The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-24
The Building Crowded by Vast Audience.
Comprising Many of the Leading Citizens
of Scotland's Historic Capital.
The Preacher Demonstrates that Disas.
ter and Blessing Go Hand in Hand,
And that Calamities and Blessings Come
Alike from the Almighty, Who Controls
and Directs all Things.
Decial to the Indianapolis Journal.

EDINBURG, Aug. 23.-Dr Talmage delivered
sermon on "The Wonders of These Times" this
morning in the Synod Hall, Edinburg, to an
immense audience, which comprised large pro-
portion of the leading people Of the city and sur
rounding places. Upward of 10000 people were
present, and great difficulty was experienced in
securing access to the hall. After preaching in
doors, DR.. Talmage delivered a sermon in the
street. The discourse indoors was heard with
the utmost interest. The opening hymn begins
with the lines: Jesus shall reign where'er the
sum-" Mr.. Talmages Scripture lesson was taken
from the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, the
passage having reference to the second coming
of Christ. He took for his text: II will show
wonders in the heavens and in the EARTH" Joel
H. 80. The following is full report of the SER
mon delivered:
Our eyes diate and our heart quickens its
pulsation as we read of events in the third CEN
tury. the sixth century, the eighth century, the
fourteenth century but there are more far
reaching events crowded into tie nineteenth
century than into any other, and the last quarter
bids fair to eclipse the preceding three quarters.
We read in the daily newspapers of events an
nounced in one paragraph and without any
especial emphasis-of events which Herodotus,
a Josephus, Xenophon, Gibbon would have
taken whole chapters whole volumes to elabo-
ate. Looking out upon our time we must cry
out in the words of the text Wonders in the
heavens and in the earth"
propose to show you that the time in which
we live is wonderful for disaster and wonderful
for blessing, for there must be lights and shades
in this picture, as in all others. Need L argue
this day that time is wonderful for disasters
Our world has had rough time since by the
hand of God it was bowled out into space. 1t is
is an epileptic earth: Convulson after convul-
sion. Frosts pounding it with sledge hammer Of
iceberg, and fires melting with furnaces seven
hundred times heated. 1t is wonder to it
has lasted so long Meteors shooting by on this
side and grazing it, and meteors shooting by on
the other side and grazing it, none OF them slow
ing up for safety Whole fleets, and navies, and
argosies and fotillas of worlds sweeping all
about u.s. Our earth. like fishing smack off the
banks of Newfoundland while the Galia, and
the Bothnia, and the Arizona, and the Great
Eastern rush by. Besides that, our world has by
sin been damaged in its internal machinery, and
ever and anon the furnaces have burst, and the
walking beams of the mountains have broken.
hulk of the world has been Jared with accidents
that ever and anon threatened immediate demoli-
ton. But it seems to me as if our century
were specially characterized by disasters vol
canc, cyclonic oceanic, epidemic. I say volcanic,
because an earthquake is only volcano hushed
up. When Stromboli, and Cotopaxi, and Vesu-
vius stop breathing, let tie foundations of the
earth beware. Seven thousand earthquakes in
two centuries recorded in the catalogue of the
British association. Trajan, the emperor, goes to
ancient Antioch, and amid the spendors of his
reception is met by earthquake that nearly
destroys the emperor's life lisbon. fair and
beautiful, at l O'clock the 1st of November,
1855, in six minutes $4,000 have perished, and
Votaire writes of them: For that region il
was the last judgment, nothing wanting but a
trumpet! Europe and America feeling the
throb fifteen hundred chimneys in Boston par
TALLY or fully destroyed.
CoUNTERPARTs OF MODERN DISASTERS.
But the disasters of other centuries have had
their counterpart in our own In 1872 Caracas
was caught in the grip Of the earthquake; in
1922, in Chilli, 100,0 900 square miles of land, by
volcanic force, upheaved to four and seven feet
of permanent elevation; in 1854 Japan felt the
geological agony; Naples shaken in 1857
Mexico in 1858; Medosa, the capital Of the Argen-
tine Republic in 1861; Manila terrorized in 1868;
the Hawaiian Islands, by such force, uplifted and
let down in 1871; Nevada shaken in 1871;
Antioch in 1872; California in 1872 San Salvador
in 1873 in 1883 what subterranean excitements!
Ischa, an island of the Mediterranean, a beauti-
full Italian watering place, vineyard clad,
ad hIya atl1pal alrha nd al
iniscence; yonder, Capri the summer resort Of
the Roman emperors; yonder, Naples, the para
disc of art-ths beautiful island suddenly top
pied into the trough of the earth. 5000 merry
makers perishing, and some Of them so far
down beneath the reach of human obsequles
that it may be said of many one of them, as
it was SAID of Moses, 1.-The Lord buried him.
Italy weeping, all Europe weeping all Christen
dom weeping where there are hearts to sympa-
thize and Christians to pray. But while the
nations were measuring that magnitude of dis
aster--measurng it not with golden rod like
with which the angel measured heaven, but
with the black rule of death-Java, of the
Indian archipelago, the most fertile is
land of all the EARTH is caught in
the grip of the earthquake, and mountain after
mountain goes down, and city after city, until
that island, which produces the healthiest bev-
erage of all the world, has produced the ghast-
lest accident of the century One hundred
thousand people dying, dying, dead, dead
But look at the disasters cyclonic At the
mouth of the Ganges are three islands-the
Haitian, the Sundeep and the Dakn Shabaz-
pore. In the midnight of October, 1877, on all
those three islands the cry was, 1.-THE waters,
the waters" cyclone arose and rolled
the sea over those three islands,
and of q population of $4,000, 2lo'VVt