The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-24

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you may never one. l saw one on the
ocean, and it swept us eight hundred miles back
from our course and for thirty six hours during
the cyclone and after it we expected every mo-
ment to go to the bottom. They told us before
we retired at o'clock. that the barometer had
fallen, but st II o'clock at night we were
awakened with the shock of the waves. All the
lights out Crash! went all the life boats
waters rushing through the skylights down
into the cabin. and down on the furnaces until
they Kissed and smoked in the deuge. Seven
hundred people praying, Disappearing shrek
ing Our great ship poised q moment on the
top of a mountain of phosphorescent fire. and
then plunged down, down, down, until it seemed
as if she never would again be righted. An;
you never want to a cyclone at sea. But
was in Minnesota, where there was one OF those
cyclones on land that swept the city of Roches-
ter from It's foundations, and took dwelling
houses, barns, men, women, children, horses,
cattle, and tossed them into indiscrlmnate
ruin, and lifted a rail train and dashed 1t
down-a mightier hand than that of the engineer
on the air brake. Cyclone in Kansas, cyclone
in Missouri, cyclone in Wisconsin. cyclone in
Illinois. cyclone in Iowa. Satan, prince of the
power of the air. never made such cyclonic dis
turbance as he has in our day And am not
right in saying that one Of the characteristics of
the time in which we live is disaster cvclonic2
But look at the disasters oceanic Shall | call
the roll of the dead shipping! Ye monsters of
the deep answer when | call your names: Vile
de Havre, the Schiller! City of Boston. the Mel
should | 90 calling the roll when none Of
them answer, and the roll is long as the
white scroll Of the Atlantic surf at Cape Hat
teras breakers! If the oceanic cables could
report all the scattered life, and all the bleached
bones that they rub against in the depths of
the ocean, what message of pathos and tragedy
for both beaches. Eighty fishermen persisted off
the coast Of Newfoundland, and whole fleets of
them off the coast of England. God help the
poor fellows at sea, and give high seats in heaven
TO the Grace Dar!ings and the Ida Lewlses and
the hfeboatmen lowering around Goodwlns
Sands and the Skerries. The sea, owning three
fourths Of the earth, proposes TO capture the
other fourth, and is bombardng the land all
around the earth. The Dead Sea rolls to-day
where ancient cities stood. Pillars of temples
that stood on hills biologists find now three
quarters under the water, or altogether sub
merged. The sea, having wrecked so many
merchantmen and fotillas, wants to wreck the
continents, and hence disasters oceanic
Look at the disasters epidemic. | speak not
of the plague in the fourth century that ravaged
Europe; and in Moscow, and the Neapoitan
dominons, and Marseilles wrought such terror
In the eighteenth century: but | look at the
yellow fevers and the chOleras, and the diphthe
rias and the scarlet fevers, and the typhoIds Of
our own time. Hear the waling of Memphis
and Shreveport and New Orleans, and Savan-
nah of the last two decades. From Hurdwar,
India, where every twelfth year three million
devotees congregate, the caravan brought the
cholera, and that one disease slew $4,000 in
eighteen days in Bossorah; IL. 900 slain by it in
India, and $4,000 in Egypt Disasters epidemic.
Some OF the finest monuments in Greenwood,
and Laurel Hill, and Mount Auburn to doc
tors who lost their lives battling with Southern
epidemic.
ANOTHER LEAF IN THE SUBJECT.
But now | turn the leaf in nay subject and
plant the white lilies, and the palm tree amid
the nightshade and the myrtle. This age is no
more characterized by wonders Of disaster than
by wonders of blessing. Blessing Blessing of
longevity: The average of human life rapidly
increasing. Forty years now, four hundred
years once. The average of human life prac
tically greater than when Noah lived
his $50 years and Methuselah lived
his 500 years. Blessing of intelligence: The
Salmon P. Chases. and the Abraham Lincolns,
and the Henry Wilson's of the coming times will
not be required to read by pine knot lights, or
seated on Shoemakers bench, nor will the Fergu
sons have to study astronomy while watching
the cattle. knowledge rolls its tides along
every poor mans door, and his children may go
down and battle in them. If the philosophers
of the last century were called up to recte in a
class with our boys at school, those old philos-
ophers would be sent down to the foot of the
class because they failed to answer the ques
tons Historical alcoves, and poetic shelves,
and magazine tables for all that de
sire to walk through them or sit down
at them. Blessings of quick Information:
Newspapers falling all around us thick as leaves
In a September equlnoctial News three days
old rancid and stale We see the whole world
twice day-throuSh the newspaper at the
breakfast-tabe and through the newspaper at
the tea table, with extra" here and there
between.
Blessing of gospel proclamation: Do you not
know that nearly all the missionary societies
have been born in this century! and nearly all
the Bible societies. and nearly all the great
philanthropc movements A secretary of one of
the denominations said to me in Dakota ~ GU
We ayUpOr hph aid NOlJna tInp
averaged new church every day of the year.
they established nine in one week, so you are far
within the truth" A clergyman of our own
denomination said Il have just been out
establishing five mission stations" [ tell you
Christianity is on the march, while inhdelity is
,iwindling into imbecilty; that was demonstrated
recently in one of the American cities where
after the blowing of the trumpets and the gath
erng of all the clans there assembled a small
group of semi-idiots to denounce the Christian
religion and eulogize of their dead patrons,
libertine, arrested in New York and Boston
again ana again for scattering obscene literature
that dead man the patron saint of the whole
movement While in6delity is thus dwindng
and dropping down into imbecility and indecency,
the wheel of Christianity is making about a
thousand revolutions in a minute. All the
copies of Shakespeare, and Tennyson, and Dis
raeli, and of any ten or the most popular writers
of the day, less in number than the copies of the
Bible going out from our printing presses. Two
years ago, in six weeks, more than two million
copies Of the New Testament purchased not
given away, but purchased because the world
will have it.
More Christian men in high official position
to-day in Great Britain and in the United States
than ever before. Stop that falsehood going
through the newspapers-I have it in
twenty-that the judges of the Supreme Court
of the United States all Infidels except Judge
Strong BY personal acquaintance 1 know
three of them to be old fashioned evangelical
Christians, sitting at the holy sacrament of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and l suppose that the
majority of them are stanch believers in our
Christian religion. And then hear the dying
words of Judge Black-a man who had been
Attorney general of the United States, and who
had been Secretary of the United
States, no stronger lawyer of the
century than Judge Black-dying, his
aged wife kneeling by his side, and he
,1ttarinn that snhlima and ranAar nrnron. 20