Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-12-13
WORLD GROWS BETTER,
DR.. Talmage Says the Time III Which We
Live Is Wonderful for Disaster
and Blessings.
The Dead Sea Rolls Today Where Anciem
Cities Stood

| SHOWS That the world IS advancing III tnC
right direction; text, Joel ii, 80, Il will
show wonders in the heavens and in the
earth"
| Dr. Cumming-great and good man
would have told us the exact time of the
| fulfillment of this prophecy. AS | stepped
| into his study in London on my arrival
from Paris just after the French had sur
rendered at Sedan the good doctor said to
me: at is just what had told you about
| France. People laughed at me because |
| talked about the seven horns and the walls,
but l foresaw all this from the book of
| Daniel and the book of. Revelation" Not
taking any such responsibility in the in
depreciation of the passage, [ simply as
! sert that there are in it suggestions OF
many things in our time.
Our eyes dilate and 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 announced
in one paragraph and without any special
emphasis--events which a Herodotus,
Josephus, Xenophon, Gibbon, would
have taken whole chapters or whole VOL
umes to elaborate. Looking out upon our
time, we must cry out in the words of the
text, ,...Wonders in the heavens and in the
earth"
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 time since by the hand OF
God it was bowied ont into space. 1t is
an epieptic earth-convu}sion after convul-
sion; frosts pounding it with sledge ham,
mer of icebergs and fires melting it with
furnaces seven times heated. 1t is won
der to me it has lasted so long. A1eteors
shooting by on this side and grazing it and
meteOrS shooting by on the other side and
grazing it, none OF them slowing up for
safety. Whole fleets and navies and argo-
go3ies and fotilas of worlds sweeping all
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 ever and
anon the furnaces have burst, and the
walking beams Of the mountains have
broken, and the islands have shipped
sea, and the great hulk of the world has
been Jared with accidents that ever and
anon threatened immediate demolition.
But it seems to lis as if the last hundred
years were especially characterized by dis
aster-volcanic, oceanic, epidemic. say
volcanic because an earthquake is only
volcano hushed up. When Stromboh and
CotOpaxi and Vesuvius stop breathing, let
the foundations of the earth beware! Sew
en- thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded in the catalogue of the British as
ISOLATION! Traian, the emperor, goes to
ancient Antioch, and amid the splendors
of his reception is met by an earthquake
that nearly destroys the emperor's life.
Lisbon, fair and beautiful, at o'clock
on the lst Of November, 1855, in six min
utes 10000 have persisted, and Voltaire
writes of them, "For that region it was
the last Judgment; nothing wanting but
trumpet" Europe and America feeling
the throb-lJ00 chimneys in Boston partly
or fully destroyed!
But the disasters Of other times have
hid their counterpart in later times. In
1872 Caracas was caught in the grip of an
earthquake, in 1882 in Chic 100000 square
miles of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet of permanent e!e-
walton, in 1854 Japan felt the geological
agony; Naples shaken in 1857, Mexico in
1858; Mendoza, the caDital of the Argentine
Republic, in 1861; Manila terrorized in
1cO0. lle HAWAIIAN ISIdIOS ny SuSiI lOA SC
uplifted and let down in 1871; Nevada
shaken in 1871, Antioch in 1872; Califor-
MIA in 1872, San Salvador in 1873, while
1883 what subterranean excitement! Is
CHA. an island OF the Mediterranean, a
beautiful Italian watering place, vineyard
clad, surrounded by all natural charm and
historical Renaissance; yonder Capri, the
summer resort of the Roman emperors;
yonder Naples, the paradise oil, 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 obsequies that
it may be said of many one of them, as
it was said of Moses, "The Lord buried
him." Italy, all Europe weeping, all Chris
tendon weeping where there were hearts
to svmpathize and Christians to pray. But
while the nations were measuring that
magnitude of disaster, measuring 1T not
with golden rod like that with which the
angel measured heaven, but with the black
rule of death, Java, of the Indian archi-
peiago, the most fertile island of all the
earth, 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 best beverage of all
the world, produced the ghastlest catas-
trophe. One hundred thousand people
dying, dead! Coming nearer home, on
August 81, 1856, the great earthquake
which Frustrated one-half of Charleston,
s. G..
But look at the disasters cyclonic. At
the mouth of the Ganges are three islands,
the Haitian, the Sundeep and the Dakin
Shabazpore. In the midnight of October,
| 1877, on all those three islands the cry
was "The waters!" a cyclone arose and
rolled the sea over those three islands,
of ,o,,,,lo+;o,, ne ON 000 O1S 000
drowned. Only those saved who had
climbed to the top of the highest trees!
Did YOU ever see cyclone? No? Then
/ pray God you may never see one. L saw
| a cyclone Oh the ocean, and it swept us
| 500 miles back from our course, and Tor
| thirty-six hours during the cyclone and
after it we expected every moment to go
to the bottom They told us before we re.
tired at o'clock that the barometer had
fallen but at IL o'clock at night we were
awakened with the shock of the waves.
All the lights out Crash went all the life
boats. Waters rushing through the sky
lights down into the cabin and down on
the furnaces until they Kissed and smoked
praying. shriekng. Our great ship poised
a moment on the top of mountain OF
phosphorescent fire and then plunged
down, down, down until it seemed as If
she never would again be righted. All,
you never want to see a cyclone at sea!
But | was in Minnesota, where there
was one OF those cyclones on land that
swept the city of Rochester from its foun-
dations and took dwelling houses, barns,
men, women, children, horses, cattle and
tossed them into ind;scrimiDate ruin and
lifted a rail train ard dashed it down,
mightier hand than that Of engineer on
IL :. X oil