The people's recorder. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1893-1925, 1901-12-21
STEADILY IMPROVES.
DR.. TALMAGE'S SUNDAY SERMON. |

Argues That the World Grows Better,
Day BY Day Many Opportunities
For Improvement.
WASHINGTON, D. C.-In this discourse
DR.. Talriagc recitcs some great events and
shows that the world is advancing III the
right direction; text, Joel ii, 30, Il will
show wonders in the heavens and in the
eartk.''
Dr. Cun:ming-great and coed man
would have told us the exact time of the
tu;ii'lment OF this prophecy. AS stepped
from Paris Just after the French had sur
rendered at Sedan the good doctor said to
nc: ut is Just what had told you about
France. People laughed ut rhc because.
but I foresaw all this from the book Of
Daniel and the book Of Revelation. Not
taking any such responsibility in the in
terp"etation of The passage, l simply as
cert that there nrc III it suggestions of
many things III our ti1lc.
Our eyes tlilatc and our heart quicEens
in its Fusations as we read OF events in
the third century. the sixth century, the
eighth century, the fourteenth century,
but there wSre more far-reachinS events
crowded int, Nhe nineteenth century than
into any otEtr, aud the last twenty years
eclipse any preceding twenty. We read in
the tniiy newspapers Of events announced
IL olt p1tuSidpH uNu "lLnOuC any SPECIAL
.e.nphasis-cvents which Herodotus,
.IoseDhus, Kenophon. n Cbhon, would
have taken whole chapters or whole vol
'iimes to elaborate. Looking out upon or
time, we must cry out i'll the words of the
text: "Wonders i'll the heavens and i'll the
earth"
l propose. to show You that the tims in
which we live is wonderful for disaster
aand, wonderful for blessing. for. there mu:t
= fSt f,.t
wonderful for disaster? Our world has
had :. rough time since by tho hand OF
God it was bowlcd out into space. 1t is
an cpi;eptic carth--convulsion after convui-
..ne- of icebergs and fires melting it with
furnaces seven times heated. 1t is 4 won.
der - nc it has lasted 50 long. NIeScors
shao::ag Ivy on this side and grazing it and
mc;cors shooting by on the other side and
gra2ng It., none OF them slowing up for
safety. Whole fleets and ravies and argo-
Eosics and hotillas OF worlds sweeping all
about us. Our Garth like q tiching smack
oil the banks of Newfoundland, whi'e the
hl:lestic and the st. Paul and tie Kaiser
Wilhelm der Crosse rush by. I: sides
that. our word has by sin hccn damaged
n its internal machinery. and ever and
anon the, furnaces have burst, and the
walking beam, OF the mountains have
sea. and the great hulk OF tue world has
been Jared with accidents that ever and
anon threatened immediate tlemoliio
Bnt 1t seems to MS az II the last hundred
years we're especially characterized by dis.
aS;cr-rocanic, oceanic, epidemic. T say
volcanic because an earthquake il only a
Volcano M:shad up. When Stromboii and
totooa:;i and Vcsuvius stop athing. let
the ioundatio ions OF the eaTtl, beware! Sew
ell thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded in the catalogue Of the British as.
soclation! -Talan, the, emperor, goes to
On" ent Antioch, and amid the sp' p'en6ors
OF his reception Is met by an! earthquake,
tha! ncar.v destroys the emperor's life.
Oh the lst Of November, 1855, in six min
r'", G0,o00 have perished, and Voltaire
- t's OF them, "For that region it was
- asst judgement; nothing wanting but
tI'mncti" Europe and America feeling
or. fully destroyed!
hut the disasters Of other times have
Ind their counterpart in later times In
.lsl2 Caracas was caught i'll the grip of an
earthquake. in 1882 in Chile l0o, 900 square
miles of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet Of permanent e!e:
:vatioa. in 1884 Japan felt the geological
agon:: Naples shaken in 1857, Mexico in
1865; Mendoza. the canital of The Argentine
Republic, in 1851; Manila terrorized in
lSea: The Hawaiian Islands by such force
.n!p!iftcd and let down III 1871; Nevada
shaken in 1871. Antioch in 1872: Ca.ifor-
mia in 1872, San Salvador in. 1878. While
1883 what subterrancan excitement. l..
CHA, an island OF the Mediterranean, a
beautiful Italian watering place. VINEYARD
clad, surrounded by all natural charm and
historical "Reminiscences; Wonder Capri, the
summer resort of the Rorlrn empcrors:
.yonder Naples. the paradise OF art-this
.heautiful isard suddenly toppled into the
trough OF the earth s000 mcrrymakcrs
:perishine,, and some of ther, 80 far down
beneath, the reach of hrman obsequies that
1T E,ay he said Of many T. one of them. as
at va said Of Moses, "The Lord buried
:hira; Italy, all Europe weeping, all Chris
'tcndom weeping where there were hearts
to sympathiEe and Christians to pray. But
'whi.c the nations were measuring that
ma: :nitude of disaster. measuring il lot
will. golden rod like that with which the
angel measured heaven. hat wit, the back
rule OF teath, Java, of the Indian archi.
,pe.aSo, the Irost fertile iElanA o. all the
.enr;,h, is caught in the grip Of the earth.
quake, and mountain after mountain goes
down, and city after city until That Island,
which produces the hest beverage of all
the world: produced the ghastliest catas-
trophc. One hundred thousand people
dying, dead! Coming nearer home, on
August 81. 1898, the great earthquake
which prost:ated orc-haif OF Charleston,
is. G.
! Eut look at the disasters cycionic. At
ithc mouth Of the Cangcs are three islands,
kI,rnl L.. H.