The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-12-25
DR.. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
subject: The World Grows Better The
Time in Which We Live is Wonderfsi
For Disaster and Wonder full For Bless
incs-InfdelitY DWi2Sling.

Time in Which We Live Is HohuefAS'
For Disaster and Wonder full For Bless
ings-Infdelity Dwissling..
WASHINGTON, D. C.-In this discourse
DR., Talmage recites some great events and
shows that the world is advancing in the
right direction; text, Joel ii, 30, II 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
fulfllment of this prophecy. AS stepped
into his study in London on my arrival
from Paris lust after the French had sur
rendered at Sedan the good doctor said to
me: "It is just what I had told you about
France. People laughed at me because 1
talked about the seven horns and the walls,
but I 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, l 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, a
Josephus, a 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"
I 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 I argue that our time Is
wonderful for disaster? 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 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. Meteors
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 argoo:
gosies and aotillas of worlds sweeping all
about US. Our earth like q 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 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 a
sea, and the great hulk of the world has
been Jared with accidents that ever and
anon threatened immediate demolition.
But it seems to us as if the last hundred
years were especially characterized by dis
aster-volcanic, oceanic, epidemic. say
volcanic because an earthquake is only a
volcano hushed up. When 'Stromboli and
Cotopaxi and Vesuvius stop breathing. let
en- thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded in the catalogue OF the British as
sociat;on! Trajan, 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 l o'clock
on the lst of November, 1855, in six min
utes 10000 have Derishcd. and Voltaire
writes of them, "For that region it was
the last Judgment; nothing wanting but
trumpet" Europe and America feeling
the throh-l500 chimneys in Boston partly
or fully destroyed!
But the disasters of other times have
hid their coun+ +erpart in later times. In
1917, Caracas was caught in the grip of an
earthquake. in 1852 in Chile 100000 square
to four and seven feet of permanent ele-
vation, 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
1858: the Hawaiian Islands by such force
uplifted and let down in 1871; Nevada
shaken in 1871, Antioch in 1872: Califor-
MIA in 1872, San Salvador in 1873, while
1883 what spbterraneen excitement! IS
CHA. an island of the Mediterranean, a
beautiful Italian watering place, vineyard
clad, surrounded by all natural charm and
historical reminiscence; yonder 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
pershing. and some OF them so far down
beneath the reach Of human ohsequies that
it was said of Moses, "The Lord buried
him." Italy, all Europe weeping, all Chris
tendon weeping where there were hearts
to sympathize and Christians to pray. But
while the nations were measuring that
magnitude of disaster. measuring it not
with golden rod like that with which the
angel measured heaven. but with the black
rule of death, Java, of the Indian archi-
pelago, 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 ghastliest catas-
trophe. One hundred thousand people
dying, dead! Coming nearer home, on
August 81, 1886, the great earthquake
which prostrated one-half OF Charleston,
S. C.
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,
was, "The waters!" A cyclone arose and
rolled tie sea over those three islands,
and of population of 100000, 5000 were
drowned. Only those saved who had
climbed to the top of the highest trees!
Did you ever see a cyclone? No? Then
I pray God you may never see one. l saw
a cyclone on the ocean, and it swept us
800 miles back from our course, and Tor
thirty-sx hours during the cyclone and
after it we expected every moment to so
to the bottom. They told us before we re,
tired at o'clock that the barometer had
fallen, but at II 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 hissed and smoked
in the deluge. Seven hundred people
praying, shreking. 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. Ah,
you never want to see cyclone at sea
But I was in Minnesota, where there
was one of those cyclones on land that
swept the city of Rochester from It's, foun-
dations and took dwelling houses, barns:
men, women. children, horses, cattle and
tossed them into indiscriminate ruin and
lifted a rail train and dashed it down.
mightier hand than that OF engineer. on
Z Ia a;rLr,l-a luclnae in Kansas cyclone