The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1902-02-11
WORLD GROWS BETTER.
Or. Talmage Says the Time in Which We
Live Is Wonderful for Disaster
and Blessings.
The Dead Sea Rolls Today Where Au,ieu,
Cities Stood.

WASHINGTON. d. C.-In this discourse
DR. Talmag0 rccites 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"
DIR. Cumming-Sreat and good man
would have told us the exact time OF the
ful6llment OF this prophecy. As | stepped
into his study IN London on my arrival
from Paris Just after the French had sur
rendered at Sedan the good doctor said to
me: 1T is just what | had 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 in
depreciation OF the passage, 1 simply as
sert that there are in 1t suggestions OF
many things in our time.
Our eyes dilate and our heart Quckeus
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-reachinC 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, Nenophon, n 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"
/ 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 / argue that our time is
wonderful for disaster? Our world has
had rough time since by the hand of
God 1t was bowled out into space. 1t is
an epiloptic earth-convulsion after convul-
sion; trOsts pounding it with sledge ham.
mer OF lcebcrgs and fires melting it with
furnaces seven times heated. 1t is Won
der to me 10 has lasted so long Metcors
shooting by on this side and grazing it and
meteors shooting by on the other side and
grazing Nc, none of them slowing up for
safety. Whole fleets and paviCs and argo-
gosles and tiotillas 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 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 1t 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 Nesuvius stop breathing. let
the foundations of the earth beware! Sew
en- thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded In the catalogue of the British as
ISOLATION! Trajan, the emperor, goes t.
ancient Antioch, and amid the splendors
OF his reception Is met by an earthquake
that nearly destroys the emperor's life
Lisbon, falr and beautiful. at ! o'clock
on the lst of November, 1855, in six min
utes 10000 have persisted, and Votaire
writes OF them, For that region it was
the last judgment; nothing wanting but a
trumpet Europe and America feeling
the throb-l500 chimnCys in Boston partly
or fully destroyed
But the disasters of other times have
hid their counterpart in later times. In
1872 Caracas was caught in the grip of an
earthquake, IN 1882 in Chi'c 100000 square
miles of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet of permanent Gle
walton, 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
upllited and let down In 1871; Nevada
shaken In 1871, Antioch in 1872: Califor-
ma IN 1872, San Salvador in 1873, while
1888 what subterranean excitement Is.
CHA, an island of the Mediterranean. a
vineyard
clad, surrounded by all natural charm and
historical Renaissance; 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 mcrrym1kers
perishing. and some of them so far down
beneath the reach of human obscquies that
1t may be said of many one of them. as
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-
peiago, 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 ehastlest catas-
trophc. One hundred thousand people
dying, dead! Coming nearer home, on
August 81, 1856, the great earthquake
S. c. "
But look at the disasters cyolonic. At
the mouth of the Ganges are three islands,
the Haitian, the Sundeep and the Dalyin
ShabazpOre. In the midnight of October,
1917, on all those three islands the cry
was, "The waters" p cyclone arose and
rolled the sea over those three islands,
and of a population OK 80 900. 2l5,O0O were
drowned. Only those saved who had
climbed to the top of the highest trecsl
Did YOU ever see q cyciOncy NO2 Then
j pray God you may never sec one. ! saw
cyclone on the ocean. and 30 swept us
500 miles bacl, from our course. and for
thrty-siX hours during the cyclone and
after 1t We expected every moment 10 20
TO The bottom. They told us before we re-.
tired at 9 o'clock That the barometer had
fallen but at III o'clock at night Wc were
awakened with the snock of the waves.
All the lights out Crash went an the life.
boats. Waters rushing through the sky.
lights down into the cabin and down on
the furnaces until they Missed aud smoked
I'm tho dcluge Seven hundred people
praying, shrickiur Our great ship poised
q moment on the top of q mountain of
pin sphoresccnt fire and then plunged
down. down, down until DO seemed as if
she never would again be rightcd All.
you never want TO- see a cyclone at sea-
But j was m Minnesota where there
was ono OF thosc cyclones on land that
swept the city of Rochester from rs f0un.
dations and took dwelling houses. barns.
men, women. children. horses. cattle and
tossed them into inIiscrimnatc ruin and
lifted q rail train and dashed 10 down. q
miEhticr hand than that of engineer ON
the airbr1ke Cyclone in Kansas. cyclone
iu Missouri, cyclone in Wisconsin, cyclone
in Illinois, cyclone In Iowa. Satan, prince
OF the power of the air. never made such
cyclonic disturbances ns he has In our day
And am ] not right i'm saying that one Of
the characteristics Of the time in which
we live rs disaster cyclonic?