The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1889-04-11


fire, and then plunged down, down, down.
| until it seemed as if size never would
again be rigatej. All you never want
to see cyclone at sea. But was in Min
nesota, where there was one of those
cyclones on LAM that swept the city Of
Rochester from its found atoms, and took
dwelling houses. barns. men. women, chill
dren, horses, cattle. and tossed them into
indiscriminate ruin, and lifted rail train
and dashed it down, a mightier hand tt an
that of the engineer on the air brake. Cy-
clone 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
disturbances as he has in our day. Ard
am not right in saying that one of the
characteristics of the time in which we
live is disaster cyclonic?
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 Melville,
the President, the Cimbria. But why
should l 60 on calling the roll when none.
of them answer, and the roll is as long as
the white scroll of the Atlantic surf at
Cape Hatteras 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 In one storm eighty fisherman
persisted off the coast of New Foundland.
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 Darlings and the Ida Lewises and
the life boat men lowering around Good
win Sands and the Skerries The sea,
owning threefourths of the earth, pro-
poses to capture the other fourth, and is
bombarding the land all around the earth.
The moving of our hotels at Brighton
Beach backward one hundred yards from
where they once stood, type of what is
going on all around the world and on every
coast, The Dead sea rolls to-day where
ancient cities stood. Pillars of temples
that stood On hills geologoists now find
three quarters under the water or alto
together submerged. The sea, having
wrecked so many merchantmen and flo
tillas wants to wreck the continents. and
hence disasters oceanic.
PLAQUES THAT HAVE sNIITTEN HU-
MANITY.
Look at the disasters epidemic. l speak
not of the plague in the Fourth century
that rayaged Europe ard the Neapolitan
dominions and Marseiles wrought such
terror in the Eighteenth century, but l
look at the yellow fevers, and the choleras.
and the diptherias and the scarlet feyers,
and the typhoids Of our ewn time. Hear
the Wailing of Memphis, and Shreveport,
and New Orleans and Jacksonville of the
last few decades. From Hurd war, India.
where every twelfth year three million
devotees congregate, the caravans brought
the cholera, and that one disease slew
eighteen thousand in eighteen days in
Bossorah. Twelve thousand in one sum
mer slain by it in India and twenty-five
thousand In Egypt Disasters epidemic.
Some of the finest monuments in Green
wood and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn
are to doctors who lost their life battling
with southern epidemic.
TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF.
But now 1 turn the leaf in my subject,
and plant the white lilies and the palm
tree amid the night shade and the myr-
tie. This age is no more characterized by
wonders of disaster than by wonders of
blessing. Blessing of longevity; the av-
erage Of human life rapidly increasing.
Forty years now worth four hundred years
once. Now 1 can travel from Manitoba
to New York in three days and three
nights. In other times it would have
taken three months. In other words, three
days and three nights now are worth three
months sof other days. The average of
human life is practically greater now than
when Noah lived his $50 years and Me-
thpsaleh lived his 500 years. blessings of
intelligence The Salmon r. Chases and
the Abraham LicoIns and the Henry Will
sons of the coming time will not be re-
quired to learn to read by pine knot lights
or seated on ShQemaker's bench, nor will
the Fergusons have to study astronomy
while watching the cattle. knowledge
rolls it's 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 recite in class
with our boys at the Polytechnic, or our
girls at the Packer, those old philosophers
would be sent down to the foot of the
class because they failed to answer the
questions. Free libraries in all the i'm
portant towns AID cities of the land. His
toricaI alcoves and poetical shelves and
magazine tables for all that desire to walk
through them or sit down at them. Bless
ings of quick information Newspapers
| falling all around us thick as leaves in a
| September equinoctial. News three days
Old rancid and stale. We see the whole
world twice day-through the neWspa
per at the breakfast table, and through
the newspaper at the tea table, with an
extra" here and there between.
1
| CHRISTIANITY is IN A FLOURIsHING CON-
pIT4ON.
| Blessing of Gospel proclamation Do
you not know that nearly all the mission
airy societies have been born in this cen
fury and nearly all the Bible societies,
and nearly all the great philanthropic
movements A secretary of one of the
denominations said to me the other day in
Dakota you were wrong when you said
our denomination averaged a 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 demon.
ination said II have just been out estab
fishing five mission stations" | tell you
Christianity is on the march, while Inli-
deity is dwindling into imbecility. While
Iefdelity is thus dwindling down into i'm.
becility and iLdecency, the wheel of Chris
tianity is making about a Thousand levo-
lutions in minute. All the copies OIL
Shakespeare and Tennyson and Disrael
and of any ten of the most popular writers
Of the day, less in number than the copie:
of the Bible going out from our printing