Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-01-09
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: Tho World Grows Better - The
Time in Which We Live Is Wonderful
Tor Di3aster and Wond ell full For Bless
fnEs-Intidelity Dwindling.


right direction; text, Joel ii, 80, Il will
show wonders in the heavens and in the
earth"
DIR. Cumming-great and good man
world have told us the exact time of the
fu fillment of this prophecy. As l 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 l Rad told you about
France. Peop.e laughed at me because l
talked about the seven horns and the vials,
but l foresaw al 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 pu.satlons as we read of events in
the third century, the sixth century, the
eighth century, the fourteenth century,
but there were more far-reaching evenCs
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
cmphasis-eveats which a Herodotus, a
Josephus, a Xenophon, Gibbon, would
have taken whole chapters or whole vol
ume- to elaborate. Looking out upon our
time, we must cry out in the words of the
text, WONDERS in the heavens and in the
Garth"
| Irro2osc to show you that the tire in
which we live is wonderful for disaster
and wonderful for blessing, for there must
be lights and shades in this picture a. in
al others. Need l argue chat our time is
wonderful for disaster? Our world has
had a rough time since by the hand of
God it was bowled olt into space. 1t is
an epileptic earth-convulsio1 after convul-
sion; frosts pounding it with sledge ham,
mer OF icebergs and fires melting it with
furnaces seven times heated. 1t is a won
der TO me it has lasted so long. Meteors
shooting BY on this silc 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 argo-
gosies and fiotillas OF worlds sweeping all
about us. Our earth like fishing smack
of the banks of Newfoundland, while the
Majestic and the st. Paul and the Kaiser
Wilhelm Ger Crosse rush by. Besides
that, our world has fy sin been damaged
il 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 q
sea, ard the great hulk of the world has
been jerTed with accidents that ever and
anon threatened immediate demolition.
But it seems to us as ii 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 Stronboli and
CotopaXi and Vesuvius stop breathing. let
the foundations Of the, earth beware! Sew
cn thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded in the catalogue of the British as
sociation! Trajan, the empero-, goes to
ancient Antioch, and amid the splendors
OF his reception is met by EARTHQUAKE
that nearly destroys the en-. eror'5 life.
Lisbon, fair and beautiful. at l o'clock
on the lst OF November, 1855, in six mir
nt oil 1toi
writes of them, "For that region it was
the last judgment; nothing wanting hut a
trumpet" Europe and America feeling
the throh-l5oo chimneys il Boston party
CT fully destroyed!
But the disasters Of other times have
f,d their counterpart in later times. In
1872 Caracas was caught in tie grip OF IN
earthquake, il 1882 il Chile 100000 square
miles of land by volcanic force upheave1
to four and seven feet Of permanent e,e-
vation, in 1884 japan felt the -reo,c J;cal
agony; Naples shaken in 1857. Mexico in
Republic, il 1861; Manila terrori.ed in
1893: the Hawaiian Islands ~ such force
u2licted and let down il 1871; Nevada
shaken in lS7l, Antioch in 1872: Ca'ifor-
MIA in 1872, San Salvador in 1873, while
1888 what suoterranean excitement! Is
CHA, an island OF the Mediterranean, a
beautiful Italian watering pace. vineyard
clad. surrounded by all natural charm AMI
historical ren!niscence; yonder Capri, the
simmer resort CT the Roman enperors;
yo1der Naples. the paradise of art-.his
beautiful island suddenly toppled into the
trough of the earth, 5000 merrymakers
perishing, and some OF them so far Govn
beneath the reach Of human obsequies that
it MAJ 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 sympathizl and Christians to pray. But
while he nations were measuring tlat
magnitude of disaster. measuring it rot
with golden rod like that with which the
angel measured heaven. but with the black
rue OF death. Java, OF the Indian archi
peiago, the most fertile island of al the
earth, is caught il the grip OF the earth
Quake, and mountain after mountain goes
down, and city after city until that island,
which produces, the, hest beverage of all
the world. produced the gEastiiest catas-
t-ophe. One hundred thousand people
dying, dead! Coming nearer home, on
August 81, 1886, the great earthquake
which Frustrated ono-half of Charleston,
But look at the disasters cyclonic. At
the rNorth of the Ganges ere three islands,
the Hattiah, the Su1deeo and the Dakin
Shabazpore;, In the midnight Of October
1877, on all those three islands the c-y
YVES, The waters!" a cyclone arose and
rolled the sea over those three islands,
and Of a ropuls ton of $40, coo, clJ00) were
drowned. Only those s..ved who had
climbed to the top OF the highest trees!
Lid you ever see a cyclone? No? Then
| pray Ccd you may never sec one. ] saw
cyclone on the ocean, and it swept us
500 miles back from Our course, and for
tAirtysi& hours during the cyclone and
aft it we expected every moment to so
to the bottom. They told Us before We re,
tired az o'clock that the barometer had
fallen, but at IL o'clock at night we were
awakened with thc shock of the waves.
All the lights ont! Crash wer;s all the life
boats. NVate~s rushing through the SIX
l'ghts down into the cabin and down on
the furnaces until they hissed and srloke1 /
il the Gelrgc. Seven hundred people
prayiI shriel.ing. Our great ship poised
9 moment on th, top OF mountain OF
phosohorcscent fire and then plunged
down, down, down until it seemed as if
she never would again be righted. All,
You never want to see a cyclone at cca,