St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-09-24
THE GOD OF PESTILENCE.
The Modern Safer Than the Old
Religious View.

Religious View.
The fever in the South led Rev. p. NJ.
Simmons, of the First Unitarian church,
to preach on pestilences. He said that
all such calamitieS used to be laid to
satan or to Divine Providence punish
ing some special sin; from Luther
teaching that the devil brought all
plaques and diseases, to Increase
Mather, who thought the bad harvests
one year were due to the low salaries
which the people were paying their
preachers. But to-day such theories
have gone among thinking men, and
pestIlenceS are seen to follow natural
laws, often to come from germs grow
ing just as naturally as weeds. l wish
to show how much better the latter
view is.
First, it is better because not so
frightful. Half the old terror came not
from the pestilence, but from the idea
that it was divine punishment. The
stricken one had to face not only death,
but the feeling that an angry God was
sending it, and would probably send
him to eternal torture after it. No one
can read of the old plaques without see
ing that this dread of demons, or of
deity about as bad, was one of the worst
factors in them.
SecOnd-The modern view is better,
because much safer. for that fear made
peStilences more fatal, and there was
much truth in the Eastern fable of the
plague phantom, who said where he
slew one man fear slew nine. The SAN
itary measures which have come with
the recognition of law in pestilences
have diminished them still more. So
late as 1856 a peStilence Is said to have
slain 800, 900 in Naples, while it was not
One-twentieth as fatal in Rome,
thanks to the sanitary pre-
cautions of Cardinal Gastaldi. By
such measures, the mOtality of London
per thousand has been reduced from so
to % in the last two centuries. England
kept in her prayer-boOk the petition:
From plague and pestilence good Lord
deliver u.s." and most of her people re-
peated it every Sunday, but got the an
swer in new plaques and pestilences.
But when they learned to supplement
the prayers with purity and the Sacra-
ments with sanitation, diseases dimin-
ished and the British millions got sew
eral years added to their lives. So much
safer is the modern than the old relig-
iouS view.
Rather the modern view is the more
religious; and this is the third reason
for the pulpit's preference of it. For
how much more reverent to regard dis
ease as coming not from the wrath of
Deity or from a devil whom Deity can
not restrain but as natural sequence
of law, and necessary part of that
universal order which embraces and
blesses all, and is truer PrOvi-
denee than our fathers knew! The
Providence which should stop
0e hx- n
same principle stop the growth of grain.
1t would kill the yellow fever, but kill
the wheat fields with it. IngerSOll, when
asked if he could suggest any improve
ment in the divine system, said, yes, he
would make health catching instead of
disease" But the very law which
maks disease catching gives us health
and all our food. The same law which
makes germs catching makes seed
catching too. The same law which
makes cholera catching makes corn
catching wherever planted. The same
law which spreads peStilence from city
to city spreads life from field to field
and from season to season, and brings
all our food and fuel. To the larger
view, the very God of the peStilence be-
Gates, too, and by forcing man to pro-
vide against it, makes him learn the
laws of health andIhow to lengthen life.
1t warns his heart with pity and SYM
patty, and deepens the feeling of human
brotherhood. Sad indeed is the scene
in these stricken towns; but beautiful
the kindness and noble generosity
which it has called forth in cities and
states far away. Even out of the pesti-
lence Providence speaks. and though
speaking through relentless law, relig-
ion may see that this law is evolving
love and is itself love. In the name of
this love let all the efforts in our own
city to help the sufferers in the South be
warmly seconded.