The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-09-13
LESSON OF THE EARTHQUAKE.


Rev Augustine Prentiss. former resident Of
Charleston, preached at Grace Cathedral, yes
terday morning, on ''The Lesson of the Earth
quake" taking as his text: For we have no
continuing city" Hebrews. xiii, H.
He said: 1T was the year GA A D. The
apostles were scattered to the four corners OF
the earth The great apostle to the Rentiles
lay in prison at Rome Two cities divided the
dominion of the known world between them.
Rome was mistress of the secular; Jerusalem OF
the religious world. The worldly pride of Rome
found exact expression in the term by which she
styled herself, The Eternal City, Jerusalem,
The City of the Great King From his prison
cell In the former, doubtless. the man who had
turned the world upside down was writing
letter to the inhabitants of the former.
This sentence, For here we have no
continuing city was not only the enunciation Of
a religious principle, but the prophecy of
coming event 1t was but six years before full
fillment OF the terrible doom pronounced by the
Messiah upon the great city. If there was one
thing beyond all others that the Jews deemed
impossible, it was the destruction of Jerusalem
1t was the city of God But in six years it was
heap of ruins, and an unclean Roman drove
plow over the charred ruin Of the glorious city.
To those Christians who escaped to the mount
destruction must have beenl
There Is in man an inherent tendency to trust
in earthly things that is well nigh ineradicable-
Especially is this so when that thing is venera-
BILE through age and hallowed by sacred associa
tions. Nothing but some terrible catastrophe
can startle men into a realization of the insta
bility and insecurity of everything earthly. Such
catastrophe has just befallen the venerable and
beautiful city by the sea- No city in the
country offers so striking a parallel to Jerusa
lem as Charleston. No one who has not been
raised there can form any conception
of the pride and devotion of its
people: =, There Is cs an old SAYING
where he will or live where he please. he comes
back to Charleston to die To write her history
is to tell the romance and the glory Of this Ma
ton. In her church yards repose che bones of
patriarchs and around her churches cluster ten
thousand sacred associations. She has endured
three sieges by the most powerful naval arma
ments the world has ever seem The last terri
bic siege is the longest on record except Troy.
Fort Sumter has never lowered her colors to an
enemy but once, and that to her own sons. The
city of the cavalier and Huguenot gave form and
highest expression to that peculiar civiliza-
ton that once dominated the South.
She was to South Carolina wha:
civilization and influence have dominated
in the affairs of this Nation, and her sons have
filed the highest positions of trust and honor in
all professions. To-day the first lawyer in
her sons She has had the only graded nobility
in this country; and the only dictator on this
continent was her son. She dared to defy
nation and nullify the acts OF Congress. But
her desperate daring reached it climax, and the
world was electrified with horror when, on Dec
20, 1860 the ordinance of secession shook this
Nation to its center. Storms and cyclones have
swept over her, the oceans waters have sub
merged her. CONGREGATIONS have destroyed,
yellow fever has decimated, wars have shattered,
to yield to any fate her children
have wept, and worked have torn down
and rebuilt stood as boy and saw the flames
that burned down half the city. have seen the
unmatched horrors that followed the last war,
when for sixteen years the war did not cease in
Charleston. have my friends shot down
by my side in the shadow of old st. Mchaels,
. and that in 1876 In 1860 Charleston the
wealthiest city in the United States, and domi-
mated the commerce of the South. Her sons
were princes and her daughters queens. But
from that fatal day, Dec. 20, 1860 the star of
her glory began to wane
And now Charleston, the venerable, the
beautiful, is fallen! In moment, in the
twinkling of an eye,' the city that defed ma
ton and conquered fate is mass of ruins. Men
will take her sorrow ito point moral
or adorn q tale Many are the lessons men will
teach. Some will think that it is but poetic
justice that she who proudly once scorned a
tons dignity should now sue for that nations
sympathy; she who showered shot and shell on
tons coin. 1t is a fact too significant to ignore
that event in the last twenty five years, not
even the death of President Garfield, has so
drawn out the national instinct or emphasized
the oneness of this people. Nothing has touched
the national heart, nothing has called forth the
national feeling, nothing has shown the reality
of the Union the Charleston earthquake
has done You may find poetic jus
tice in this. prefer to emphasize
that sweet truth that it is only in the night of
human sorrow that the star of human sympathy
can shine / remember years ago sitting in that
Southern home, now in ruins. at evening as the
sun was setting, and watching the beautiful
California evening glory unfold their petals.
In the daytime they look like pieces OF dirty
damp cotton, being shriveled up and closed bat
as as the sun begins to set the ugly shriv
eled knots begin to unfold into large, beautiful
flower, which exhales a most delicious odor-
lading the air and sleeping the senses in fra
GRANGE. Such is the human heart, shut up and
shriveled with selfshness, while the sun of
prosperity shines, but unfolding and exhaling
the fragrance of sympathy In the night Of sor
row.
1.-THE one lesson above all others which this
sad catastrophe teaches is the insecurity and I'M
certainty Of all things human 1t seems that
nothing but such catastrophes starsle men
into serious thought and make them apprehend
the faulty of anchoring our hopes to anything
earthly. They will rebuild their city. OF that
you may be sure. Those men are uncomouera-
ble They defy fate itself. Not even an earth
quake will conquer them / know their blood.
believe In my soul that this is but the darkest
hour before the dawn of that brighter day when,
with fossilism and barharism buried in the past
the spirit of the nineteenth century will domi
nate in Charleston as it does elsewhere. Moth
ing but an earthquake could wake Charleston
from its medieval dream. | believe that her
warfare is accomplished, that she will rise, phoe-
nix like, out of the ashes OF her disaster on the
wings of American energy and modern enter
prise. God grant, But whatever be the future
0f hnr hie -
fixed IN our hearts-that here we have no contin-
uing city"