News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-03-13
THE VOICE OF THE FLOODS.
AN INTERVIEWING SERMON PREACHED
AT THE BROOKLYN TABERNACLE.
DIR. Talmage FxpOunds the Lessons of the
Western Freshets.

In the Brooklyn Tabernacle, DIR. Tai
mage's sermon Sunday was devoted to
the calamity in the Ohio valley and the
moral lessons TO be derived from it. His
text was from Psalms, xciii.-"The
floods have lifted mp their voice"
"The rivers of America" said DR.. Tai
mage. care its pride. Far back in the
ages the Allegheny and the Monongahela
| Ohio. which soon outgrew its parentage.
Ordinarily one of the gentlest of rivers,
it pronounces its silent henedict1on upon
the whole continent. But some demon
of devastation now. as last year. seems
to have possessed it. With hands he
soiled and wrathful it clutches for the
farms and vineyards till the whole land
| hears the wailing and the Shrek THE
floods have lifted up their voice.
"Mv first lesson is the mercilessness
of natural forfes and the dead failure of
natural religion. Men in our times say
nature is enough. There is no need Of
| divine revelation. But what of the Ohio
| floods? No mercy in them. They
whelm n human life with no more com
miseration than they float log of a saw
| mill. The sun will shine as brightly
along the Ohio on the graves of this ter
rihle calamity as if there had been no
hearthreak along all the silent waters.
Nature can smite and can PROSTATE. but
1t cannot pity. IF all the Ohio sufferers
had kneeled in the mud and prayed,
| their only answer would have been con-
t1nued plash of rain and continued CUR
gle of waters. The world wants more
than a religion of flowers. One religion
offers better riches than the floods can
capture-the old religion, which works
as we'll to-day along the banks of the
| Ohio as it ever worked along the Jordan.
Natural religion is good foundation fol
| revealed religion, but what poor
shelter is mere foundation when the
floods come would not give five
cent nickel for all the comfort of all the re-
| ligions that were ever Matched out of the
human skull We want religion thai
can calmly ride midnight tempest.
"Another lesson of the Ohio overflow
is that our advantages may turn out Il
he our disaster. Lands are more valua
BILE near the rivers. So there are grea
rivers of prosperity on which men bDild
When they overflow their useful chan
nels thew wbelm the land with destruc
tion. Half of the United States TO-DAY
is inundated with monopolistic freshets
| When these vast rivers of worldly gains
break emhankments the nation suffers
There are men gathering up all the trib
utaries of wealth and are asking fo
more. After while they begin to swell
and they gulp down farms by foreclosur,
and creditors who cannot pay. and the7
swallow the result of Wall street pani
or a corner in wheat, and they swallow
and swallow and swallow and swell anC
swell and swell. They are great river
of social. moral and financial damnation
rolling through the land. Let us keel
in our proper channels and not tnrn on
capacity to help carry the worlds bur
dens into destru ctive inundation.
''Another lesson of the floods is tina
great calamities are in our time no sigl
of divine displeasure. There are NJ
more moral people ON earth than man,
of those put ont of fortune or life b,
this Ohioan submergence. The churche
went under as well as the warehouses
There are hundreds of places invitin,
the divine judgments which were neve
washed of TnexOrable wave. IF Brook
Ign and New York had been punishe,
for all their sins the Hudson and Eas
River would now stand higher than th
piers of the bridge and blue fish wouI
he holding carnival in our dining hall
and pantr1es.
"Another lesson of this destruction
that repetitinus misfortune is hard t.
bear. The foods last year, and now thi
wear A duplicate of wretcheduess
There is no better or safer place TO liv
than on the banks of the. Ohio. Let u
nv outrushipg charities from all parts o
the land make it possible for these home
less people to stay there. You say, 6
helped them last year and cannot always
be helping them. So God fed yorl las
wear and the year before that. But
He should drop YOU next year becaus
He helped you this, yonr earthly resi-
dence would be very much abbreviated
Besides that, it would be well to get
divine insurance for ourselves. That in
surance, backed up by all the resources
of the universe, will never fail to NEE
| its Obligation