God often names things what they are. Adam's name literally means "red
earth," the substance from which God formed and shaped the first man (Genesis 2:7).
God gave Abram a name-Abraham (Genesis 17:5)-that connoted
his fatherhood-"father of a multitude" (verses 4-6). Solomon, whose name
derives from the Hebrew root word for "peace," presided over one of the
most peaceful periods in Israelite history (1 Kings 4:24).
Is it so strange to think that God might still provide us similar signposts
along the way through our history? (Malachi 3:6). One possible example
of this is in the development of the British Empire and a remarkable man
named Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881).
This son of a Jewish family that had converted to Christianity rose to
the pinnacle of British political life and served twice as prime minister
(1868 and 1874-1880). Historians sometimes describe him as the "maestro
of empire," the British statesman who gave the late-19th-century British
Empire a renewed emotional force.
During Disraeli's second administration England underwent a revival of
interest in empire and territorial expansion. Acting boldly and with remarkable
independence, Disraeli paid nearly four million pounds-money borrowed
from the Bank of Rothschild with the British government as security-for
the purchase of 44 percent of the shares of stock controlling the recently
constructed Suez Canal (1869). Otto von Bismarck of Germany, the "iron
chancellor," aptly described the passageway as the spinal cord of the British
Empire.
