The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-04-10
WONDERS OF DISASTER.
STRANGE HISTORY OF THE EARTH.
Cyclones, Earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions,
Epidemics All Repeat Themselves and
Sacrifice Life-BIes.ings Urging
the Sunshine OF Beaven.

from the text, 81 will show wonders in
the heavens and in the earth"-Joel XII, 30
He said:
DR.. Cumming-great and good man
would have told us the exact time OF the
fulfllment 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 l told you about
France; people laughed at me because
talked about the seven horns and the
walls, but foresaw all this from the book
of Daniel and the book of revelation.
Not taking any such responsibility in the
Interpretation of the passage, l simply as
sert that there is in il suggestions of many
things in our time.
Our eyes dilate and our heart quic&ens
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 preceding three quar-
tiers. We read in the daily newspapers of
events announced in one paragraph and
without any special emphasis-of events
which Herodotus, Josephus, a Keno
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 | 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 heated.
1t Is a wonder to me it has lasted so
long. Meteors shooting by on this
side and grazing il 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 flotillas
of worlds sweeping all about us. Our
earth like a fishing-smack off the banks of
Newfoundland, while the Etruriaand Ger
manic and the 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 furnaces have burst, and
the walking-beams of the mountain
have broken, and the islands have ship
ped sea, and the great bulk of the world
has been Jared with accidents that ever
and anon threatened immediate demoi-
itiOn. But il seems to US as if our cen
fury were especially characterized by
disaster, volcanic, cyclOnic, oceanic, cpl
demic. ] say volcanic, because an earth
quake is only a volcano hushed up.
When StrOmboi and Cotopaxi and
Vesuvius stop breathing let the founda-
tiOns of the earth beware.
Seven thousand earthquakes in two CEN
turtles 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 en-
perOr's life. Lisbon, fair and beautiful at
] o'clock on the lst of November, 1855, in
six minutes 10000 people persisted, and
Noltaire writes of them: For that region
II was the last judgment, nothing wanting
but a trumpet Europe and America
feeling the throb; 1900 chimneys in Bos-
ton 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 1922, in Chill, 100000
square miles of land by volcanic force
upheaved to four and seven feet OF perma-
nent 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 ter
rorized in 1858; the Hawaiian islands by
such force uplifted and let down in
1871; Nevada shaken in 1871; An
tioch in 1872; California in 1872;
San Salvador in 1873; while in
1888 what subterranean excitement
Ischia, an island of the Mediterranean, a
beautiful Italian watering place, vineyard
clad, surrounded by ali natural charm and
historical Renaissance; yonder Capri,
the summer resort of the Roman en-
perors yonder Naples, the paradise of
art-this beautiful island suddenly toppled
into the trough of the earth, 5000 merry
makers perishine, and some of them so
far down beneath the reach of human
obsequies that it may be SAID of many
one of them as il 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
healthiest beverage of all the world, has
produced the ghastliest accident of the
century. One hundred thousand people
dying, diving, dead, dead.
But look at the disasters cyclonic. At
the mouth of the Ganges are three islands
the Haitian, the Sundeep and the Daki
Shabazpore. In the midnight of 0ctober
1877, on all those three islands the cry
was; "The waters, the watersl" A cy-
clone arose and rolled the sea over those
three island, and of population of $4,000
2l5,OOO were drowned. Only those saved
who had climbed TO the top of the highest
trees. Did you ever see a cyclOnel No?
Then pray God you may never
see one. i saw one on the ocean and
IL swept US 500 miles back from our course
and for thirty-six hours during the cy-
clone and after it we expected every mo-
ment to 90 to the bottom. They told us
before we retired at Q o'clock that the
barometer had fallen, but at IL o'clock at
night we were awakened with the shock
of the waves. All the lights outl Crash
went all the ife-boats. Waters rushing
through the skylight down into the cabin
and down on the furnaces until they
missed and smoked in the deluge. Seven
hundred people praying, disappearing,
- IL -.