The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-01-26

not be accounted by the world at large as
an event of great magnitude, but it is one
of appalling interest to us. When brought
along side of disasters, which have occurred !
elsewhere, both by land and sea and which
are yet fresh in our memories, it dimnishes |
even in our own eyes very materially in
the extent of its desolations. so the poo
pie will judge. The newspapers will seize
upon the event as an item of staltling in
tercst, and the jostling crowds will read of
it, as they do of similar calamities with q
momcntary shudder, and then, accounting
the event as matter Of course in the wear
and tear of human things. pass it by and
think of il no more.
But this is not our estimate of the Gala
nifty. Visible before our eyes, and taking
hold Of our hearts, and filling SO many
homes with dcsolaion, we feel that it has
come, not to give us Il transient shock, but
to continue among Us as an abiding vsi-
tant. There are forms of grief which we
often speak OF as those we can ouilivc ; but
there is grief in many Il home among us
which its inmates can survive, only as they
survive the days of the years of their
earthly pilgrimage Time may come in
with healing balsams. and daily toll and
care may divert the mind intercourse
with the busy world may blunt the poig-
nancy of grief but in many n heart there
will abide a sense of crushed hopes n
grief which will weigh upon the spirits like
! lead. and for which no earthly antilote
can be found. The loss of property is not
/ lat ;n,1
cover it the structure demolished by the
flames, can rise again from the debris bu-
sness resume its merry hum, and the
apartments be filled again rs heretofore
they We're, with the joys of honest and re-
munerativc industry, but by what human
efforts or economy can we recover the dead
or assuage the grief of the living There
is loss therefore in this calamity which is
irreparable in the presence of which we
are compelled to stand awe struck, and in
revercnt silence except as we look up to
thank our God that II was no greater.
This last utterance | hope will strike
none of you with surprise. as though it I'M
worthily implicated God in the event. To
be grateful to Him that the catastrophe was
no greater Is to imply that the agency that
meted its bounds might have avertcd it al
together. And this am in haste to affirm
God could have prevented the calamity,
but did not; He permitted it to take place
and guaged its dimensions. In this sense
God is Its author. To miss this acknow-
ledgment or to fail to apprehcnd this truth.
would be to lose the great lesson which
God intends to impart in tic aiiliction, and
to call loudly for its repetition. "Shall
there be evil in city AMI the Lord hath
not done it ~ In Portland, in Chicago, in
Boston. in the NorWllk railroad catastro-
phe, in the fall of the Pembcrton mills,
now, on smaller scale but in reality,
in the midst of us; tell you, nay. God
is the author OF our sorrow. We believe
in God we do well, and let us also be-
lieve in His Providence. There Is no evil
among us to be accounted for atheistically,
by cold and heartlcss appeal to the revo-
lutions of natural law. Our God. who is
no abstraction. but an Infinite Person. and
whom we call rightly our Father He it
is, who is the author of nature, who ante
dates nature, and is above nature who
makes her an organ through which He
acts, all of whose laws are His mandates
and accomplish His bidding and which at
their best estate care only parts of His
ways" Such being His supremacy over
Nature, it is not difficult to see how He can
act supcrnaturally whenever in His infinite
wisdom He wishes to secure an event or a
series of events. which the ordinary pro
cfesee of nature would not evolve This
ae ' G 2tlep done in the history of His
upon us, Gods agency was not so much a
positive intervention. as it was a simple
permission. Had He supernaturllly inter
vened and through human intervention pre-
vented the leakage of gas which caused the
catastrophe, we should never have known
IT. Undoubtedly God is perpetualv inter-
tcrfcring in our bchafin instances of peril.
a fact which our ungratctul hearts are slow
to recognize. In this instance His wisdom
saw lit to let natural law take its course
Not to recognize God as exercising this
permssiye agency in the event before us,
would be calamity unspeakably greater
than the one we now bewail and silpcrin-
duce, ultimately, suffcrngs a thousand
fold more agonizing than those which now
wiring our nearts. God keep us, then.
IN this calamity, from an athe-
istlc mind God open our eyes that
we may so see his hand in it. that the IA
dant vision shall soothc the anguish it has
wrought. Texts of scripture are sometimes
wrested to the destruction of souls; an
equal if not greater ruin may accrue
from violent and self-willed perverslon of
Gods utterances in that scroll, fresh
dropped from heaven, which now unfolds
itself before our eyes, in that inky and
chalred spot in our village, where so many
hopes are laid in ashes 1t is not evolution
there. Perish the thought Let us not
even call it providence, except as we mean
God dealing with us in His providence. that
has caused this exceeding and awful ca
lamity. But advance to the thought that
the event we mourn, not only discoses
God to us, but God in an exercise of his
Fatherly discipline 1t is in reaching this
glad point that we bring forth the central
thought of passage in the text, and open
wide the gates OF the morning upon the
sorrowing gloom that invests us. 'Know
We the rod and who hath appointed it."
Our Father in dealing with us then en-
ploys the instrument of household disci-
pline; but He applies it not in caprice nor
IN passion, nor at random, but in strokes
which his wisdom has ''appointed"
Forget not the celebrations which
speateth unto you as unto children. NV
son despise not thou the Christening of the
Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of
ilim for whom the Lord loyeth He chast
eneth, and scourgeth every son whom He
receiveth." If We endure christening, God
dealeth with you as with sons. For what
son IS he whom the father chastencth not ?
But It we be without chastisement, where
OF al are partakers, then are we bastards |
and not sons. Furthermore we have
mad fathers of our flesh who corrected lis |
and we gave them reverence. "Shall we
not much rather be in subsection unto the |
father of spirits, and live? For they veri- |
~ for few days chastened us after their |
own pleasure, according to the measure |
OF their WISDOM, but for our profit, that |
we might be partakcrs Of His holiness. |
NOW no Christening for the present seemcth
TO be joyous but grcvOus nevertheless