The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-10-27

JIG O4u Do1c1, blEus 90 SaIelT wing tOelr
way over lt-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 continually.
which though natural evaporation, seems
Ike wing OF DOOM spread over liquid desc
lation. Ii Is the rinsings of ab0mination-
1t is an aqueous monster coiled among the
hills, or creeping with ripples and stencil
full with nauseating malodcrs.
II these regions once stood four great
stiles of Assyria: Sod On, GOmorran,
Adma and Ze5oim. The Bible SAYS they
were destroyed by tempest Of fire aud
birthstone after these cities had filled up Of
wickedness. "NO. at is absurd cries
some one at is evident that this was a
re- ion of salt and brims one and pitch,
long before that" And so it was. The Bible
saws it was q region of sulphur long before
the great catastrophe. "Wen now" says
some one, wanting TO raise quarrel be
tween science and revelation, you have
no right to say that the Cities of the Plain
were DESTROYED by tempest of fire and sui
phur and birthstone, because this region
had these characteristics long before
these cities were destroyed Volcanic
action, is my reply. These cities had been
built out of very combustible materials
The mortar was of bitumen easily Ignited,
and the walls dripped with pitch most in
hammable. They sat, | think, on ridge
of hills. They stood high up and conspicu-
Gus, radiant in their sins, ostentatious in
their debaucheries, four hells on earth. One
day there was rumbhng in the earth, aud
q quaking. whats thatT cry the at
Irighted inhabitants Whats thatF The
foundations Of the earth were giving way.
A volcano, whose fires had been burning
for ages at Gods command burst forth,
easily setting everything ahame, and
first lifting these cities high in air,
and then dashing them down In chasms
II. = fHeaN ion
intersbot the dense smoke, and rolled unto
the heavens, only to descend again. Aud
all the coniguration of that country was
changed, and where there was bill there
came valley, and where there had been
the pomp Of uncleanness came widespread
desolati n. The red hot spade of vol
caDlc action had shovelled under the cities
of the plain. Before the catastrophe, the
cities stood on the top of the salt and sui
phnr. After the catastrophe they were
under the salt and sulphur. Science right,
revelati right. HE touched the hills and
they smoke"
No science ever frightened believers in
revelation SO much as geology. They
feared that the strata of the earth would |
contradict the sc iptures and then Moses |
must 60 under. But as in the Dead Sea |
instance, so in all cases, Gods writing on |
the earth. and Gods writ z in the Bible |
are harmonious. The shelves of rock cor
respond 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, Land animals next" and |
the Bible responds, Land animals 1
next" Then comes man ~ says science |
Then comes mani" responds the Bible /
inf ha
Dead Sea, and finds result of fire, and masses
of birthstone, and announces wonderful |
geological formation. "Oh, yes." says the |
Bible: ''Moses wrote thousands of years ago |
The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon /
Gomorrah birthstone aud fire from the /
Lord out of heaven and David wrote, He |
toucheth the hills and they smoker So | /
guess We will hold on to our Bibles little
longer. A gentleman in the ante-room of |
the white house, at Washington, having |
an appointment with Mr.. Lincoln at Ave |
o'clock in the morning got there fifteen |
minutes early, and asked the servant
Who is talking in the next, |
boiy with hing mo. sir; he is reading |
the Bible. He spends every morning from 4 |
to O'Clock reading the scriptures"
My text implies that God controls vol |
canoes not with the full force of his hand, |
but with the tip Of his finger. Etna, Strom- !
boil and Vesuvius fawn at his feet like |
hounds before the hunter. These eruptions |
of the bills do not belong to Pluto's realm /
as the ancients thought, but to the divine |
dominions. Humboldt counted 200 of them. |
but since then the Indian archipelago |
has been found to have 900 of these !
great mouthpieces. They are on every |
continent and in all ATTITUDES That |
earthquake which shook all America about |
SIX or seven summers ago was only the |
~
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 punishment of one kind of |
sin. The seven cities they have obliterated |
were celebrated for one kind of TRANSFERS. |
sion. Prohigacy was the chief character |
1stic or the seven cities over which they put |
their smothering wing: Pompeii. Hercula-
neum, Stable, Adma Zeboim, Sodom and Go |
morrah. If our American cities do not quit |
their prohigacy if in high life and low life dis
soluteness does not cease to be a joke and
become crime, if wealthy libertinism con-
tinues to find so many doors of domestic life
open to its fantest touch, if Russian, and
French, and American literature, stepped in
pruriency, does not get banished from the
news stands and ladies' parlors, God will let
loose some of these suppressed monsters of
the earth. And l tell these American cities
that it will be more tolerable for Sodom
duQ III buc LAY OL
whether that Day of judgment be in this
present century or in the closi6g century of
the earth's continuance. The volcanic forces
are already in existence but in the mercy
Il God are chained in the kennels of sub
terraueous fire. Yet let profilgacy, whether
to stagger into a lazeretto or sit on a COM
imercial throne, whether 1t laugh in faded
shawl under the street gas-llght or be
wrapped in the finest array that foreign
loom ever wrought or lapidary ever en-
pearled. know right well that there is a vol
cano waiting for it. whether in domestic
life, or social life, or political life. or in the
foundations of the earth, from which
sprang out the devastations that swallowed
the cities of the plain. HE toucheth the
hills and they smoke"
But the dragoman was rejoiced when we
bad seen enough of this volcanic region Of
Palestine, and he gladly tightens the girths
for another march, around the horses
which are prancing and neighing for de-
parSure. We are off for the Jordan, only
two hours away. We pass Bedouins whose
stern features melt into a smile as we give
them the salutation SdLddnl Ateikounl,
Peace be with you," their smiles some
times leaving us in doubt as to whether it is
caused by their gladness to see us or by our
poor pronunciation of the Arabic Oh,
thew are stranre race thosa