The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1901-12-12
TALNIAGE'S SERMON.
WONDERS IN THE HEAVENS AND IN
THE EARTH"

iHE CAN n.
Text from the Second Chapter of Joel
The World Constantly Advancing In
the Right Objectionable Triumph OF
Christianity Over Infidelity.
Copyright. 1901. by Louis Klopsch. N. W
Washington, Dec. Sin this dis
course DR.. Talmage recites some great
events and shows that the world is adj
vancing in the right direction; text,
Joel H., so, 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 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"
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 bowled
out into space. 1t is an epileptic earth
-convulsion after conyulsion; frost
pounding it with sledge hammer of ice
berg and fires melting it with furnaces
seven times heated. 1t is wonder to
me it has lasted SO long. Meteors
shooting by on this side and grazing it
and metecrs shooting by on the other
side and grazing it, none Of them slow
ing up for safety. Whole fleets and
navies and argosies and flotillas 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 sea, and the great bulk
OF the world has been Jared with acct
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-
ception is met by an earthquake that
nearly destroys the emperor's life. Lis
bon, fair and beautiful, at l o'clock on
the LIST of November, 1775, in six min
utes 10000 have persisted, Europe and
America feeling the throb-1, 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
tornia in 1872, San Salvador in 1873,
while in 1888 what subterranean ex-
element ! Ischia, an island of the
Mediterranean, beautiful Italian wat
ering place, vineyard Clad. surrounded
by all natural charm and historical
Renaissance; yonder Capri, the sum-
mer resort Of the Roman emperors;
yopder 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 hui
man obsequies that it may be said Of
many Of them, as it was said of Moses,
"The Lord buried him." Italy, all Eu-
rope weeping, all Christendom weep
ing, where there were hearts to sym
pathize 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 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!
But look at the disasters cyclonic
Cyclone in Kansas, cyclone in Missouri
cyclone in Wisconsin, cyclone in Illi
nois. cyclone in Iowa! Satan nrinoo -