"For I, the Lord, have decreed in mine anger many destructions upon the waters; yea, and especially upon these waters;
"Nevertheless, all flesh is in mine hand, and he that is faithful among you shall not perish by the waters.
* * * * * *
"Behold, I, the Lord, in the beginning blessed the waters, but in the last days, by the mouth of my servant John, I cursed the waters.
"Wherefore, the days will come that no flesh shall be safe upon the waters,
"And it shall be said in days to come that none is able to go up to the land of Zion upon the waters, but he that is upright in heart. . . . .
"I, the Lord, have decreed, and the destroyer rideth upon the face thereof, and I revoke not the decree."[[3]]
No Flesh Safe Upon the Waters.—Was not this condition almost realized during the darkest days of the Great War? Perils undreamed of developed; disasters without precedent, unexampled in history, were of frequent occurrence. Even upon the calm Pacific no ship pursued consecutively the same track twice. Companies operating the great ocean-liners no longer announced the dates of departure from one port or of expected arrival at another. They dared not; the destroyer was abroad, death was in the depths, and the spirit of dread brooded upon the bosom of the waters. And this upon the comparatively peaceful Western Ocean; while upon the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, and in the North Sea, the terrible submarine told the tale of danger and disaster.
The Food Question.—Another phase of the Titanic struggle was the food question. Joseph Smith had predicted famine;[[4]] and the famine came. As early as October, 1876, the Prophet's successor, President Brigham Young, placed upon the members of the Relief Society a special mission—that of gathering and storing grain against a day of scarcity; and from that time the activities of the Society were put forth largely in this direction. Some made light of the labors of these devoted women, declaring that another famine could not be. Too vast an area of the earth's surface was under cultivation, and the means of rapid transit and communication were too plentiful, to permit of such a misfortune. If famine threatened any part of the world, word of it could come in the twinkling of an eye, and millions on millions of tons of food-stuffs, speedily transported to the scene, would stave off the straitness and render the calamity impossible.
The Spectre of Famine..—Alas for those who put their trust in the arm of flesh! In spite of the vast and ever-increasing productivity of the soil; in spite of railroads, steamships, and telegraphs, spreading a network of steel and electricity over the face of the planet, this was, and is still, a famine-threatened world. Europe calls upon America for food; America generously responds; but as fast as she consigns her cargoes of foodstuffs to the needy nations, the merciless and devouring submarine sends them to the bottom of the sea. Such indeed was the situation. The floor of the ocean is strewn with the wrecks of transports whose mission was to carry bread to the starving millions of other lands. And where was the man, uninspired of Heaven, who could have anticipated such a catastrophe?