Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1873-01-15
sCRUTLBLE PROYIDENCEs.

When, the other day, juror in one
of the Westfield suits refused to award
damages Sgainst the steamboat COM
pany, on the ground that the disaster
could have happened only by the d.
rect will of God, and was simply an
inscrutable Providence, the communi-
ty heard him with suppressed litter
which, if it implied tolerance for his
convictions, implied equal contempt
for his understanding. For it was
patent to every mind but his own
that a wOrn-o boiler must explode
at the very instant when all condi-
tions favored that catastrophe, and
that the men who knew that that in
stant was imminent, yet hourly soli-
cited travellers to q possible death,
were morally guilty, not only OF
criminal neglect and deceit, but OF
murder.
But many candid men, who saw
clearly the accountability of the West
field owners and mansgers, shake
their heads just now oyer what seems
to them a really mysterious Visii alton
of God-the Persian famine. And be-
cause all great and inexplicable cal
antilles pain loving hearts, and sadden
if they do not obscure the faith of
many souls, it seems worth while to
look a moment at this subject of In
scrutable Providences.
Here is this case of the Persian
famine. For unknown years the Per-
slams have been cutting off their trees,
and diminishing their rainfall there.
by. Nay, not only has the removal
of the forests decreased the supply,
but it has wasted whatever rain fell.
For the roots of the trees, and of all
the innumerable shrubs and bushes
and vines and ferns that thrive in
their shadow, keep the ground open
and held the water in countless natu
raj wells for the use of the soil in
droughts. But all the underground
dying when its protecting forests were
felled, the scanty showers percolated
into the streams at once, causing rare
floods and frequent droughts. The
droughts yielded no harvests, and no
barvests were followed by pestileDce,
famine and death. Now, for three
years no rain has fallen on the blis-
tered fields, and nation apparently
is dying. The very first drought was
the kindly warning Of Heaven against
the violation of natural laws. Men
were too needless or too ignorant to
accept it; and the sins of the fathers
are to-day visited on the children not
in the vengeance of an awful Power,
but in the discipline OF relentless law.
Is not this a Providence so serutable
that he who runs may read i?
When, in Chicago, a nights fire
undid generations toll, spreading
misery and death broadcast, was that
horror in the least degree inexplica-
ble? Every man who, within thirty
years, had put upa wooden house in
a city whose familiar breeZes were
gales. and whose gales were hurri-
canes, solicited that rain of fire. They
who, hasting to be rich, fell into the
snare of cheap and dangerous bull
dings, digged, every man, pit for
his neighbours feet as well as for his
own. The inscrutable aspect of the
was that it had not come
years before. And the providential les
son would seem to be that laws of
matter are laws of God, and cannot
be violated with impunity.
When the earthquake wellnigh
swallowed up Peru, five or six years
ago, men stood aghast at the mysteli-
Ous dispensation. But Heaven has
not only always declared that tropical
countries are liable to earthquakes.
but had taught the Peruvians through
of years to expect two earth
ldakes in a century, travelling in
cycles from forty to sixty years apart.
The citizens of Africa have not only
this general instruction, but that spe-
cial warning which Nature always
gives. A great light appeared to the
southeast. Hollow sounds were
heard The dogs, the goats, even the
swine, foresaw the evil, and hid them
But the simple men passed
on and were punished.
Before the Alpine freshets come the
streams are coffee-colored. Even the
of the tropics, which are
in their swoOp, so plain
" announce themselves to old sailors,
hat they reef sails and save ship and
life, while only the needless PERISH
The simeon gives such certain and in
warnings that the caravan is
safe if it be wary.
Herculaneum and Pompeii were
built too far up the mountain. And
that the builders knew quite as well
IS the excavators of the splendid ruins
know 1t now. But they chose 10 take
he risk. And to-day their cheerful
gather their needless vim
age and sit beneath their perilous
vines still nearer to the deadly crater.
st. Petersburg has been three times
and after each most fatal
professions filled the streets
and masses were said to propitiate the
mysterious anger Of God. Peter the
Great, who built the city, was thesue-
lessor of Canute. He ordered the Gulf
IF Kronstadt to retire, and then set
Town his capital in the swamps of the
verge of the Neya. Whenever the
liver breaks up with the spring-foods
he trembling citizens are at the sea
n a bowl. Only three times has the
BOWL broken, so much money and