A WORLD-WIDE WAR. Unless all signs fail, the world is on the eve of a war such as was never known in all the mighty cycles of human history. Lucky indeed will it be if the twentieth century is not born amid the shock of universal battle. Is our boasted civilization breaking down beneath its own ponderous weight--the rotting props and pillars unable to sustain the gilded roof? Are the prophecies of Scripture about to be fulfilled--the world rushing headlong to the final catastrophe? A murderous mania hath everywhere seized upon the minds of men. The pulse of the race is beating the reveille; the soul of the world is sounding "boots and saddles." Savagery is reasserting itself--the Christian nations are further than ever before from that age of gold, "When the war-drum throbs no longer, And the battle-flags are furled In the parliament of man, The federation of the world." Peace? "There is no peace war is inevitable." The ostrich may avoid seeing the approach of the fierce simoon by hiding his head in the sand, but cannot stay its onward march. The craze for slaughter, the lust for blood, is abroad in the land. The stars are evil, and Ate, ranging hot from Hell, plants her burning feet on every brow. For years the brute passions of man have had no outlet--a prolonged peace hath become that good custom which doth corrupt the world. A new generation hath arisen in Europe and America which knows naught of the horrors of war, but is intoxicated by its glory. Its superfluous energy must find expression, its pent-up passions are ready for explosion. It is all aweary of these piping times of peace--wildly eager for the glorious pomp and circumstance of war--the bullet's mad hiss and the crash of steel. Civilized man is but an educated savage sooner or later his natural ferocity will demand its pound of flesh. . . . . . .