The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-09-30
GODS pRoy1DENcEs IN MATURE.

GODS PROYIDENCES IN MATURE.
A Sermon Preached byl..Rev. John b
Adger,sD.p., in::thelPresbyterian Church
In Pendleton, on Sunday the 9TH dayIos
useptember, 1886.
"Lord, in trouble have they visited thee;
they poured out prayer when thy chas'
tening was upon them. ISAIAH XVI: 16.
Doubtless in this very community not
a few people, white and black, "visited
the Lord" last Tuesday night about ten
o'clock; but in Charleston where the
Christening was so dreadfully severs, the
people really poured out'' their prayers
to the Almighty. The very air, it is said,
was filled with:the cries and shrieks Of
terrified women and .children. From
every side,wereEheard the supplicatious: !:
"God, save us, God, have mercy upon
u.s." Says one who was present that
night in the city, and also in the terrific
scenes of twenty-five years ago: "These
cries of anguish and distress made it
worse than the worst battle of the war;"
On that night 1--WE ready did devout Cath.
olics reverently kneel and repeat appro.
pirate prayers, while Protestants, also,
kneeled and asked Gods mercy. Prayer
meetings were improvised, and at many
q street corner could be seen kneelipg
groups of all ages and conditions, suppl.
eating the Almighty to grant them mercy
and protection in that hour Of danger.
And how natural and suitable this was.
It has been we'll said, that hardly any
phenomenon of nature is so apt to i'm
press the mind with terror as an earth
quake. It's sudden, dreadful, unlimited
effects leave no remedy and no refuge to
the frightened victims. What can be
more alarming than the apprehension
that your house is falling down upon
your head, or that the ground beneath
your feet is opening to swallow you up
alive? One who was in the midst of the
Charleston earthquake, and had also
known the terrors Of the cyclone there,
said he would rather encounter many
cyclones than one earthquake.
There is no country upon this globe,
whether continent or island, and there
is no sea or ocean, which is not more or
less subject to earthquakes. The one we
have just experienced seems to have
shaken a large part of the American
continent, extending from Boston to
Chicago and from Canada to Florida.
The histories of all times record an i'm.
mense series of earthquakes which has
hardly left month or week, or even q
single day unmarked somewhere by de-
vastation. The polar regions of the
South have had these agitations. Kam-
schatka and Iceland know them we'll.
Japan has been very liable to them. In
Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and
North Africa they have been very fire..
quent in all ages. In Spain, too, and
France and Germany they have pre-
vailed, and they have not been unknown
in England and Scotland. Switzerland
has often suffered. South America has
had many of these visitations. The Is.
lands of Jamaica, the Caribbees, the
Azores, the Philippines, and the Moluc'
cas have been peculiarly liable. 1t has
been generally held that the tropical re.
gions of the earth are the most exposed,
but the higher latitudes have not been
exempt. California has been very liable
to earthquakes. In 1855 there was q
fearful one in Massachusetts,, and there
have been numerous others in the New
England States. In 1911 the United
States generally were visited with ter
rible earthquake-especially and for a
long time felt in the Mississippi valley;
and the town of New Madrid, in Missouri,
was absolutely destroyed.
But the most tremendous earthquakes
of modern times have been those of Lis
bon, in Portugal, where in 1865 some
10000 people persisted; and those of
Calabria, in the kingdom of Naples,
which in 17S3-'S6 destroyed 1000 per-
sons.
Even your slight experience of earth
quake in these upland regions, you have
found very fearful, but from Charleston
they write, "all our confidence in the
solid earth is gone." There has never,
perhaps, visited that city-that historical
city, so dear to US all, which has passed
through many trials-any calamity to be
compared with this. The whole of this
broad land is moved at her distresses.
Men in all these States stand sghast at
this most fearful convulsion.
The chapter from which the text is
taken refers with some fulness to Gods
judgments in the earth-those tremend-
GUS manifestations wherewith He often
exhibits His hand amongst men. That
the Almighty does deal in judgment here
and now with nations for their sins, and
also with families and individuals, the
Scriptures plainly leclare. If national
sins are not visited now and here, it
would seem that they go uppunished,
since the nations, as such, are not to ex-
ist hereafter. But that any particular
visitation of Divine providence suffered
by individuals, families, or community,
or whole people is sent by God as a
judgment upon them for sins is subject
respecting which we should be very care
full what we say or think. 1t is not here
or now that God deals with men &C.
cording to their conduct; for that work
He has appointed the day Of Judgment:
It is not for us to pronounce any opinion
concerning the mysteries of Providence.
Our Saviour expressly rebuked those
who undertook thus to expound certain