The Iola register., 1889-04-12
WONDERS OF THE WORLD
Dr. Talma9e Talls For the Benefit
Of the People

Of the People
The Disasters - Wen ~ Blsssings Of the
Present Ags-Grsat Blessings Enjoyed
~ the People Of To-dsy-Prom-
ises Of the Future.
While recently travelling and lscturing
in the West, Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
stopped over one Sunday at Kansas City
to rest and did not deliver his regular
sermon. However hs gave out for pub.
lication a sermon ON 'Ths Wonders Of
This Age" and based his views on the
text 81 Will Show Wonders in the
Heavens and in the Earth Joel II, ID.
He said:
DR. Cumming-great and good man
would have told rs the exact time OF the
fulfillment 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 I told you about France;
people laughed at me because l talked
about the seven horns and the vials, but l
fores aw all this from the Book OF Daniel
and the Book Of Revelation" Not taking
any such responsibility in the interpreta.
tion Of the passage, simply assert that
there is in it suggestions 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 far-reaching events
crowded into the nineteenth century than
into any other, and the last quarter bids
fair to eclipse the three quarters We
read in the daily newspapers of events
announced in one.paragraph and without
any special EN- phasis-of events which
-Herodotus, q Josephus, q Xenophon,
Gibbon would have taken whole 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"
Ipropose to show that the time in which
we live 10 wonderful for disaster and won.
derful for blessing. for there must be
lights and shades in this picture as in all
others. Need I 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; convulsion after
convulsion; frosts pounding it with sledge
hammer Of iceberg, and fires melting it
with furnaces seven hundred times heat
ed. 1t 10 a wonder to me it has lasted so
long. Meteors shooting by on this side
and gra zing it, and meteors shooting by
on the other side and grazing it. none Of
them slowing up for safety. Whole
feets and navies and argosies and fotillas
OF worlds sweeping all about us. Our
earth like fish smack of the banks Of
Newfoundland, while the Etruria and
Germsnic and the Arizona aud the City Of
New York rush by. Besides that our
world has by sin been damaged in its in
ternal machinery and ever and anon the
furnaces have burst, and the walking
beams OF the mountain have broken, and
the islands have shipped q sea, and the
great hulk Of the world has been Jared
with accidents that ever and anon threat
ened immediate demolition. But it seems
to us as II our century were especially
characterized by disaster, volcanic, cy-
| clonic, oceanic, epidemic. l say volcanic.
because an earthquake is only volcano
| hushed up When Stromboli and Coto.
paxi and Vesuvius stop breathing, lot the
foundations of the earth beware. Seven
thousand earthquakes in two centuries re-
corded in the catalogue Of the British As
sociation. Trajan, the Emperor, goes to
ancient Antioch and amid the splendors
of his reception is met by an earthquake
that nearly destroys the Emperor's life
Lisbon, fair and beautiful at one o'clock
on November l, 1855, in six minutes 10000
have perished, and Voltairs writes Of
them: "For that region it was the last
judgment, nothing wanting but Q trum-
pet" Europe aud America feeling the
throb; 1500 chimneys in Boston partly or
fully destroyed. -'
But the disasters of other centuries have
had their counterpart in our own. In 1872
Caracas was caught in the grip Of the
earthquake; in 1872, in Chill, loo. 600 square
miles Of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet Of permanent eleva-
tion; in 1854 Japan felt the geological
agony; Naples shaken in 1851; Mexico in
1858; Medosa, the capital Of the Argentine
Republic, in 1851; Manila terrorized in
1858; the Hawaiian islands by such force
uplifted and let down in 1871; Nevada
shaken in 1871; Antioch in 1872; California
in 1872; San Salvador in 1873; while in 1888
what subterranean excitement! 1schia
an island of the Mediterranean, a beauti-
ful Italian watering place, vineyard clad,
surrounded by ell natural charm and his
torical "Reminiscences; yonder Capri, the
summer resort of the Roman Emperors;
yonder Naples, the paradise Of art-this
beautiful island suddenly toppled into the
trough Of the earth, 5000 merry -makers
perishing, and some of them so far down
beneath the reach of human obsequies
that it may be said Of many q one of them
IS it was of Noses, "The Lord buried him. I"
Italy weeping. all Europe weeping. all
Christendom weeping where there were
bearts to sympathize and Christians to
pray. But while the nations were
measuring that magnitude of disaster,
measuring it. not with the 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 10
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 peo.
pie dying, dying. dead, dead.
But look at the disasters cyclonic. A,
the mouth Of the Gauges are three islands
the Hottiah, the Sundeep and the Dakir
Sha baxpore. In the midnight Of October;
1877, on those three islands the cry was:
"The waters! the waters" A cyclone
arose and rolled the sea over those three
islands, and Of a population of 10000
2l5,0O0 were drowned Only those were
saved who had climbed to the top of the
highest trees. Did you ever see a cyclone!
No? Then l pray God you may never see
one. saw one on the ocean, and it swep
US 800 miles back from our course, and fol
| fhirfu. aiY honra dneinn the ruclonA a ne