Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-04-11

call the roll of the dead shipping! He
monsters of the deep, answer when l call
your names Vile de Havre. the Schiller,
City of Boston, the Melville, the President,
the Cimbria- But why should / go on
calling the roll when none of them answer,
and the roll is as long as the white scroll
of the Atlantic surf at Cape Hatteras
breakers? If the oceanic cables could re-
port all the scattered life and all the
blesched bones that they rub against in
the depths Of the ocean, what a message
of pathos and tragedy for both beaches
In one storm eighty fishermen persisted
OF the coast Of Newfoundland, and whole
fleets of them off the coast of Eng gland.
God help the poor fellows off at sea and
give high seats in Heaven to the Grace
Darlings and the Ida Lewises and the life
boat men lowering around Goodwin's
Sands and the Skerries. The sea owning
three-fourths of the earth, proposes to
capture the other fourth and is lombard
ing the land all around the earth. The
moving Of our hotels at Brighton Beach
backward one hundred yards from where
they once stood, a type of what is going
on all around the world and on every
coast The Dead Sea rolls to-day where
ancient cities stood. Pillars of temples
that stood on hills biologists now find
three-quarters under the water or alto
gether submerged. The sea, having
wrecked so many merchantmen and fotil-
las, wants to wreck the continents, and
hence disasters oceanic.
Look at the disasters epidemic Ispeak
not of the plague in the fourth century
that ravaged Europe, and in Moscow and
tha Naan0litaD dopoiniops oud Maraaillas
wrought such terror in the eighteenth
century, but l look at the yellow fever,
and the choleras, and the diphtherias, and
the scarlet fevers and the typhoids Of our
own time. Hear the wailing of Memphis,
and Shreveport and New Orleans and
Jacksonville of the last few decades
From Hurdwar, India, where every
twelfth year 5000. 900 devotees congre-
gate, the caravans brought the cholera,
and that one disease slew Is, 900 in eight
cen days in Bossorah. Twelve thousand
in one summer slain by it in India and 25,-
900 in Egypt. Disasters epidemic. Some
of the finest monuments in Greenwood
and Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn are to
doctors who lost their lives battling with
Southern epidemic.
But now turn the leaf in my subje ct,
and plant the white lilies and the palm
tree amid the night shade and the myrtle.
This age no more characterized by Won
ders of disaster than by wonders of bless
ing. Blessing of longevity; the average Of
human life rapidly increasing. Forty
years now worth four hundred years once
Now / can travel from Manitoba to New
York in three days and three nights. In
other times it would have taken three
months. In other words, three days and
three nights now are worth three months
of other days. The average of human life
practically greater now than when Noah
lived his $50 years and Methuselah lived
his 969 years. Blessings of intelligence:
The Salmon P. Chases and the Abraham
Lincolns and Henry Wilson's of the COM
ing time will not be required to learn
to read by pine knot lights or seated on
shoemaker's bench, nor will the Fergusons
have to study astronomy while watching
the cattle. knowledge rolls its tides
along every poor mans door, and his
children may go down and battle in them
If the philosophers of the last century
were called up to recite in class with our
boys in the Polytechnic, or our girls at the
Packer, those old philosophers would be
sent down to the foot of the class because
they failed to answer the questions. Free
libraries in all the important towns and
cities Of the land. Historical alcoves and
poetical shelves and magazine tables for
all that desire to walk through them or sit
down at them Blessings OF quick infor-
nation. Newspapers falling all around
US as leaves in September equinoctiaL
News three days old, rancid and stale.
We see the whole world twice a day
through the newspaper at the breakfast
table, and through the newspaper at the
tea table, with an extra here and there
between.
Blessing of Gospel proclamation: Doyou
know that nearly all the missionary So
cieties have been born in this country?
and nearly all the Bible societies and
nearly all the great philanthropic move
ments? A secretary of one of the de-
said to me the other day in
Dakota: You were wrong when you said
our denomination averaged q new church
every day of the year; they established
nine in one week, so you are far within the
truth" A clergyman of our own denom-
nation said: 81 have just been out estab-
fishing five mission stations" 1 tell you
is on the march, while inf
deity is dwindling into imbe cility. While
is thus dwindling and dropping
down into imbecility and indecency, the
wheel of Christianity is making about
revolutions in a minute. All the
copies of Shakespeare and Tennyson and
and OF any ten of the most popu-
lar writers of the day. less in number than
the copies Of the Bible going out from our
printing presses. A few years ago, in six
weeks, more than 1000. 600 copies of the
New Testament purchased, not given
away, but purchased because the world
will have it.
More Christian men in high official posi-
ion to-day in Great Britain and in the
United States than ever before. Stop that
tai ehood going through the newspapers
Il have seen it in twenty-that the judges
IF the Supreme Court of the United States
are all infidels except one. By personal
l know three of them to be
Did fashioned evangelical Christians, sit
ing at the holy sacrament of our Lord
Jesus Christ, and suppose that the ma
iority of them are stanch believers in our
Christian religion. And then hear the dy-
ng words of Judge Black, a man who had
been Attorney General of the United
States, and who had been Secretary of the
United States, no stronger lawyer of the
than Judge Black-dying, his
aged wife kneeling 10y his side and he ut
.ered that sublime aud tender prayer:
%, Lord God from whom l derived my
existence and in whom l have always
trusted, take my spirit to Thyself and let
Thy richest blessing come down upon my
Mary" The most popular book to-day is
,he Bible, and the mightiest institution is
he Church, and the greatest name among
he nations and more honored than any
,ther is the name Of Jesus.
Wonders of self-sacrifice. A clergyman