Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1889-07-26
LOCATING THE REspoNsIBILITY.

TO the Editor OF the Jphnstoion Democrat:
1t betrays great ignorance of the teach.
ing of the Bible, tie laws of nature and
the dictates of reason to impute to the
providence of God the results OF our own
disobedience to those laws which He has
imposed upon the universe and under
which He requires us to live This is be-
ing. done by great many who survived
the terrible calamity of the 31st of May,
$780, by which so much loss and suffer
ing has been visited upon the residents
of the stricken district. 1t is nonsense for
people to say that they want no more re-
ligion; that they have tried God and
found him to be failure. 1t seems al
most certain that the people who indulge
in such baseless assertions are uninstruct-
ed, and do not know much of God or en-
ploy great amount of religion.
What did God do in the matter Why,
by one cruel act of his providence he has
robbed thousands of everything dear and
precious-their property, their houses
their dear ones, everything, and left them
helpless, stripped and sore.
If God is God of love, and wise, and
good, he never would have dealt with us
in this manner. So some people talk and
think they are wise. But they are mis-
taken. The disaster never came by di-
vine appointment, but rs the result of u
violated law; the law of gravitation
which is universal and dare not have an
exception. The same law holds you to
the ground and keeps you from flying off
of the earth like mud from revolv-
ing buggy wheel. That law was violated
and the fearful consequences followed.
Gods love is not caprice.
BY disobedience we make an enemy out
of our best friend, the law of gravitation,
and will suffer accordingly. Well, who is
to blame for this unsurpassed catastro-
phe? Who built the dam imperfectly,
and with dangerous material? Who left
it unrepaired? :? Who took more pains to
protect the inhabitants of the lake than
the lives of 30, 900 men, women and chill
dren below the dam? What was the YER
dict of the coroner's inquest? Did it put
the responsibility on God, or the men who
owned and built the worthless dam? The
man who calls this the act of God does not
know what he is talking about. The
laws of gravitatiou was understood by
those who built and kept, or rather
failed to keep that done. They knew
that water would exert given pressure
on every part of the dam, and when let
out must run down hill at velocity de-
termined by the pressure and fall. And
they further knew that rain would fall
and streams fill with water, and therefore
should have anticipated what has occurred
and by all possible means prevented the
disaster. The blame of this awful calam-
ity belongs to man, and it is folly beyond
telling to put it upon God. God did not
will the death of one man, woman or
Cnlll IlluJ JSllSuCu III VIC lOpN. II NuS
through the carelessness of man. God
will not reverse His good laws because
man disobeys them. His law must
rule. Anything else were disor-
der, chaos and ruin. We must know
what to depend on, or else life were Il
hopeless uncertainty, He who acts in
conformity to Gods law shall live, but he
who acts against his laws will suffer.
There is no escape for the disobedient.
The law of nature was transgressed by
the South Fork Fishing Club and hence
the disaster. The raging, devouring tor
rent heeds no more the voice of Canute
than the cry of pauper's child.
Locate the blame where Y belongs. God
permitted it to come, but 90! ut origin
ate it, But does he no. ,ermit every
thing, homicide, suicide, theft drunken
ness, etc, but he does not cause them.
Never neither did he cause the breaking
of the dam.