The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-30 00:00:00

DR. CUMMING ON EARTHQUAKES.

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Dr. Cumming, who may be described as the pulpit
Braddon, has been commemorating the most joyful
festival of the Church year by a sermon on Earthquakes,
calculated to send nervous " females " into hysterics.
He referred to the feeble and scarcely perceptible
shock of earthquake in Lancashire as proof of an
approaching " tremendous change," and said that the
daily papers were " the most splendid commentary
on the Book of Revelations." The sensationalist
divine further remarked that even journalists said the
present state of things could not continue much
longer. As to " the present state of things," there
never was a time when politics were so little convul-
sive as they are now. Thirty years ago the Luxem-
burg question, the Turco-Greek question, the
Franco-Belgian question, and the Spanish Revolution
would every one of them have led to a war. All these
are events of the last twelve months, and yet, though
there are large armies in existence, I.ey don't fight,
but the " questions " are solved over a green-baize
table. As to the earthquakes, Dr. Cumming will
find, if he refers to any book of reference like
Haydn's " Dictionary of Dates," that for more than
2,000 years earthquakes have been shaking the
world, and that even the great catastrophe in South
America last year has had many a parallel, as in
Syria, a. D. 742, when 500 towns were destroyed,
and the loss of life surpassed all calculation; as
in Catania, 1137, when 15,000 persons perished ;
in Cilicia, 1268, when 00,000 persons were swallowed
up ; in Naples, 1456, ',when 40,000, and in Lisbon,
1531, when 30,000 persons suffered a like fate. Even
these were surpassed more recently. In 1667 there
was a succession of earthquakes at Schmaki, which
lasted three months, and engulfed 80,000 persons; iu
1693 more than 100,000 persons were destroyed
in Catania and Sicily. Then came the turn of Asia.
In 1703 Jeddo, in Japan, was destroyed, and with it
200,000 persons ; in 1731, 100,000 were swallowed at
Pekin. In fact, the eighteenth century was one long
succession of these calamities. They extended through
Southern Europe, North Africa, the whole of Asia,
and the West Indies, and from September 1693 to
February 1797 about 040,000 persons are known to
have perished, besides the " thousands " and the
"many thousands " who are spoken of and not enume-
rated. Probably not fewer than three-quarters of a
million of persons were thus destroyed. Again in
the seventy-four years from 1783 to 1857 the
kingdom of Naples lost 111,000 inhabitants out
of a population of 6,000,000. And yet, because a
few houses are shaken in Lancashire, Dr. Cumming
must frighten his hysterical hearers into fits.
But then some persons like to be frightened. It is a
kind of mental dram-drinking with which they can-
not dispense.
It is worth noting that earthquakes in England
are by no means the novelty which some persons sup-
pose. Lincoln was severely visited in 1142 ; in 1274
Glastonbury was destroyed ; in 1580 part of St.
Paul's Cathedral and of the Temple Church fell;
there was a smart shock in London in 1750 ; and
there were .shocks in various parts of England in
1852, 1860, and 1863.