St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-05-23
BUILDERS OF CHARACTER.
Rev. III. NJ. Simmons on Floods
and Their Effects.

anu 4ShCCDS.
At the First Unitarian church yester-
day morning Rev. H. NJ. Simmons
topic was "Floods and Their Effects on
Humanity" The following is an alb
stract of his sermon:
"Floods, such as those of the last
week, seem fatal to any optimistic phi
losOphy or theology. Yet we must not
blame them too much. They are nee
eSSary part of the same system that
bleSSeS the fields with rain and the
country with streams which drain the
lands and give drink to cattle. drive
manufactures, provide cheap channels
for commerce and foster great cities
along their banks.
But would it not be better if the laws
which secure these blessings were SuS-
pended in time of flood by a kind Prov
idence? st. Gregory the Great tells how
flood of the Adige piled itself about
church without entering to harm per-
son therein; and such stories are very
common in sacred history. Would not
that be better system? No; the best
thing about the laws of water is that
they never fail, but can always he
trusted. If men thought streams
would stop, as they are said
to have done for Joshua,
and Elijah and st. Angeus and st.
Seronicus and many others, very few
mills would be built upon them. If
men thought water would seek its level,
navigation would end: for the same
pressure that makes it flood a city,
makes 1t support ships, and if that
pressure were withdrawn every steam
er would sink. 1t would be poor
| providence that would suspend the
laws, either for US or the lsraelites. The
weather system is good one, and wise
men will not complain of its occasional
| floods. but try TO guard against them.
"And how much success have they
| had in guarding against them? What is
more to our purpose today, how this
fight with floods has proved the material
and the moral power of man and devel-
| oped that power! Those $500 miles of
| great bikes along our lower Mississippi
and its tributaries have not only saved
such a vast amount of property and
life from floods, but have shown
and strengthened the patience and
| pluck and many moral quail
ties of the builders. Or take
an illustration from Hollandl No place
in Europe seemed more HOPELESS. A
swamp, often flooded by its rivers and
swept by the sea, what could its
WT6ICl6u lludDlIdIllS COIllc IO-GACGpl
drowning? And they did drown by
! thousands and sometimes by the hun
dred thousand. Yet their very dangers
and difficulties developed their strength.
They SO advanced that in the middle of
the sixteenth century, in Motley's
words, In the place of horde of saw
ages, living among swamps, swarm
100000 of people, the most industrious,
the most prosperous, perhaps the most
intelligent under the sum- They even
resisted that Spanish oppression, crueler
than the sea, and emerge, still keeping
their liberty for further growth.
Today Holland supports denser popu-
lation than any other cOuntryin Europe,
according to the latest reports. The
wealth and energy with which they
have, as Goldsmith says, 'scooped an
empire from the ocean, surpass all
the fairy tales. Think of these two lit
tie islands of 5000 acres, in
creased to 10000 by sixty sue
cessive advances of the dikes.' Read
of that Harlem lake, fifteen miles
long. and averaging five miles wide, yet
fenced off from the ocean and pumped
dry, so that in 1888, $4,000 people were
living where the fishes swan thirty
years before. At that date Holland had
1,500 miles of costly seadike. and yet
was less than one-sixth the size of Min
nesota. 1t had added more than a mill.
! ion acres to its land, and nearly one