The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-04-06
WONDERS OF THE WORLD
Dr.. Talmage Talks For the Benefit
Of the People.
The Disasters as Well as Blessings OF the
Present Age-Great blessings Enjoyed
BY the People of T~o-day-Prom-
ises of the Future.

hS wen as bloB8lnK8 OF tine
Present Age-Great blessings Enjoyed
BY the People of To-day-Prom-
ises of the Future.
While recently travelling and lecturine
In he West, Rsv. L. De Witt Talmage
stopped over one Sunday at Kansas City
70 rest and did not deliver his regular
sermon. However he gave out for pub
location a sermon on "The Wonders of
This Age" and based his views on the
text, ~ Will Show Wonders in the
Heavens and in the Earth. Joel Ii, 80.
said:
Our eyes dilate aud our heart quickens
Its pulsations as we read Of events in the
third century, the sixth century, the
eighth century, 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 three quarters. We
In the daily newspapers of events
announced in one paragraph and without
any special emphasis-of events which q
H~erodotus, a Josephus, a Xenophon, q
Gibbon would lave taken whole chapters
or whole volumes to elaborate. Looking
out upon our time we must cry out in the
words of the text: '"W onders in the
heavens and in the earth"
/ propose to show that the time in which
we live Is wonderful for disaster and WON
derful for blessing. for there must be
lights and shades in this picture as in all
others. Need 1 argue this day that our
Is wonderful for disasterp Our
world has had a rough time since by the
hand of God 1t was bowled out into space.
1t 10 an epileptlc earth; ~convulsion after
frosts pounding it with sledge
Of iceberg, and fires melting it
with furnaces seven hundred times heat
ed. 1t Is a wonder to me it has lasted so
long. Meteors shooting by on this side
and grazing 1t, and meteors shooting by
on the other side and grazing 1t, none Of
them slowing up for safety. Whole
fleets and navies and argosies and ~iotillas
OF worlds sweeping all about US. Our
cath like q fish smack Off the banks of
Newfoundland, while the Etruria and
Germanic and the Arizona aud the City Of
New York rush by. Besides that, our
world has by sin been damaged in its in
ternal machinery and ever and anon the
furnaces lave burst, and the walking
beams OF the mountain nave broken, and
the islands have shipped a sea, and the
great hulk Of the world has been Jared
with accidents that ever and mon threat
ened immediate demolition. But it seems
to us as IL our century were especially
characterized by disaster, volcanic, cy-
clonic, oceanic, epidemic. / say volcanic.
because an earthquake is only a volcano
hushed up. When Stromboli and Coto-
paxi and Vesuvius stop breathing, let the
o indatfons OF the earth beware. Seven
thousand earthquakes in two IS re-
corded In the catalogue of the British As
ISOLATION. Trajan, the Emperor, goes to
ancient Antioch and amid the %splendors
of his reception is met by an earthquake
that nearly destroys the Emperor's life.
Lisbon, fair and beautiful at one O'Clock
on November1, I755. ID SIX minutes 90, 900
have pori sh5d, and Vottalrs writes of
tttn; For <hat REGION i vas the last
fndalncnf. uof;iHf ~1< ing but a trum-
petlo Europe and Amoflca feeling the
thfob, loo chimneys In Boston partly or
fully destroyed.
But the disasters of other centuries have
had their counterpart In our own. In 1912
Caracas was caught In the grip of the
earthquake; in 1892, in Chilli, 100. 900 square
miles Of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet Of permanent eleva-
tion; In 1854 Japan felt the geological
agony; Naples shaken in 1857; Mexico in
1858; Medosa, the capital Of the Argentine
Republic, In 1851; 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,
a. island Of the Mediterranean, a beauti-
ful italian watering place, vineyard clad,
Aa..~.-IAI H. II ,e.,.. l. --I Ill
torical "reminiscences; yonder Capri, the
yonder Naples, the paradise Of art-this
beautiful island suddenly toppled into the
trough Of the earth, 5000 merry-maksrs
perishing, and some Of them so far down
beneath the reach OF human obsequies
that 1t may be said of many a one OF them
~ 1t was Of Moses, ''The Lord buried him. /"
But look at the disasters cyclonic. At
the mouth Of the Ganges are three islands
tho Hottiah, the Sundeep and the Dakin
Shabazpore. In the midnight Of October,
1877, on those three islands the cry was:
ssrhe watersi the watersl" A cyclone
arose Inc rolled h sea over those three
islands, and Of q population of. $40, 600,
49, 900 were drowned. Only those were
saved who had climbed to the top Of the
highest trees. Did you ever see a cyclone?
MOI Then / pray God you may never see
one. I saw one on the ocean, and 1t swept
MS 800 miles back from our course, and for
thirty-six hour during the cyclone and
after IL we expected every momen
to 20 to the bottom. They told US
before we retired at nine O'Clock
that the barometer had fallen, but at
eleven O'Clock at night we were awakened
with the shock Of the waves. All the
lights outi Crashi went all the life boats.
Waters rushing through the skylights
down into the cabin and down the furnace
until they Kissed and smoked in the del
uga. Seven hundred people praying,
blaspheming. shrieking. Our great ship
poised O moment IN the top of a mountain
Of phosphorescent fire aud then plunged
down, down, down. until it seemed as II
she never would again be righted. Alb
You never want to see q cyclone at sea.
But I was In Minnesota where there was
enc of these cyclones on land that swept
the city Of Rochester from its foundations
and too dwelling houses, barns, men
women, children, horses, cattle, and tossed
them into indiscriminate ruin, and lifted
a rail train and dashed IL down, a mightiel
hand than that of the engineer on the all
brake. Cyclone in Kansas, cyclone IL
Missouri, cyclone in Wisconsin, Cyclone
In Illinois, cyclone In Iowa Satan, primes
of the power of the air, never made suct
cyclonic disturbances as he has In our day
And am I not right in saying that one o
the characteristics OF the time in which
we live Is disaster c~yclonicf
Look at the disasters epidemic. 1 speal
not Of the plague In b fourth century
that ravaged Europe, and In Moscow anC
the Neapolitan dominions N Marseilles
wrought such terror in the eighteenth
century, but ! look at the yellow fever
and the choleras, and the d~iphtherias, ano
the scarlet fevers and the typhoids Of oul
own time. Hear the wailing of Memphis
and Shreveport, and New Orleans and
Jacksonville Of the last few decades
From Hurdwar, India. where every
twelfth year 500. 200 devotees congre-
gate, the brought the cholera,
and that one disease slew $4,000 In eight
cen days In Bossorah. Twelve thousand
In one summer slain by 1t in India and 25,
900 in Egypt. Disasters epidemic. Sons
of the finest monuments In Greenwood
and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn are to
doctors who lost their lives battling with
Southern epidemic.
But now / turn the leaf In my subject,
and ] plant the white lilies and the palm
tree amid the night shade and the myrtle.
This age no more characterized by won
ders Of disaster than by wonders of bless
ing. Blessing OF longevity; the average OF
human life rapidly increasing. Forty
years now worth four hundred years once.
NOW l can travel from Manitoba TO New
YORK In three days and three nights. In
otner times 1t would have taken three
months. In other words, three days and
tnree nights now are worth three months
OF osner days. The average of human life
prsotlcally greater now than when Noah