Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-02-20
THE VOICE OF THE FLOODS.
DIR. Talmage Expounds the Lessons of
the Western Floods

In the Brooklyn Tabernacle Monday
says the New York Herald of the 18th inst.
will be received contributions of food anf
garments for the sufferers by the great
floods in the West. The whole congrega
tion are bestirring themselves in aid Of
the afflicted districts under the inspira.
tlon OF DIR. Talmage. His sermon Sunday
was devoted to the calamity and the
moral lesson to be derived from it. His
text was from Psalms, zciii.-s'The floods
have lifted up their voice.
1.-The rivers of America said DIR. Tai
mage, "are its pride. Far back in the
/ ages the Allegheny and the Monongabela
/ were married. Their one child was tbe
/ ONO, which soon Outgrew its parentare
+ ordinarily one of the gentlest of rivers. il
/ pronounces its silent benedictiOn upon
/ the whole continent. But some demon of
( devastation now, as last year. seems 10
| have possessed it. With hands besOiled
/ and wrathful it clutches for the farms
and vineyards till the whole land hears
/ the Walling and the shriek The floods
have lifted up their voice.
My first lesson is the mercilessness of
natural forces and the dead failure of
natural religion Men in our times say
nature is enough. There is no
what Of the Ohio floods? No
mercy in them. They whelm a human
life with no more commiseration than
they float log of a saw mill. The sun
Will shine as brightly along the Ohio on
the graves of this terrible calamity as if
there had been no heartbreak along all the
silent waters. Nature can smite and can
prostrate, but 1t cannot pity. If all the
ONO sufferers had kneeled in the mud and
DrAVDn their bnr
been continued plash of rain and coDtin-
ued gurgie of waters. The world wants
more than religion of flowers. One re-
HglOn offers better riches than the floods
can capture-the old religion which works
as well today along the banks of the Ohio
as IL ever worked along the Jordan. Nat
ufal religion is good foundation for re-
Fealed religion, but what a poor shelter is
mere foundation when the floods come.
L would not give a five cent nickel for ali
the comfort OF all the religions that were
ever Matched out of the human skull. We
want a religion that can calmly ride a
midnight tempest.
Another lesson of the Ohio overflow is
tnat our advantages may turn out to be
our disaster. Lands are more valuable
near the rivers. So there are great rivers
OF prosperity on which men build. When
they overflow their useful channels they
whelm the land with destruction. Half
OF the United States to-day is inundated
with mOnOpOlistic freshets. When these
vast rivers OF worldly gains break en-
DahkmentS the nation suffers. There are
men gathering up all the tributaries of
wealth and are asking for more. After a
While they begin to swell, and they gulp
down farms by foreclosure and creditors
VINO cannot pay, and they swallow the
result OF Wall street panic or a corner
III wheat, and they swallow and swallow
and swallow, and swell and swell and
swell. They are great rivers of social
moral and financial damnation rolling
through the land. Let us keep in our
proper channels, and not turn our capac-
lty to help carry the worlds burdens into
destructive inundation.
Another lesson of the floods is that
great calamities are in our time no sign
OF divine dlspleasure. There are no more
moral people on earth than many of those
put out OF fortune or life by this OhiOan
submergence. The churches went under
as well as the warehouses. There are
hundreds of places inviting the divine
judgments which were never washed of
ineXOrable wave. If BROOKLYN and New
York had been punished for all their sins
the Hudson and the East river would now
stand higher than the piers of the bridge
ana Dluehsh would be holding carnival in
our dining halls and pantries.
Another lesson of this destruction is
that repetitiOus misfortune is hard to
bear. The floods last year, and now this
year! y duplicate of wretchedness!
There is no better or safer place to live
than on the banks of the Ohio. Let us.
by outrushing charities from all parts of
the land make it possible for these home
less people to stay there. You say Il
helped them last year and 1 cannot al
ways be helping them So God ted YOU
last year and the year before that. But
II lie should drop you next year because
lie helped you this your earthly residence
would be very much abbreviated. Be-
sides that. it would be well to get divine
insurance for ourselves. That insurance
backed up by all the resources of the uni
verse, will never fail to meet its obliga-
tion-1 q