The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-12-13

tlOu, lSAt, JCSL --OO- VIII SAO"
wonders in the heavens and in the
earth"
Dr.. Cumming and good man
would have told Us the exact time
of the fulfillment of this prophecy.
As l stepped into his study in London
Oh my arrival from Paris, just after
the French had surrendered at Sedan,
the good doctor said to me: 1T is
just what 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 Daniel and the book of Revelation"
Not taking any such responsibility in
the Interpretation of the passage, l
simply assert that there are in it su9-
gestions of many things in our time.
Our eyes dilate and our heart quick
ems in its pulsatiOns as we read OF
events in 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 paragraph and with
out any special emphasis events
which a Herodotus, a JOsephus, a
Nenophon, 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"
l 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 a rough time
since by the hand of God it was bowed
out into space. 1t is an epileptic earth
-convulsion after cOnvulsiOn; frOsts
pounding it with siedge hammer OF
iceberg and fires melting it with fur
naces seven times heated. 1t is
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 slowing 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
Majestic and the St. Paul and the
Kaiser Wilhelm der Crosse rush by.
Besides that, our word 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 is
lands have shipped a sea, and the great
hulk of the world has been Jared with
accidents that ever and anon have
threatened immediate demolition.
But it seems to us S if the last hun
dred years were especially character
lied by disa oceanic,
epidemic. 1 say volcanic because an
earthquake is only a volcano hushed
up. When StromDoi and CotOpaXi
and Vesuvius stop breathing, let the
founda tons of the earth beware!
Seven thousand earthquakes in two
centuries recorded in the catalogue of
the British assOcia ton! Ira jan, the
emperor, goes to ancient Antioch and
amid the spIendors 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
1st of November, 1775, in six minutes
60 600 have persisted, and Noltaire
writes of them: For that region it
was the last judgment, nothing want
ING but a trumpet" 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 1912 Caracas was caught in the grill
of an earthquake, in 1882 in Chill 100,
600 square miles of land by volcanic
force upheaved to four and seven fee
of permanent deviation, in 1854 japan
felt the geological agony; Maple:
shaken in 1857. Mexico in 1858; Men
doza. the capital of the Argentine Re
| public. in 1861; Manila terrorized il
1868; the Hawaiian islands by sucl
| force up,ifted 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! 1schia, an island of tn
| 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 topplet
into the trough of the earth, 500
merrymakers perishing, and some o
! them so far down beneath the reach o
human obsequies that 1T may be sal
/ of many a one of them, as it was sal
of Moses: The Lord buried him.
Italy, all Europe weeping, all Chris
| tendon weeping, where there wer
| hearts to sympathiZe and Christians t
| pray. But while the nations wer
measuring that magnitude of disaster
mea surfing it not with golden rod lik
that with which the angel measure
| heaven. but with the black rule o
| death. Java, of the Indian archipelago
| the most fertile island of all the earth
is caught in the grip of the earthquake
and mountain after mountain goe
down and city after city until that is
| land. which produces the best bever
age of all the world, produced tn
/ ghastliest catastrophe. One hundre
thousand people dying, dead!
| Look at the disasters epidemic.
speak not of the plague in the fourt
century that ravaged Europe and i
Moscow and the Neapolitan domin
ions and Marseilles wrought sue
terror in the eighteenth century
but I look at the yellow fevers, an
the choleras and the diphtherias an
the scarlet fevers and the typhoid
of our time. From Hurdwar, India