Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1889-06-14
A LETTER FROM DIR. TALMaGE.
The Great Divine Says the Johnstown Flood
Was Nota Judgment From God.


The woes aggregate. The flames en-
brace the floods. The doomed valley be
comes an uncovered sepulchre on which
the filthy vultures swoop. The five hun
dred lives lost at Johnstown become the
five thousand. and the five thousand have
become ten thousand, and the ten thou
sand have become fifteen thous and, and
the horror rises with every day and hour,
until the nation is in an agony of sym
patty. The two elements of water and
fire are in contention as to which shall do
the worst. Enough water to put out the
FIRE, and enough fire to lick up the water,
but they interlock their forces TO destroy.
In the mountain of debris are many of
the dead. Surgeons and heaith officers
cry:
'Ist the fires burn until the bodies
are cremated, and so the valley be kept
free from the pestilence that must come
if these bodies are left to dissolution in
the open air.
mo! No." cry out husbands and wives,
fathers and mothers and children. "Let
the engines play upon the flames, and
the fires be put out, and we get back the
forms of our loved ones for one more
look before they go out of sight forever.
Let our white hands of grief bury them,
and not the red hands of confiagration"
II I were physician in that stricken
valley | would say, "Let cremation go
on.''
If 1 had one of my household in the
ruin would say, "Put out the fre!''
will tell you what we will have to do,
and that is, leave all to God. This is a
a calamity too big for human manage.
ment. The angels of destruction are
presiding at those obsequies. Thank
God, the souls have gone free, and the
waters cannot drown them and the fires
cannon burn them.
But while water and fire are raging
controversy as to which shall make
BLACKLIST the wretchedness, another COM
bat more astounding goes on between
heaven descended charity and diabolism.
While Christian relief, with food and
medlci ne, comes upon the scene it is CON
fronted with demons who are robbing the
dead. From the swollen fingers of
beauty and love the rings are torn and
the pockets of the dead are rifed. May
there be shot and ropes enough on the
ground to hang or shoot them ALL No
judge, or jury, or trial is appropriate for
such incarnate tends. They ought not
them from thu face of the earth-the
quicker the better. Did ever such oppo-
sites meet on any scene of calamity,
charity and r0tfianism, angel and devil.
rescue and loathsomeness?
Why is it multitudes are crginx? Why
is it that all this has come upon those
beautiful valleys, and that these multi
tudes are so awfully slain?
Let TO one aft uas ,F
God upon that people," as so often it is
said III re. ard to such disasters. No!
There are no better people under the
sun than those last Friday slain. | have
been IN their homes and knew them well.
Besides that there are hundreds of towns
and cities, By their iniquities inviting
the Divine judgment, who were never
struck by lightning or washed under in
exorabie waves. II Brooklyn and New
York had been punished for all their sins
the Hudson and East rivers would now
stand higher than the piers of the East
river bridge aud the bluefsh would hold
high. carnival in our dining halls and
pantries.
Be careful how you try to handle the
thunderbOlts OF the Almighty. GOD
spare our homes, our cities, our nation
from any REPETITION of such horrors.
Can that Conemaugh river be the one
L have seen pronouucing its gentle bene-
diction upon the farms aud Che homes on
either side or its Some demon of the
pit must have seized upon il. With
hands besoiled and wrathful it has
ciutched for all il soulu reach.
Come with me-" it cried to the homes,
the churches, the villages, the cities
come with me in my midnight revels
and dance with death and darkness and
wOe."
The Johnstown disaster will be set
down in history beside the three or four
greatest disasters of the nineteenth CEN
fury. Since the chotic food that stood
fifteen cubits above the highest noun
ta'ns there have been few deluges TO
equal 1t. Now upop this modern deluge
let the ark of our human sympathy sail!
T. De WITT TALMAGE.