peace shall be taken from the earth

The Lord knew there would be only a few who would accept that message. The majority would reject it. He provided for the few a refuge of peace; but so far as the world is concerned he said (I am reading from the 1st Section of the Doctrine and Covenants):

And again, verily I say unto you, O inhabitants of the earth: I the Lord am willing to make these things known unto all flesh;

For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion.

And also the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst.

Peace taken from the earth, and the devil having power over his dominion. During the last one hundred years, or since these words were spoken, more light and knowledge has come into the world in the realm of science, through the laboratory, and otherwise, than in all the ages that have preceded it, and if this were all used for the alleviation of human suffering, peace and prosperity could be here, and poverty abolished.

But when we see men and nations spending their wealth to use the gas engine, the laboratory, the air plane, as means of human destruction, surely the devil has seized the blessings and privileges the Almighty intended to use to bring about peace, and is using them to destroy that which he presently shall lose the right to rule over. If the devil is not in the character of warfare that goes over the front line trenches, swoops down upon the poor helpless women and children, drops its deadly bombs and assassinates them, then I do not know anything that has ever happened in this world that is so like the work of the devil as that. He is ruling in the midst of men.



Melvin J. Ballard, Conference Report, October 1928, p.105-6, as quoted in Latter-day Prophets and the Doctrine & Covenants, Volume 1 compiled by Roy W. Doxey. Deseret Book. 1964. p.14