Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1901-12-13
SOME GREAT EVENTS.
DR.. Talmage Discourses. on the
Worlds Advancement.
says 1t Ii. in the Right Direction
Present Time Wonderful for
Disaster and Wonderful
se for Blessing.

In this discourse DIR. Ta.mage recites
some great events and shows that the
world is advancing in the right direc-.
tion; text, Joel 2:30:a Il will show
wonders in the heavens and in the
earth" 60
DIR. Cumming-great and good man
would have told US the exact time
of the fultillment of this prophecy.
ASH stepped init. his study in London
on my arrival from Paris, just after
the French had surrendered at Sedan,
the good doctor said to me: ''It is
just what I have 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 Danieland the book of Revelation"
Not taking any such responsibility in
the Interpretation of the passage,
simply assert that there are in it sug-
gestions of many things'in. our time.
Our eyes diiateaard our heart quick
ems in its SpuIsatiOns as we read of
eventsoin the third century, the sixth
century, the, fourteenth century, but
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 graph and with
out any special mphasis-events
which "a Heredotus, Josephus,
Xenophon, 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 l argue
that our time is wonderful for disas-
ter? Our world has had rough time
since by the hand of God it was BOWED
out into space. 1t is an epileptfc earth
-convulsion after convulsion; frosts
pounding it with s1edge hammer of
iceberg and fires melting it with fur
naces seven times heated. 1t is a
wonder to me it has lasted so long.
Meteors shooting by on this side and
grazing it and me teors shooting by
on the other side and grazing it. none
of them slowing up for safety. Whole
fotillas of worlds sweeping all about
us. Our earth like fishing smack off
the banks of Newfoundland, while the
Majestic and the ST. Paul and the
Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse rush by.
Besides that, our word has by sin been
damaged in it's internal machinery,
and ever and anon the furnaces have
burst, and the walking beams of the
mountains have broken, and the is
lands have shipped a sea, and the great
hulk of the world has been Jared with
accidents that ever and anon have
reatened immediate demolition.
But it seems to us as if the last hun
dred years were especially character
lied by disa oceanic,
epidemic. L say volcanic because an
earthquake is only a volcano hushed
up. When Strompoli and oCotopaXi
and Vesuviuso stop breathing, let the
foundations of the earth beware!
Seven thousand earthquakes in two
centuries recorded in the catalogue of
the British association! Trajan, the
emperor, goes to ancient Antioch and
amid the splendors of his reception is
met by an earthquake that nearly de-
stroys the emperor's life. Lisbon, fair
and beautiful, at one O'Clock on the
LIST of November, ITS, in six minutes
10000 have persisted, and Voltaire
writes of them: For that region it
was the last Judgment, nothing want
ing but a trumpet" Europe and
America feeling the throb-1, 500 chin
neys in Boston partly or fully de-
stroyed! &c
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 1852 in Chill 1OO,-
600 square miles of land by volcan mic
force upheaved to four and seven feet
of permanent elevation. in 1854 Japan
felt the geological agony; Naples
shaken in 1857, Mexico in 1858; Men
doza, the capital of the Argentine. Re-
public, in 1861; Manila. terrorized in
1868; the Hawaiian islands by such
force uplifted and let down in 1871;
Nevada shaken in 1871, Antioch in 1872.
California in 1872, San Salvador in 1873,
while in 1883 what subterranean ex-
element! Ischia, an island of the
Mediterranean, beautiful Italian wa
tering 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
merrymakers perishing, and some of
them so far down beneath the reach of
human obsequies that it may be said
of many a one of them, as it was said
of Moses: The Lord buried him. -
Italy, all Europe weeping, al Chris
tendon weeping, where there were
hearts to sympathize and Christians to
pray. But while Q the nations were
measuring that magnitude of disaster,
measuring it not with yoldian rod lie