Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1901-12-21
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
"WoNDERS IN THE HEAVENS AND IN
THE EARTH
Text from the Second Chapter of Joel
Tho World Constantly Advancing In
the Right Direction-The Triumph of
Christianity Over InfdeIity.

NCopyr1gnt, 1SOl, Dy Louis klopscn, N. ~
Washington, Dec. Sin this dis
course DR.. Talmage recites some great
events and shows that the world is ad-
vancing in the right direction; text.
Joel H., 80, II will show wonders in the
heavens and in the EARTH
There were more far-reaching events
crowded into the nineteenth century
than into any other, and the last 20
years eclipse any preceding 20. We
read in the daily newspapers of events
announced in one paragraph and with
out any special emphasis-events
which a Herodotus, a Josephus, Ken
ophon, a Gibbon would have taken
whole chapters or whole volumes 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.''
1 propose to show you that the time
in which we live is wonderful for dis
aster and wonderful for blessing, for
there must be lights and shades in this
picture as in all others. Need 1 argue
that our time is wonderful for disas-
ter? Our world has had a rough time
since by the hand of God it was bowled
out into space. 1t is an epileptic earth
-convulsion after convulsion; frost
pounding it with sledge hammer Of ice
berg and fires melting it with furnaces
seven times heated. 1t is a wonder to
me it has lasted so long. Meteors
shooting by on this side and grazing it
and meteors shooting by on the other
side and grazing it, none of them slow
ing up for safety. Whole fleets and
navieS and argOsieS and fiOtillaS of
worlds sweeping all about us. Our
earth like a fishing smack off the
banks of Newfoundland, while the Ma
jestic and the St. Paul and the Kaiser
Wilhelm der Crosse rush by. Besides
that, our world has by sin been dam
aged in its internal machinery, and
ever and anon the furnaces have burst,
and the walking beams of the noun
tains have broken, and the islands
have shipped a sea, and the great bulk
of the world has been Jared with acci-
dents that ever and anon threatened
immediate demolition.
But it seems to us as if the last hun
dred years were especially character
lied by disaster-volcanic oceanic,
epidemic. Seven thousand earthquakes
in two centuries recorded in the cata-
logue of the British association! Ira
jan, the emperor, goes to ancient Anti
och and amid the splendors of his re-
cepton is met by an earthquake that
nearly destroys the emperor's life. Lis
bon. fair and beautiful, at 1 o'clock on
the 1st of November, 1775, in six min
utes $4,000 have perished, Europe and
America feeling the :throb-1,5 500 chin
neys in Boston partly or fully de-
stroyed!
But the disasters of other times have
had their counterpart in later times. In
1872 Caracas was caught in the grip of
an earthquake, in 1882 in Chile 100000
square miles of land by volcanic force
upheaved to four and seven feet of per-
manent elevation, in 1854 Japan felt
the geological 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 up
lifted and let down in 1871; Nevada
shaken in 1871, Antioch in 1872, Cali
fornia in 1872, San Salvador in 1873,
while in 1883 what subterranean ex-
citement Ischia, an island of the
Mediterranean. beautiful Italian wat.
ering place, vineyard clad. surrounded
by all natural charm and historical
"reminiscences; yonder Capri, the sum-
mer resort of the Roman emperors;
yonder Naples. the paradise of art
this beautiful island suddenly toppled
into the trough of the earth, 5000 mer-
rymakers perishing, and some of them
so far down beneath the reach of hu-
man obseQuies that it may be said of
many of them, as it was said of Moses,
'sThe Lord buried him." Italy, all Eu-
rope weeping, all Christendom weep
ing, where there were hearts to SYM
pathfze and Christians to pray. But
while the nations were measuring that
with golden rod like that with which
the angel measured heaven, but with
the black rule of death, Java of the In
dian archipelago, the most fertile is
land of all the earth, is caught in the
grip of the earthquake, and mountain
after mountain goes down and city
after city until that island, which pro-
duces the best beverage of all the
world, produced the ghastliest catas-
trophe One hundred thousand people
dying, dead!
Cyclone in Kansas, cyclone in Missouri.
cyclone in Wisconsin, cyclone in Illi-
nois, cyclone in Iowai Satan, prince of
the power of the air, never made such
cyclonic disturbances as he has in our
day. And am 1 not right in saving
that one of the characteristics of the
time in which we live is disaster cy-
ciouic?