The Brookhaven leader., 1889-04-11
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Disasters and Blessings and the
Lessons They Convey.
a Weird Catalogue of CalamltIes and the
Contrasting blessings VI the Age
An Appeal to the Churches
for Union and Energy.

at Kansas City, Mo. His subject was
'Wonders Of Disaster and Blessing" and
his text:
will show wonders in the heavens and in
the earth.-Joel it,, 80.
DR.. Cumming-great and good man
would have told us the exact time of the
fulfllment OK this prophesy. As 1 step
ped into his study in London on my arri-
val from Paris just after the French had
surrendered at Sedan, the good doctor
said to me: at is Just as l told you
about France; people laughed at me be-
cause talked about the seven horns and
the walls, but foresaw all this from the
Book of Daniel and the Book of Revela-
ton" Not taking any such responsibility
in the Interpretation Of the passage,
simply assert that there is in 1t sugges-
tons 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 century, the fourteenth century,
out 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-quar-
tiers. We read in the daily newspapers Of
events announced in one paragraph and
without especial emphasis-of events
which a Herodotus, a Josephus, a x emo
phon, a Gibbon would have taken whole
chapters oIEhole volumes to elaborate.
Looking out upon 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
l. L. - l. Il
as in all others. Need l argue this day
that our time Is wonderful for disaster?
Our world has had rough time since by
the hand of God it was bowled out into
space. 1t is an epileptic earth; convul-
sion after Onvulsion; 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 fishing smack off the
banks Of Newfoundland, while the Etruria
and Germanic and the Arizona and the
City Of New York rush by. Besides that,
our world has by sin been damaged in its
internal machinery, and ever and anon
the furnaces 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 threat
ened immediate demolition. Butt seems
to us as if our century were especially
characterized by disaster, volcanic, cy-
clonic, oceanic, epidemic. say volcanic,
because an earthquake is only volcano
hushed up. When Stromboli and Coto-
paXi and Vesuvius stop breathing, let the
foundations of the earth beware. Seven
thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded in TIE catalogue of the British
Association! Trajan, the Emperor, goes
to ancient Antioch, and amid the splen-
doris OF his reception, is met,by an earth
quake that nearly destroys the Emperor's
life.
Lisbon, fair and beautiful at one O'Clock
on the 1st of November, 1855, in six min
utes sixty thousand have persisted, and
Voltaire writes of them: For that re-
gion it was the last judgment, nothing
wanting but trumpetw Europe and
America feeling the throb; fifteen hun
dred 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 an earthquaAo; in 1872, in Chill,
one hundred thousand 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 1867; Mexico in 1858;
Medosa, the capital Of the Argentine Re-
public, 1871; Manila terrorized in 1868;
the Hawaiian Islands by such force up
lifted and let down in 81; Nevada shak-
en- in 1871; Antioch in 1872; California in
1872; San Salvador in 1873; while in 1888,
what subterranean excitement!
Ischia, an island Of the Mediterranean,
beautiful Italian watering place, Vine
yard clad, surrounded by all natural
charm and historical "reminiscences; yon-
der Capri, the summer resort Of the Ro-
man emperors; yonder Naples, the para
disc of art-this beautiful island sudden
ly toppled into the trough of the earth,
eight thousand merry makers perishing,
and some OF them so far down beneath
the reach Of human Cbsequies that it may
be said of many one of them as it was
said OF Moses: 1.-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 meas
uring that magnitude of disaster, measur-
ing 1t 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
healthiest beverage of all the world, has
produced the ghastliest accident of the
century. 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 Dakin
Shakespeare. In the midnight Of October,
1877, on all those three islands the cry
was: THE waters, the watersl" A cy.
clone arose and rolled the sea over those
three islands, and Of population Of two
hundred and forty thousand, two hundred
and fifteen thousand were drowned. Only
those saved who had climbed to the top Of
the tallest trees. Did you ever see q ey-
clone? Then l pray God you may never
see one. / saw one on the ocean, and it
swept us eight hundred miles back from
Dur course, and for thirty-six hours dur
ing the cyclone and after it we expected
every moment to 60 to the bottom. They
told US before we retired at niue 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
iiahts out! Crash. went all the boats.
Waters rushing through the skylights
down into the cabin and down on the fur
naces until they Kissed and smoked in