The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-10-24
VOL. VIII.
WHAT A GREAT PREACHER z
SAYS ABOUT

Rev. Fl. G. Morrison. pastor of the
Broadway Methodist Church, is q
preacher of great learning and elo-
quence. Last Sunday he preached a ser
mop, having for his text Luke xiii, 4 /:
Or those eighteen upon whom the
tower in Sloan felt and slew them,
think ye that they were sinners above
all men that dwelt at Jerusalem
We cannot print all that Is said
by DR.. Morrisos, but enough to
show that many of the wisest
and best people of the churches
concur with the STATESMAN in think
ing that Gods eternal, immutable laws
govern the universe that the sun went
down on the days of miracles when the
Apostles were no more, and that
providence" intervened not in intro
duciug or putting a period to the
ravages of the plague in the Valley OF
the Mississippi. DIR. Morrison says the
distress fastened upon the suffering
people is not scourge but calamity.
A scourge, he tells us,
Implies the idea of sin, and the
direct, intelligent and inst punishment
for that sin. As in The case of the
cleansing of the temple, Jesus made the
scourge himself, and with it il his up
lifted hand he scourged and drove out
the money changers" Then to call
this the scourge / must see the same
hand uplifted and threshIng that land :;
not only Staying the first born" in
house, but staying whole families, and
leaving the silent walls TO stand as
monuments of his fearful dealing with
these who dwelt therein. Such pic
ture / do not see. Such cannot see.
While the people of the South are sin
ners, yet we may not call them sinners
above all Others, nor even sinners above
those who dwell in our own city.
This cannot be God wreaking ven
geance or iDhicting suffering otherwise
He would strike-as He did in the tenn
ple-the vile and spare the pure. He
would not strike a 'Slater" or Ian
drum as they pray with dying sinners,
nor paralyze the pen of a BLEW"
when his letters were a weekly blessing
to the children of the land.
It is not q scourge but a calamity:
Webster defines public calamity in
these words: "a somewhat continued
distress arising from natural causes"
Such is the fever in the South. 1t is
natural and invariable result, that when
there is sufficient quantity of decom-
posing animal or vegetable matter, lo-
Gated in latitude where the heat is
sufficiently intense, and this state of
things continued for sufficient time,
the result is the production of the elo-
ments of disease, and that without any
regard to the moral character of those
who inhabit the place. These cond!-
tions existing on the Southern coast,
nature did her work, and the result is
the epidemic; and the same result
would have followed had every soul iD
these cities been q saint; nor would
the consequences have been different
if there had not been Christian IN all
that land.
1t will be observed that this D. D.
talks like man of practical as we'll as
inspired good sense when he says that
''the disease that is killing its hun
dred per day is no more a direct
judgment from God than is the dipthe-
ria that takes the infant from its moth
er hare, or consumption that takes the
mother from her infant"
With nature and God before us, we
see, says the minister, the two fields
for science aud prayer. Science and
religion are twin brothers-sons of
God-and when they disagree it is
simply because they do not understand
each other.