Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-10-27

and wild ducks that ny acTOSS-IOr,
contrary to the old belief, birds do
safely wing their way over it-and the
! Arab horses you have been riding,
| though thirsty enough, will not drink
out of this dreadful mixture A mist
hovers over parts of it almost continu-
ally. which though natural evapora-
ton, seems like wing of doom spread
-er liquid desolation. 1t is the rims
Ings of abomination. 1t is an aqueous
monster coiled among the hills or creep
ing with ripples and stenchful with
nauseating malodors.
In these regions once stood four great
cities of Assyria: Sodom, Gomorrah,
Adma and Zeboim The Bible says
they were destroyed by a tempest of
fire and birthstone after these cities
had filled up of wickedness. mo,
that is absurd" cries some one st is
| evident that this was a region of salt
and birthstone and pitch long before
that And SO it was. The Bible says
it was region of sulphur long before
the great catastrophe "Well, now"
says some one, wanting to raise quar-
rel between science and Revelation,
''you have no right to say the cities of
the plain were destroyed by tempest
of fire and sulphur and birthstone, be-
cause this region had these character
istics long before these cities were de-
stroyed." Volcanic action, is my re-
ply. These cities had been built out
of very combustible materials The
mortar was of bitumen easily ignited,
and the walls dripped with pitch most
inflammable They sat, think, on a
ridge of hills. They stood high up and
conspicuous, radiant in their sins, os-
tentatious in their debaucheries, four
bells on earth.
One day there was q rumbling in the
earth, and quaking whats thatY
cry the affrighted inhabitants. Whats
that?" The foundations of the earth
were giving way A volcano, whose
fires had been burning for ages, at
Gods command burst forth, easily set
ting everything afame, and first lifting
these cities high in air, and then dash
ing them down in chasms fathomless
The fires of that eruption intershot the
dense smoke, and rolled unto the heav-
ems, only to descend again And all
the CONFORMATION of that country was
changed and where there was a hill
there came a valley, and where there
had been the pomp of uncleanness
came widespread desolation. The red
hot spade of volcanic action had shov-
eled under the cities of the plain. Be
fore the catastrophe the cities stood
on the top of the salt and sulphur
After the catastrophe they were under
the salt and sulphur. Science right !;
Revelation right. ''He toucheth the
hills and they smoke"
GODS BOOK AND GEOLOGY AGREE.
No science ever frightened believers
in Revelation so much as geology.
They feared that the strata of the
earth would contradict the Scriptures,
and then Moses must go under But
as in the Dead sea instance so in all
cases Gods writing on the earth and
Gods writing in the Bible are harmo-
NOUS The shelves of rock correspond
with the shelves of the American Bible
society. Science digs into the earth
and finds deep down the remains of
plants, and so the Bible announces
plants first Science digs down and
says, Marine animals next, " and the
Bible says, Marine animals next"
Science digs down and says, FLand ami
mails next" and the Bible responds,
Land animals next Then comes
man!'' saws science Then comes
mani" responds the Bible. Science digs
into the regions about the Dead sea.
and finds results of fire and masses of
birthstone, and announces a wonderful
geological formation. ''Oh. yes" says
the Bible; ''Moses wrote thousands of
years ago, The Lord rained upon
Sodom and upon Gomorrah birthstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven
and David wrote, He toucheth the
hills and they smoke ,"
So 1 guess we will hold on to our
Bibles a little longer. A gentleman in
the ante-room of the White House, at
Washington, having an appointment
with Mr. Lincoln at 5 o'clock in the
morning, got there fifteen minutes
early, and asked the servant, ''Who is
talking in the next room" ut is the
president, sirl" SIS anybody with
him?" mo, sir; he is reading the
Bible. He spends every morning from
to o'clock reading the Scriptures.
GODS EASY CONTROL.
My text implies that God controls
volcanoes not with the full force of his
hand, but with the tip of his finger.
Etna, Stromboli and Vesuvius fawn at
his feet like hounds before the hunter.
These eruptions of the hills do not be-
long to Pluto's realm, as the ancients
thought, but to the divine dominions.
Humboldt counted two hundred of
them, but since then the Indian Archi-
pelago has been found to have nine
hundred of these great mouthpieces.
They are on every continent and in all
latitudes. That earthquake which
shook all America about six or seven
summers ago was only the raving
around of volcanoes rushing against
the sides of their rocky caverns trying
to break out They must come to the
surface, but it will be at the divine
call. They seem reserved for the pun
ishment of one kind of sin. The seven
cities they have obliterated were cele
brated for one kind of transsression.
Profigacy was the chief characteristic
of the seven cities over which they put
their smothering wing-Pompeii, Her
culaneum, Stabi8, Adma, ZeboiIn, So
dom and Gomorrah.
If our American cities do not quit
their profigacy, if in high life and low
life dissoluteness does not cease to be a
joke and become a crime, if wealthy
libertinism continues to find SO many
doors of domestic life open to its faint
est touch, if Russian and French and
American literature stepped in pruri
ency does not get banished from the
news stands and ladies' parlors, God
will let loose some of these suppressed
monsters of the earth. And I tell these
American cities that it will be more
tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in
the day of judgment, whether that day
of Judgment be in this present century
or in the closing century of the earth's
continuance The volcanic forces are
already in existence, but in the mercy
of God they are chained in the kennels