Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/303

 evil spirits—were those fearful hostilities which broke out, not only in Europe, but in every other portion of the world where a community of professing Christians existed. In those fearful events the Churches took an odious part, and infidelity avowed its wretched principles. Wars, indeed, had previously been waged during the history of Christianity; and no doubt they were indications of some spiritual wickedness in high places. Wars could not exist, if wickedness did not promote them. But those wars which followed upon the last judgment were not upon that limited scale which distinguished their predecessors; they affected with their desolations every portion of the Christian world. Wherever Christianity was professed, there war placed his iron foot, and trod out some of the nations from the earth. "Nation rose against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there were famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places; the distress of nations, men's hearts failing them for fear." Professing Christians let loose upon each other the demons of military carnage: in