The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-06-19

to ill the cups and divide the clusters and
command the harps and welcome the guests,
is daughter of God on whose brow are the
blossoms Of paradise, and in whose cheek Is
the flush of celestial summer. Her name is
Religion.
Her ways are ways Of pleasantness,
And oil her paths are peace.
DIR. Talmage on the Johnstown Flood.
"a cry of anguish has rung across tho
land" Thus Rev. r. Dewitt Talmage spoke
to five thousand people at night, in bis SER
mon upon the disaster at Johnstown, Penn.
The text from the 93d Psalm was this: THE
1.-THE rivers of America" DR.. Talmage,
said, 'are her pride and her wealth. The
glory of New York is it's Hudson. Pennsyl-
vania has her Susquehanna, her Al
leghany, her Mononghela, and least,
yet mightiest in the history Of the worlds
desolation, her Conemaugh. Yes. in
these latter days the floods have lifted up
their voice. In 1877, 100000 souls were
drowned at the mouth Of the Ganges. Oceans
wrath IS uncurbed. Where is the Vile do
Havre2 Where is the President? Where is
The Atlantic? Where is the City Of Boston?
Last Thursday night the dam broke above
the city of Johnstown and away went
homcsteads, factories, churches and
asylums Of mercy. Ten thousand perished.
Buildings were piled in debris fifty feet high,
and Of them were made a holocaust.
Woe! Woe! Woe! In that place the
voices of peace, industry, friendship, good
neighborhood have given way to the voices
of despair, agony and desolation: The
floods have lifted up their voice. What does
it tell us of? The mercilessness of natural
forces, the emptiness of natural religion.
There are those who tell US they want only the
religion Of sunshine, art, blue sky and bear-
tiful grass. The book Of nature must be
their book. Let me ask such persons what
they make out of the floods in Pennsylvania?
Those pitiless waters whelmed father,
mother, son and daughter, with as lit
tie feeling as though they had been
muskrats. They sundered families as pitt
lessly as they would the planks Of q raft.
And over oil that scene of misery Imake bold
to say there was not one tear save those OF
human anguish. People tell us the rain is the
tears of nature, the wind in the branches her
sigh of sympathy But that is poetry. The
clouds smile, but they never weep; they de-
stroy, but never save. The wind in cyclone
fury sweeps to death whole cities, but it mover
sighs. Natural forces cut, bruise, burn, de-
stroy, but never pity.
Natural religion is not enough for me. II
the people in the valley of the Conemaugh
had prayed to the clouds to save their chill
III,
Only the flash of falling water, the roaring
of the foods the crash of falling timbers:
I know but one religion which says: If l.
take away a life I'll give a better
one; I'll make nn explanation, if not in
this world, in the one to come 1t IS not on
emeritus religion. The faith that inspired the
martyrs, burned with molten LEAD, torn apart
by horses-that is the faith which, / undertake
to say, is tonight sustaining hundreds of
ef,.to1 ia
Concmaugh.
be disaster. The properties Of men be-
come their overthrow. The greater the run
of prosperity the better, but there are men
in this land graping in their selfshness and
pride. They pray heaven and earth and hell.
Give! Giver They gulp down such credi-
the the result s T Of market fluctuations, Of
corners in wheat, of mortgages which poor
men cannot meet. They swallow, swallow,
till they become rivers OF damnatlon rolling
through the land You red-mouthed rivers
You rivers of greed, cease your impetuous
onrushing.
"Calamities, I am persuaded, do not mean
ALWAYS Gods displeasure have been in the
valley of the Conemaugh. I know the peo-
pie Of Johnstown. There is none kindlier,
none moro hospitable, more Christian. Men
try to hurl the judgments OF God. don't
believe in that kind of argument. This Bible
says, whom God loveth He chastsneth. Heis
going to pour blessing through those valleys
wider and deeper than the torrent of disaster
Misfortunes come in herds. In 1914 fortunes
crowns aud sccptres were at the feet of Wal
ter Scott, but one disaster after another fell
upon him. One day he asked his daughter
for his pen and that wizard hand which
gaveto the world Guy Mannering' Ivan
hoe Maid of Perth 'Kenilworth,' could not
write his name. The multiplication of dsas-
ters means the multiplication Of comforts
IF this world is all. it's the deadest failure
in the universe and life is not worth living.
Let us be practical in our sympathies.
If you cannot 60 to the relief meeting
to be held at tho Park Theatre, then give
rs your conscience dictates. I shall be at
that meeting and hope you oil will be.
Think lovingly of your fellowmcn and
women who tonight, while you are shell
tered in comfortable homes, are budding in
the bushes on the mountains of Pennsylvania.
God have mercy On them! The time is fixed
for all our departures. nm glad we do not
know it. All want is to be right with God
and right with man. Then let the sea roar,
and the fulncss thereof. Let tho floods clap