Los Angeles herald., 1906-04-30
SEE BRIGHT SIDE
OF EARTHQUAKE
REV. DR.. TALMAGE FINDS
CAUSE FOR GRATITUDE
San Francisco VIII Arise From Ruins
a CIeansed city-Praise for the
Soldiers-Lessons of the Dis
aster Expounded in Pulpits

1.-THE Bright Side of an Earthquake,
yesterday taking as his text Psalm 104
80: He looketh upon the earth and
It trembleth, he toucheth the hills and
they smoke"
"Yes." said he, 'I have been to San
Francisco I have had the earth heav-
ing beneath my feet. ] have seen the
blackened smoking ruins. / have
walked under the tottering walls.
have heard the exploding dynamite
razing the ruins to the ground. Some
people said 1 could not get into the
city il 1 went there. And some people
said / might be able to get into the
city. but If did I would certainly be
put TO work cleaning the streets and
piling up bricks. And some people said
that If l got into the city / would be
uuarantined and not be allowed to come
out. And some people said that
would get killed by the falling walls
II I entered the burnt district And
some people said 1 would have to drink
water out of the broken sewers and
get typhoid fever, IL ever entered the
city's ruins.
'sAnd what some people said OF
course did not happen.
.'In all the great city of San Fran
cisco. amid it's ruins, its tents, its
parks and it's homes still standing,
saw not one sad face nor heard one
complaint. The Thank Gods sound
ing everywhere had the most marvel
Gus intonation 1 ever heard. May God
help lis to be grateful to Him for His
mercy and kindness in our little
troubles, as San Francisco is grateful
to Him amid the ruins of her best
streets and her finest properties.
Bad Run to Cover
1.-THE second great fact that I heard
III v-rrfr1 ~
when the better elements of q city want
a city to be morally clean, that city
instantly becomes clean and the bad
elements run to cover as quickly as the
tigers and the jackalls flee to the jun
giles and the prairie dogs tails dis
appear into their holes at the hunters
approach.
.sWhen the buildings of San Fran
cisco fell as fiat as the walls of Jericho
at the blast of the rams horn, then
San Francisco arose in her moral and
spiritual strength and San Francisco
was never as free from sin as on the
first few nights following the awful
confiagration.
mo sooner did those huge office build
ings and apartment houses and mann
moth hotels tremble and totter in the
grip Of that horrible earthquake like an
aspen leaf shaken in the winds, than
at once the thieves and the robbers and
the libertineS and the ghouls of the
night clapped their hands and began
to cry, Aha, now for our harvests. All
the wealth of San Francisco is lying
where our hands can clutch it
"But these thieves and robbers con-
graduated themselves too soon. No
sooner did these moral lepers start to
loot, than at once the soldiers rifles
shot them down like mad dogs. No
sooner did these robbers try to enter
the tumbled down stores and pick up
the gold from amid those ruins, than
they were at once halted at the point
of bayonets.
Necessary to Kill
"It was only necessary to kill half a
dozen of the miscreants. Then these
cowardly mauranders, for they are al
ways cowardly at heart, crouched in
fear and begged for mercy and ran
away from San Francisco by the scores
and the hundreds to find safer quarters
in other towns where justice was not so
quickly dealt out.
'Thus as / kept walking up and down
those streets where ] felt as safe as a
little child would feel in his mothers
arms, kept saying to myself, With the
fallen walls of San Francisco as an
object lesson why will other cities any
longer trifie with sin? Why will city
prowl about it's back alleys? Why will
they allow the lecherous hands of it's
rllffians to stretch forth and destroy it's
fairest and purest women? Why will
we not do as Diaz did in the capital of
Mexico and San Francisco is doing to-
day? Why will we not make it a capi-
tai punishment for any man to put the
pistol of highwayman to our fore
heads and demand our money?
s'VUhv will not also make it a
capital punishment for any man to try
to destroy the purity and the sacred
ness of the home?
Remedy in Crime
IF the hold-up crimes were dealt with
as quickly and as severely in our east
ern cities as they are today in the Pa
cific metropolis our streets would not
only be SAFE but the women, our wives
and mothers and sisters and daughters,
would be able to walk out at any time
and be held as sacred as they are by
our own firesides.
"But quick cessation of robbery and
theft which took place in San Fran
cisco was not the only lesson of good
government to be learned amid those
smoking ruins. The new laws or the
martial laws not only declared, Thou
shalt not steal but they also affirmed,
Thou shalt not be an extortioner' and
Thou shalt not take an unfair advant-
age of the weaknesses of thy neigh
hors.' For just as the murderers and
the thieves were ready to loot their vic
tins at the point of the pistol, the ex-
tortioners were ready to squeeze the
life's blood out of their victims if they
could do so in legal way.
"4All hail to General Funston you
say. He has won many a laurel upon
the field of battle. But never was his
heroic deeds more honored in this past
than when he was able to lift the
strong arm of the law and protect the
helpless men and women and children
from the extortioners' demands during
the San Francicso fire."