The Afghan country comes now into great importance because it is on the highway of the march of Israelitish civilisation and progress. England wants it; and I predict she shall get it. Russia wants it, and at present seems to have the upper hand; but Russia or England, or the world, can avail nothing against the purposes of Jehovah. The gates are promised to Israel, therefore she will get them. The English have already an army of 35,000 men in the Peshawur Valley. Russia is gathering a force, and ere long the two countries will be brought face to face. The end of the whole muddle will be that England will take charge of Afghan. Thirty-three years ago Disraeli wrote his novel called “Tancred.” In this novel he makes the Queen of England the Empress of India, and one of her favourite officers is made Earl Beaconsfield; so far fancy has become fact. But in that same novel the future of the present strife has been set forth. It has been very finely put by the London Spectator:—
“There is a story going about, founded, we believe, on good authority, that when some one quoted ‘Tancred,’ two or three months ago, in Lord Beaconsfield’s presence, the Prime Minister remarked: ‘Ah! I perceive you have been reading “Tancred.” That is a work to which I refer more and more every year—not for amusement, but for instruction.’ And if anyone will take the trouble just now to refresh his memory of ‘Tancred,’ he will see how much Lord Beaconsfield has borrowed from it in relation to his policy. Turn, for instance, to this passage: ‘If I were an Arab in race as well as in religion,’ said Tancred, ‘I would not pass my life in schemes to govern mere mountain tribes.’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ said the Emir, springing from his divan, and flinging the tube of his nargileh to the other end of the tent, ‘the game is in our own hands if we have energy. There is a combination which would entirely change the whole face of the world and bring back empire to the East. Though you are not the brother to the Queen of the English, you are, nevertheless, a great English prince, and the Queen will listen to what you say, especially if you talk to her as you talk to me, and say such fine things in such a beautiful voice. Nobody ever opened my mind like you. You will magnetise the Queen as you have magnetised me. Go back to England and arrange this. You see, gloss over it as they may, one thing is clear, it is finished with England . . . Let the Queen of the English collect a great fleet, let her stow away all her treasure, bullion, plate, and precious arms; be accompanied by all her court and chief people, and transfer the seat of her empire from London to Delhi. There she will find an immense empire ready-made, a first-rate army, and a large revenue. In the meantime I will arrange with Mehemet Ali. He shall have Bagdad and Mesopotamia, and pour the Bedouin cavalry into Persia. I will take care of Syria and Asia Minor. The only way to manage the Afghans is by Persia and by the Arabs. We will acknowledge the Empress of India as our suzerain, and secure for her the Levantine coast. If she like, she shall have Alexandria, as she now has Malta. It could be arranged. Your Queen is young. She has an avenir. Aberdeen and Sir Robert Peel will never give her this advice; their habits are formed. They are too old, two ruses. But you see! the greatest empire that ever existed; besides which she gets rid of the embarrassment of her chambers! and quite practicable! For the only difficult part, the conquest of India, which baffled Alexander, is all done.’ Who can avoid seeing that Lord Beaconsfield has been quite recently referring to this passage—‘not,’ as he said, ‘for amusement, but for instruction?’ These are all the ideas of his recent policy in germ—especially the treatment of the British Empire as having its centre of gravity in the far East—the use of the Indian Army for conquest to be made in Western Asia—the acquisition of the Levantine coast for Great Britain—the active alliance between the British power and the Mohammedan power—and last, not least, the getting rid, to a great extent at least, by the help of Indian leverage, of ‘the embarrassment of the chambers.’ For the last eight months, at least, English policy has evidently been borrowed from ‘Tancred.’ The monarch, for anything we know, has been ‘magnetised.’ The Cabinet assuredly have. Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon have been treated much as the Emir in ‘Tancred’ would have treated ‘Aberdeen and Sir Robert Peel’—thrown aside as two ‘ruses.’”
England has indeed adopted an Oriental policy, and forward she must go to execute Jehovah’s purpose. Russia is preparing on a gigantic scale. In Prussia the most flourishing branch of trade among the Germans at present is the manufacturing of arms for Russia. Though the late war be over, still Russia is buying ships, and fitting them out in this country. She feels bitterly her defeat through English diplomacy: England taking Cyprus, assuming protection over Asiatic Turkey, and making Russia yield back to Turkey 30,700 geographical miles which was contained in the original Treaty of San Stefano. The following from the Government organ of Russia will give you some idea of her chagrin.
The St. Petersburg Golos says that the Treaty of Berlin has produced an almost crushing impression on the Russian public. “It is felt that Russia has not attained her object; that she has been deceived by her friends, and that she has foolishly helped her enemies with her victories . . . What is the reason of our failure? One-half per cent. of our population have perished in the war, hundreds of millions have been expended, and yet the Eastern Question is not solved and the Treaty of Berlin is merely a truce. The last war has clearly shown all our national peculiarities as well as our moral and material strength . . . All the military requirements which depended on the inbred qualities of the Russian soldier were brilliantly carried out; but where knowledge and preparation were demanded we were not equal to the task. It was probably for this reason that we felt so much hurt on reading of the boldness of Lord Beaconsfield, who doubtless reckoned on the superior culture of Englishmen to that of Russians. All classes of Russian society are responsible for this. We do not estimate culture and knowledge at their true value. Most of us say that mental work does not bring money, and that culture is a means of corruption . . . In Western Europe, on the other hand, people have arrived by hard experience at the conviction that intelligence, capacity, culture, and energy, bring men to the front, and give them peace at home and power abroad. It is the knowledge of how to make the best possible use of their energy and abilities that has enabled the English to derive success from our victories and sacrifices. May this be a lesson to us.”
But enough; one knows the end ere they begin, for the Word of God is true. We do not argue that the English are so much smarter than other people; no, but we account for their success because they are the executive nation of Divine Providence. It falls to the lot of those who do not believe this theory to account for their success without allowing them to be smarter.
ISRAEL AND TERRITORY.
Discourse III.
PROMISES TO ISRAEL—MATERIAL NATURE—LOCATION OF THE TRIBES IN CHRIST’S DAY—GOD’S PROVIDENCE—BRITISH AND AMERICAN RULE—LIFE FROM THE DEAD—TEACHING THE NATIONS PEACEFUL ARBITRATION—ENGLAND AND RUSSIA—AFGHANISTAN FALLS TO ANGLO-ISRAEL—GOD’S POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY—ANGLO-SAXON EVANGELISATION—RUSSIA OPPOSING IT—BRITISH AND RUSSIAN OUTPOSTS IN CONTACT—WAIL OF JUDAH—EARTH’S GIRDLE.
“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.”—Isa. liv. 2, 3.
In the writings of the prophets the feminine gender is often used when speaking of the House of Israel, and the masculine when denoting the House of Judah. Quite frequently Israel is spoken of as a divorced woman, as being cast off, and as being barren. Judah remaining faithful to the throne of David and the temple service, and abiding in the land much longer than Israel, is presented as one married. So you will understand Jeremiah iii. 8, when he says: “And I saw, when for all the