The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-06-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Disasters and Blessings and the
Lessons They Convey.
A Weird Catalogue of Calamities and the
Contrasting Blessings of the Age
An Appeal to the Churches
for Union and Energy.


at Kansas City, Mo. His subject was
'sWonders Of Disaster and Blessing" and
his text:
I will show wonders in the heavens ana IN
the earth.-Joel H., 30
DR.. Cumming-great and good man
ould have told us the exact time of the
fulfllment of this prophesy. As 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 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-
TOM Not taking any such responsibility
in the Interpretation of the passage, 1
simply assert that there is in it 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,
but there are more 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 Herodotus, a Josephus, Keno
phon, a-Gibbon would have taken whole
chapters or whole 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
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; convul-
sion after CONFUSION; 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 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
dotillas 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 amor
the furnaces have burst, and the walking
beams of the mountain have broken, anC
the islands have shipped a sea and the
great hulk of the world has been iarreC
with accidents that ever and anon threat
ened immediate demolition. But it seem;
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 StromboH and Coto
paxi and Vesuvius stop breathing, let tn
foundations of the earth beware. Sever
thousand earthquakes in two centurie
recorded in tho catalogue of the Britis
Association Trajan, the Emperor, goe
to ancient Antioch, and amid the splen
doris Of his reception, is met by an earth
quake that nearly destroys the Emperor
life.
Lisbon, fair and beautiful at one o'cloc
on the 1st of November, 1905, in six min
utes sixty thousand have persisted, an
Voltaire writes of them: For that re
gion it was the last Judgment, nothin
wanting but trumpet" Europe an
America feeling the throb; fifteen hun
dred chimneys in Boston partly or full
destroyed. But the disasters of othe
centuries have had their counterpart i
our own. In 1912 Caracas was caught i
the grip of an earthquake; in 1872, in. Chill
one hundred thousand square miles
land by volcanic force upheaved to fou
and seven feet of permanent elevation
in 1854 Japan felt the geological agony
Naples shaken in 1857; Mexico in 1885,
Medosa, the capital of the Argentine Re
public, 1871; Manila terrorized in 1856;
the Hawaiian Islands by such force III
lifted and let down in l 81; Nevada shall
en- in 1871; Antioch in 1872; California i
1872; San Salvador in 1873; while in 1873;
what subterranean excitement!
Ischia, an island of the Mediterranea,
beautiful Italian watering place, vint
yard clad. surrounded by all nature
charm and historical "reminiscences; yo1
der Capri, the summer resort Of the RI
man emperors; yonder Naples, the para
disc of art-this beautiful island sudde1
~ toppled into the trough of the cart
eight thousand merry makers perishin,
and some of them so far down beneat
the reach of human cbsequies that it ma
be said of many a one OF them as it WI
said OF Moses: 1.-THE Lord buried him.
Italy weeping, all Europe weeping, a
Christendom weeping where there wei
hearts to sympathize and Christians
pray. But while the nations were meal
uring that magnitude of disaster, measul
ing it not with golden rod like that wit
which the angel measured Heaven, b
with the black rule of death, Java, Of Il
Indian archipelago, the most fertile islaI
Of all the earth, is caught in the grip
the earthquake, and mountain aft,
mountain goes down, and city after cit
until that island, which produces Il
healthiest beverage Of all the world, b
produced the ghastliest accident of Il
century. One hundred thousand peop
dying, dying, dead, dead.
But look at the disasters cyclonic. !
the mouth of the Ganges are three islam,
1.-The Hattiah, the Sundeep and the OAK
Shakespeare. In the midnight of Oetobe
1877, on all those three islands the CT
was: 1.-THE waters, the waters 70 A @
clone arose and rolled the sea over tho
three islands, and of population Of tN
hundred and forty thousand, two hundr,
and fifteen thousand were drowned. On
those saved who had climbed to the top
the tallest trees. Did you ever see c
clone? Then pray God you may new
see one. saw one ON the ocean, and
swept us eight hundred miles back fro
our course, and for thirty-six hours du
ing the cyclone and after it we expect
every moment to 60 to the bottom. Tn
~ = 4. -