The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-01-18
YESTERDAYS SERMONS.
Relations Of the Grippe to the Sec.
ond Coming.
POWER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
I in AMERICA.

Rev. e. p. Woodward Tells His Hearers
how to Avoid the Grippe-Remedies of
the Grandmothers Better Than Rows
OF Doctors-Professor Lee, of SPRING
field, on Emigration and the Catholic
Power - Finances of the Woodfords
Congregational Church.
At the neat little Second Advent church
onCongress Place, an interested audience
gathered yesterday to listen to
the sermon which the pastor, Rev. E. p.
Woodward, had announced on "La
grippe, the modern plague, considered in
the Light of history, experience and
prophecy, as to it's origin, prevention,
cure and the time of it's final disappear
anee from the EARTH
Mr.. woodward chose his text from
Luke XXI, verse IL:
And great earthquakes shall be in divers
| places. and famines, and peStilences; and fear
| ful signs and great sights shall there be from
| heaven.
| The preacher said that these words
were a part Of the words spoken by Je-
sus just before his crucifixion; and re-
ferred first to the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, and second to His second coming to
this earth. There have always been
those, who, from study of the Bible,
have claimed that many troubles should
precede the second coming. But there
have always been others who have
scoffed at the idea, and at the troubles
as things that had been seen before.
| Within recent years men have been get
| ting hold of the secrets of nature, and
science has told us that famines and pes
tilences and earthquakes will become
less frequent as time goes on. As the
earth grows older men of science say its
crust grows harder and earthquakes be-
come less frequent; as methods of pro-
duction and transportation become bet
ter systematized famines disappear; and
as anitary science becomes better under
stood, plaques are abolished.
But in spite of these claims of science,
the fact remained that in the year just
passed there had been one of the greatest
earthquakes, one of the most appalling
famines, and one of the most deadly dis
tempers ever known. This course of
events was, Mr.. Woodward said,
An Awful Sarcasm.
on the theories of science.
The preacher said that plaques were no
new thing; cholera, yellow fever and the
plague have devastated wide territories.
But those diseases were different from
the present scourge. In those days men
were ignorant of the laws of health and
sanitation. Medicine was worse than
nothing. The condition Of Europe then
was as bad as Asia now, in regard to
| these matters. And when men of that
time, with a slight glimpse at laws of
| sanitation, went to work to improve
! their condition, the results were favora-
| BILE, This showed that the distempers
were the result of human laundering.
| Sometimes the plaques have come from
| Asia, or have been sporadic, sometimes
taking long years to travel.
| But now, this new form of distemper,
| the grippe, comes without starting from
any centre of contagion. 1t strikes in
the huts of squalor and the mansions of
neatness. It RACES toward the tropics
and toward the poles; in the mountains
of Colorado and by the sea coasts of
New England.
It is true that it does not seem so Sc
we're as the old plaques. Yet if we ex-
anime the records of the plaques of the
old world we find that the number who
died was small in proportion to the num-
Der afflicted.
The great popularity of the grippe is
that when once it fastens itself upon a
man it clings for weeks, and even years.
The
Death Rate of this City
on one day last week was such that if
kept up itwould depopulate this city in
ID years, whereas, under ordinary eondi-
tions. the time for such change would
be 40 years.
There have been in times past similar
distempers The origin of the grippe is
not known. There. seems to be atmos-
| pheric conditions that favor it's spread !;
/ and the science of bacteriology is doing
something towards explaining this invis-
| ible death that hovers over the earth.
! There are some who think that condi-
lions in the celestial world may have
something to do with it.
The real question which interests us
| Isl How shall we meet this condition of
things. We cannot flee from this dis
temper We must stay and meet it, and
we must meet it if we do not stay. Let
me tell you that the
Bottom Trouble
of the whole thing is sin, A voice: Yes]
perhaps not your sin or mine, but sin at
some time.
That being so, the farther from sin we
can get at this time the freer we shall
be, other things being equal, from this
trouble. Several voices: Yes, yes We
are not to understand that it is direct
affliction for particular sin. But what
ever affection we get comes from natural
causes under care of God himself.
Mr.. Woodward next proceeded to deal
with the practical aspects of the subject.
He said that modern life was terribly
wearing upon the vitality of men and
4 women; and vitality was just the thing
needed to fortify one against a disease
like the grippe. Do not overwork, keep
1 l. Il