Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1889-04-19
rExT: 81 will sho1 wonders In the
heavens and IN the edrth.n-Joel H., 80

would have told us the exact time of the full
fllment of this prophecy. As l stepped into
his study in London onmy arrival from Paris
juIt after the French had surrendered at
Sedan, the good doctor said to me: ut is just
as l told you about France; people laughed at
me because l talked about the seven
horns and the walls, but forsaw all this from
the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revela-
ton Not taking any such responsibility in
the Interpretation of the passage, l simply
assert that there is in it suggestions of many
things in our time.
Our eyes dilate and our heart quickens its
pulsations as we read Of events in the Third
century the Sixth century, the Eighth CEN
fury, the Fourteenth century, but there are
more far reaching events crowded into the
Nineteenth century than into any other
and the last quarter bids fair to
eclipse the preceding three quarters.
We read in the daily newsp pers of
events announced in one paragraph and
without any special emphasis-of events
which a HerodotuS, a Josephus, a Xenophon
Gibbon would have taken whole chapters
or whole volumes to elaborate. Looking out
upon our time, we must cry out in the words
of the text: Wonders in the heavens and in
the earth"
propose to show you that the time In
which we live is wonderful for disaster and
wonderful for blessing, for there must be
lights and shades in this picture as in all
others. Need l argue this day that our time
is wonderful for disaster? Cur world has
had a rough time since by the hand of God it
was bowled out into space. 1t is an epileptic
earth; convulsion after CONFUSION; frosts
pounding it with sledge hammer of
iceberg, and fires melting it with
furnaces seven hundred times heated. 1t is
wonder to me it has lasted so long. Meteors
shooting by on this side and grazing it, and
meteors shooting by on the other side and
grazing it, none of them slowing up for
safety. Whole fleets and navies and argosies
and fotillas Of worlds sweeping all about us.
Our earth like a fishing smack off the banks
of Newfounai' nd, while the Etruria and
Germanic and TIE Arizona and the City Of
New York rush By. Besides that our
world has by sin been damaged in its inter-
nal machinery, and ever and anon the fur
naces have burst, and the walking beams Of
the mountain have broken, and the islands
have shipped a sea, and the great hulk of the
world has been Jared with accidents that
ever and anon threatened immediate demoi-
ton. But it seems to us as if our century
were especially characterized by disaster,
volcanic, cyclonic, oceanic, epidemic. / say
volcanic, because an earthquake is only a
volcano hushed up. When Stromboli
and Cotopax and Vesuvius stop breath
ing, let the foundations of the earth
beware. Seven thousand earthquakes in
two centuries recorded in the catalogue of
the British association. Trajan, the
Emperor, goes to ancient Antioch, and amid
the splendors of his reception is met by an
earthquake that nearly destroys the Emper-
or's life. Lisbon, fair and beautiful at one
o'clock on the 1st of November, 1855, in six
minutes $4,000 have persisted, and Voltaire
writes of them: 'For that region it was the
last Judgment, nothing wanting but a
trumpet" Europe and America feeling the
throb; 1900 chimneys in Boston partly or
fully destroyed.
But the disasters of other centuries have
had their counterpart in our own. In 1879
Caracas was caught in the grip of the earth
quake; in 1922, in Chill, 1901 900 square miles
of land by volcanic force upheaved to four
and seven feet Of permanent elevation; in
1854 Japan felt the geological agony;
Naples shaken in 1857; Mexico in 1858;
Medosa, the capital of the Argentine
Republic, in 1861; Manila terrorized in 1868:
the Hawaiian islands by such force uplifted
and let down in 1871; Nevada shaken in 1871 !;
Antioch in 1872; California in 1872 San
Salvador in 1878; while in 1888 what
subterranean excitement Ischia, an ISL
and Of the Mediterranean, a beautiful
Italian watering-place, vineyard clad, sur
rounded by all natural charm and historical
"reminiscences: yonder, Capri, the summer re-
sort of the Roman Emperors; yonder,
Naples, the paradise Of art-this beautiful
island suddenly toppled into the trough of
the earth, 5000 merry-makers perishing, and
some of them so far down beneath the reach
of human obsequies that it may be said of
many a one of them as it was said of Moses:
''The Lord buried him" Italy weeping, all
Europe weeping, all Christendom weeping
where there were hearts to sympathize and
Christians to pray. But while the nations
were measuring that magnitude of disaster,
measuring it not with golden rod like that
with which the angel measured heaven,
but with the black rule of death, Java,
of the Indian archipelago the most fertile
island of all the earth, is caught in the grip
of the earthquake, and mountain after
mountain goes down, and city after city,
until that island, which produces the health
lest beverage of all the world, has produced
the ghastliest accident of the country. One
hundred thousand people dying dying, dead,
dead.
But look at the disasters cyclonic. At the
mouth Of the Ganges are three islands-the
Haitian, the Sundeep and the Dallin Shabaz
pore. In the midnight of October 1877, OF
all those three islands the crv was: THE
waters the watersp A cyclone arose and
rolled the sea over those three islands
and of a population of 100000, 215,0Ot
were drowned. Only those saved who
had climbed to the top of the highest trees
Did you ever see a cyclone? No? Then
pray God you may never see one. 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
1t we expected every moment to &C
to the bottom They told us be
fore we retired at 8 o'clock that the
barometer had fallen, but at II oclocl
at night we were awakened with the shock O
the waves All the lights outl Crashl wen
all the life boats. Waters rushing through
the skyhghts down into the cabin and dow
on the furnaces until they Kissed and smoked
IN the deluge. Seven hundred people pray
ing, disappearing, shrieking. Our great shil
poised moment on the top Of a mount
ain of phosphorescent frs, ant
then plunged down, down, down
until it seemed as if she would never agail
be righted All! you never want to see
cyclone at sea. But l was in Minnesota
where there was one of those cyclones Oh
land that swept the city Of Rochester iron
its foundations and took dwelling houses
barns, men, women, children, horses cat
tie and tossed them into indiscriminat
ruin, and lifted rail train and dashed
down, mightier hand than that of the en-
gineer on the air brake. Cyclone in Kan
sas, cyclone in Missouri cyclone in Wiscor
sin, cyclone in Illinois, cyclone in lowe
ouOah' Pi iiC0 VI Clo Po"ei Vi Ghe ar, neVe
made such cyclonic disturbances as he has il
our day. And am | not right in saying tina
one of the charac teristics Of the time
which we live is disaster cyclonic?
But look at the disasters oceanic Shall
call the roll of the dead shipping? Ye NOR
sters Of the deep, answer when / call you
names Vile de Havre, the Schiller, City G
Boston, the Melville, the President the Gin
bria But why should l go on calm
the roll when none of them answer
and the roll is as long as the whit
scroll of the Atlantic surf at Cape Hattera
breakers? If the oceanic cables could repor
all the scattered life and all the bleache
bones that they rub against in the depths G
the ocean what a message of pathos an
tragedy for both beaches! In one storr
eighty fishermen persisted off the coast {
Newfoundland. and whole fleets c
thnr,n OF tho nnnrt of E,,er1nnh Cod hal