Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-12-11

ders in the heavens and in the earth.
DIR. Cumming-great and good man
would nave told us the exact time of the
fulfIlment of this prophecy, As stepped
into his study in London on my arrival
from Paris, just after the French had
surrendered at Sedan, the good doctor
said to me: 1T is just what | have told
you about France. People laughed at me
because | talked about the seven horns
and the walls, but ! foresaN all this from
the book of Daniel and the book Of Reeve
latinn.' Not taking any such response
bilty In the Interpretation Of the passage,
/ simply assert that there is in it sugges-
tons of many things in our time.
Our eyes dilate aud our heart quickens
In its pulsations as we read of events in
the third century, the sixth century, the
eighth century, the fourteenth century,
but there were more far-reaching events
crowded into the nineteenth century than
into any other, and the last twenty years
eclipse any preceding twenty. We read
in the daily newspapers of events an
nounced in one paragraph and without
any special emphasis-eyents which a
Herodotus, Josephus, Xenophon, a
Gibbon would have taken whole chapters
or whole volumes to elaborate Looking
out upou our time we must cry out, in the
words of the text. Wonders in the heav-
ems and in the earth"
l propose TO show you that the time in
which we live is wonderful for disaster
and wonderful for blessing, for there
must be lights and shades in this picture
as in all others. Need | argue that our
time is wonderful for disaster? Our world
has had a rough ME since by the hand
of God it was bowled out into space. 1t is
an epileptic earth-convusion after con-
vulsion; frosts pounding it with sedge
hammer of iceberg and fires melting it
With furnaces seven times heated. 1t is a
wonder to me it has lasted so long. Mete
ors shooting by on this side and grazing it
and meteors shooting by the other side
and grazing it. none of them slowing up
for safety. Whole fleets and navies and
argosies and flotilas of worlds sweeping
all about us. Our earth like a fish ng
smack off the banks of Newfoundland
while the Majestic and the St Paul and
the Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse rush by.
Besides that. our world has by sin been
damaged in its internal machinery. and
and the walking beams of the mountains
have broken, and Il islands have ship
ped sea, and the great hulk of the
world has been Jared with accidents
that ever and anon threatened immediate
demolition.
4 Century of Disasters.
But it seems to US rs if the last hun
dred years were especially characterized
by disaSter-yolcanic oceanic, epidemic.
] say volcanic because aH earthquake is
only a volcano bushed up. When Strom-
boil and COtopaN and Vesuyius stop
breathing, let the foundations of the
earth beware! Seven thousand earth
quakes in two centuries recorded in the
catalogue of the British association! Ira
jan, the emperor goes to ancient Antioch
and amid the splendors of his reception
is met by an earthquake that nearly de-
stroys the emporor's life Lisbon. fair
and beautiful, at l o'clock on the LIST
of November. 1775. in six minutes 10000
have persisted, and Noltaire writes of
them, For that region it was the last
Judgment, nothing wanting but a trum-
pet"' Europe and America feeling the
throb-1, 800 chimneys in Boston partly
or fully destroyed!
But the disasters of other times have
had their counterpart in later times. In
1912 Caracas was caught in the grip of
an earthquake, in 1882 in Chill 100000
square miles Of land by volcanic force up
heaved to four and seven feet of perma
ncnt elevation, in 1854 Japan felt the ge-
illogical agony; Naples shaken in 1857,
Mexico in 1858; Mendoza. the capital of
the Argentine Republic, in 1861; Manila
terrorized in 1868; the Hawaiian Islands
by such force uplifted and let down in
1871; Nevada shaken III 1871, Antioch in
1872, California in 1877, San Salvador il
1873. while in 1888 what subterranean
excitement! Ischia. an island OF me Med
lterranean. q beautiful Italian watering
place. vineyard clad. surrounded by all
natural charm and historical reminis-
cence yondcr 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 merrymakers perishing, and
some of them SO far down beneath the
reach Of human obSeguies that it may be
said of many q one of them, rs it was
said u Noses. The Lord buried him 3"
ITALY. all Europe weeping. all Chris
tend om weeping, where there were hearts
to sympathize and Christians to pray.
Blu. while the nations were measuring
th3rt magnitude Of disaster, measuring it
no, with golden rod like that with which
th, angel measured heaven. but with
tho black rule Of death. Java Of the
Indian archipelago the most fertile
island of all the earth, is caught in The
az !