:1-8.

====================

— January, 1890 —