Excerpt from The Coming Struggle Among the Nations of the Earth, or the Political Events of the Next Thirteen Years, Described in Accordance With Prophecies in Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Apocalypse: Shewing Also the Important Position Britain Will Occupy During and at the End of the Awful Conflict

Never was there a time in the past history of the world when such a terrible and universal excitement prevailed regarding political afi'airs, as at this moment exists in the social mind. Wherever we turn, or into whatsoever society we enter, the same restless anxiety is apparent, the same question passes from circle to circle and from friend to friend, but no reply comes forth to cheer or satisfy the alarmed interrogators. What is about to happen? Is murmured in all the assemblies of men; and whether the sound floats along the noble halls of the great, vibrates among the rafters of the straw-roofed cottage, or wanders through mazes of tobacco smoke in a village ale-house, echo only answers. What! Conjectures, indeed, are made and opinions delivered, but as these rest solely on the shifting sand of political appearances, and assume the various aspects with which faction and party-spirit invest them, they are uttered only to be rejected; the same question is again asked by the same individual on the morrow, and with like success.

That such an excitement should prevail at the present time is not at all wonderful. The position in which the powers of Europe and Asia are placed, renders it evident to every thinking mind - and in this age of boasted intelligence all should be thinkers - that we are on the very eve of a crisis, and a crisis unparalleled in the annals of the past. It is not at one part merely, or in one or two nations, that we discern the signs of an approaching storm; but from one end of Europe to the other, the ominous cloud has gathered, and when it bursts, as soon it must, the deluge will not only be overwhelming, but universal. Such a prospect as this is entirely new. The shadows which preceded the advent of the most devastating hurricanes that swept over the world in the ages that are gene, were not so gloomy or portentous as those which now hover above our whole horizon; and as the image must resemble the reality, that reality must be awful indeed. We are in the midst of that oppressive calm which reigns when the elements are fully charged with all the ingredients of a storm, and, like the mariner, we long for its inevitable outbreak, in Order that we may escape from our sus pense, and learn at once how we are likely to cope with it.

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