Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-04-11
WONDERS OF THE WORLD
DR.. Talmege Talks For the Benefit
Of the People.
The Disasters as Well as Blessings of the
Present Age-Great Blessings Enjoyed
BY the People of To-day-Prom-
ises of the Future.

While recently travelling and lecturing
in the West, Rev. 7. De Witt Talmage
stopped over one Sunday at Kansas City
to rest and did not deliver his regular
sermon However he gave out for pub
location a sermon on The Wonders of
This Age.D and based his views on the
text, "a Will Show Wonders in the
Heavens and in the Earth. Joel ii, 81.
He said:
DR. Cumming-great and good man
would have told us the exact time of the
fulfillment of this prophecy. As / stepped
into his study in London on my arrival
from Paris just after the French had sur
rendered at Sedan, the good doctor said to
me: 1T is just as told you about France;
people laughed at me because l talked
about the seven horns and the vials, but
fores aw all this from the Book of Daniel
and the Book of Revelation" Not taking
any such responsibility in the interpreta-
ton of the passage, 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 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
read in the daily newspapers of events
announced in one paragraph and without
any special EN- phasis-of events which a
HerodO;us, a Josephus, a Xenophon, n
Gibbon would hav. 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 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 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; CONFUSION after
CONFUSION; frosts pounding it with sledge
hammer 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 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 fish 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 in
ternal 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
hfrlI L p fI,ax ho- 80
with accidents that ever and anon threat
ened immediate demolition. But it seems
to us as if 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
foundations of the earth beware. Seven
thousand earthquakes in two centuries 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 November l, 1T5j in six minutes 10000
have peri and VUltaire writes of
them: For that region it was the last
judgment, nothing wanting but trum-
pet!" Europe and America feeling the
throb; 800 chimneyS in Boston partly or
fulEy destroyed.
But the disasters of other centuries have
had their counterpart in our own. In 1872
Caracas was caught in the grip of the
earthquake; in 1922, in Chilli, 100, 900 square
miles of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet of permanent eleva-
lion; in 1854 Japan felt the geological
agony; Naples shaken in 1851; Mexico in
1853; Medosa, the capital of the Argentine
Republic, in 1861; Manila terrorized in
1868; the Hawaiian islands by such force
1plifted and let down in 1871; Nevada
shaken in 1871; Antioch in 1872; California
in 1872; San Salvador in 1873; while in 1883
what subterranean excitement Ischia.
an island of the Mediterranean, a beauti-
full Italian watering place, vineyard clad,
surrounded by all natural charm and his
torical "reminiscences; yondsr Capri, the
summer resort of the Roman Emperors;
yonder Naples, the paradise of art-this
beautiful island suddenly topples into the
trough of the earth, 5000 merry-makers
er.shing, 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 of Moses, 1.-The Lord buried him."
raly weeping, all Europe weeping, all
Christendom weeping where there were !
hearts to sympathize AMI Christians to !
pray. But while the nations were |
measuring that mig litule OF disaster, !
measuring it not with the golden rod |
like that with VIII Oh the angel measured |
Heaven. hut with the black rule of death, |
Java, of the 1 Idian archipelago, the most |
fsrtIls Ian of all the earth, is caught in |
The grip OF the earthquake and mountain |
after mountain goes down, and city after |
Uity. until that leland, which produces |
the healthiest beverage of all the world, |
has produced the ghastliest accident of |
the century. One hundred thousand peo- |
pie dying, dying, dead, dead.
But look at the disasters cyclonic. At |
the mouth of the Gauges are three islands |
the Hottiah, the Sundeep and the Dakin |
Sha baxpore. In the midnight of October,
1877, on those three islands the cry was:
The waters! the watersw A cyclone |
arose and rolled the sea over those three |
Islands, and of a population of $40, 900. |
215, 600 were drowned Only those were |
saved who had climbed to the top of the |
highest trees. Did you ever see cyclone: |
No? Then pray God you may never see |
one. ! saw one on the ocean, and it swept |
us 800 miles back from our course, and for |
thirty-six hours during the cyclone and |
after it we expected every moment |
to go 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 Quit Crashl went all the life boats. |
Waters rushing through the skylights |
down into the cabin and down the furnaces |