WORLD GROWS BETTER.
Dr. Talmage Says the Time in Which We
Live Is Wonderful for Disaster
and Blessings.
The Dead Sea Rolis Today Where Ancient
Cities Stood.
Wasmixeron, D. C.—In this discourse
. Talmage recites some great events and
shows that the world is advancing in the
right direction; text, Joel 4i, 30, “I will
show wonders in the heavens and in the
earth.”
Dr. Cummin at and good man—
would have told us the exact time of the
fulfillment of this prophecy. As I stepped
{nto his study in London on my arrival
from Paris just after the French had sur-
rendered at Sedan the good doctor said to
me: “It is just what I fo told you about
France. People laughed at me because I
talked about the seven horns and the vials
but I foresaw all this from the book of
Daniel and the book of Revelation.” Not
taking any such responsibility in the in-
terpretation of the passage, simply as-
sert that there are in it suggestions of
many things in our time,
Our eyes dilate and our heart quickens
in its pulsations ss we read of events in
the third century, the sixth century, the
eighth century, the fourteenth century,
but there were more far-reaching events
crowded into the nineteenth century than
into any other, and the last twenty years
eclipse auy 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, a Xenophon, a 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.”
I 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 I argue that our time is
wonderful for disaster? Our world has
had a rough time since by the hand of
God it was bowled out into space. It ia
an epileptic earth—convulsion after convul-
sion; frosts pounding it with sledge ham-
mer of icebergs and fires melting it with
furnaces seven times heated. It is a won-
der 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 argo-
gosies and flotillas of worlds sweeping all
about us. Our earth like a fishing smack
off the banks of Newfoundland, while the
M2jestic and the St. Paul and the Kaiser
Wilhelm der Grosse 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
eea, and the great hulk of the world has
been jarred with accidents that ever and
anon threatened immediate demolition.
But it seems to us as if the last hundred
years were especially characterized by dis-
aster—voleanie, oceanic, epidemic. I say
volcanic because an earthquake is only a
volcano hushed up. When Stromboli and
Cotopaxi and Vesuvius stop breathing, let
the foundations of the earth beware! Sev-
en thousand earthquakes in two centuries
recorded in the catalogue of the British as-
sociation! Trajan, the emperor, goes to
ancient Antioch, and amid the splendors
of his reception is met by an earthquake
that nearly destroys the emperor's life.
Lisbon, fair and beautiful, at 1 o'clock
on the lst of November, 1755, in six min-
utes 60,000 have perished, and Voltaire
writes of them, “For that region it was
the last judgment; nothing wanting but a
trumoet!” Europe and America feeling
the throb—1500 chimneys in Boston partly
or fully destroyed!
But the disasters of other times have
hid their counterpart in later times. In
1812 Caracas was caught in the grip of an
earthquake, in 1882 in Chile 100,000 square
miles of land by volcanic force upheaved
to four and seven feet of permanent ele
vation, in 1854 Japan felt the geological
agony: Naples shaken in 1857, Mexico in
1858; Mendoza, the capital of the Argentine
ie, in 1881; Manila terrorized in
: ¢ Hawaiian Islands by such force
uplifted and let down in 1871; Nevada
haken in 1871, Anti in 1872; Califor-
in 1872, San Salvador in 1873, while
1883 what subterranean excitement! Is.
chia, an island of the Mediterranean, a
beautiful Italian watering place, vineyard
clad, surrounded by all natural charm and
historical reminiscence; yonder Canri, the
summer resort of the Roman emperors;
nder Naples, the paradise of art—this
ul island suddenly toppled into the
3 of the earth, S000 merrymakers
Jishing, and some of them so far down
encath the reach of human obsequies that
it may be said of many a one of them, as
it was said of Moses, “The Lord buried
him.” Italy, all Europe weeping, all Chris-
tendom weeping where there were hearts
to sympathize and Christians to pray. Bat
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-
pelago, the most fertile island of all the
earth, is caught in the grip of the earth-
uake, and mountain after mountain goes
own, and city after city until that island,
which produces the best beverage of all
the world. produced the ghastliest catas-
trophe. One hundred thousand people
dying, dead! Coming nearer home, on
August 31, 1886, the eat earthquake
Fhech prostrated one-half of Charleston,
nia
But look at the disasters cyclonie. At
the mouth of the Ganges are three islands,
the Hattiah, the Sundeep and the Dakin
Shabazpore. In the midnight of October,
1877, on all those three islands the cry
was, “The waters!” A cyclone arose and
rolled the sea over those three islands,
and of a population of 340,000, 215,000 wepe
drowned. Only those saved who had
climbed to the top of the highest trees!
Did you ever see a cyclone? No? Then
I pray God you may never see one. I saw
a cyclone on the ocean, and it swept us
800 miles back from our course, and for
thirty-six hours during the cyclone and
after it we expected every moment to go
to the bottom. They told us before we re-
tired at 0 o'clock that the barometer had
fallen, but at 11 o'clock at night we were
awakened with the shock of the waves.
All the lights out! Crash went all the life
boats. Waters rushing through the sky-
lights down into the cabin and down on
the furnaces until they hissed and smoked
in the deluge. Seven hundred people
praying, shrieking. Our t ship poised
a moment on the top of a mountain of
phosphorescent fire and then plunged
down, down, down until it seemed as if
she never would again be righted. Ab,
you never want to see a cyclone at sea!
But I was in Minnesota, where there
was one of those cyclones on land that
swept the city of Rochester from its foun-
dations and took dwelling h barns
men, women, children, , cattle and
tossed them into indiscriminate ruin and
lifted a rail train and dashed it down, a
mightier hand than that of engineer
the airbrake. clone in Kansas, Syelone
insouri, e in Wisconsin, cy
in Illinois, in Iowa! Batan, prince
of the power of the air, never made
Sfclonie disturbances as he has in our
am
203 Aim J ot rishi in taying that
Em
ey
City of
the President, the Cimbria, the Oregon,
the Mohegan. But why should I go on
calling the roll when none of them an-
swers, and the roll is as long as the white
scroll of the Atlantic surf at Cape Hat.
teras breakers? If the oceanic cables could
report all the scattered life and all the
bleached bones that they rub against in
the ocean, what a message of pathos and
tragedy for both beaches! In one storm
eighty fishermen perished off the coast of
Newfoundland and whole fleets of them
off the coast of England, God help the
r fellows at sea and give high seats in
eaven to the Grace Darlings and Ids
Lewises and ‘the lifeboat men hoveri
around Goodwin sands and the’ Skerries
The sea, owning three-fourths of the earth
proposes to capture the other fourth, an
1% Arde the land all around the
earth. The moving of the hotels at Brigh-
ton Beach backward 100 yards from where
they once stood, a type of what is going
on all around the world and on every
coast. The Dead Sea rolls to-day where
ancient cities stood.
But now I turn the leaf in my subject,
and I plant the white lilies and the palm
tree amid the nightshades and the myrtle.
This age no more characterized by won-
ders of disaster than by wonders of bless-
ing—Dblessing of longevity; the average of
human life rapidly increasing. Forty years
now worth 400 years once.
Now I can travel from Manitoba to New
York in less than three days. In other
times it would have taken three months.
In other words, three days now are worth
three months of other days. The average
of human life practically greater now than
when Noah lived, with his 950 years, and
Methuselah lived his 969 years.
Blessings of intelligence: The Salmon P.
Chases and the Abraham Lincolns and the
Henry Wilsons of the coming time will not
be required to learn to read by pine knot
lights or seated on shoemaker’s bench, nor
will the Fergusons have to study astrono-
my while watching the cattle, Knowledge
rolls its tides along every poor man’s door,
and his children may go down and bathe
in them.
If the philosophers of a hundred years
ago were called up to recite in a class with
our boys and SD those old philosophers
would be sent down to the foot “ the
clasa because they failed to answer the
questions!
Free libraries in all the important towns
and citiea of the land. Historical alcoves
and poetical shelves and magazine tables
for all who desire to walk through them
or sit down at them.
So I rejoice day by day. Work for all
to do, and we may turn the crank of the
Christian machinery this way or that, for
we are free agents. But there is the track
laid so long age no one remembers it—laid
by the hand of the Almighty God in sock-
ets that no terrestrial or satanic pressure
can ever affect.
And along the track the car of the
world's redemption will roll and roll to
the Grand Central depot of the millen-
nium. I have no anxiety about the track.
I am only afraid that for our indolence
and unfaithfulness God will discharge us
and get some other stoker and some other
engineer. The train is going through with
us or without us.
There is a house in London where Peter
the Great of Russia lived awhile when he
was moving through the land incognito
and in workman's dress, that he might
learn ship carpentry, by which he could
supply the needs of his people. A stran-
ger was visiting at that house, “What's
in that box?’ The owner said: “I don't
know. That box was there when I got the
house, and it was there when my father
got it. We havn't had any curiosity to
look at it. I guess there's nothing in it.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “I'll give you
£2 for it.” "Well, done.” The £2 was
paid, and the contents of that box were
sold to the Czar of Russia for 850.000, In
it the lathing machine of Peter the Great,
his private letters and documenta of value
beyond all monetary consideration. And
here are the events that seem very insig
nificant and unimportant, but they incase
treasures of Diviie Providence and eterni-
ties of meaning which after awhile God
will demonstrate before the ages as being
of stupendous value.
When Titans play quoits they pitch
mountains, but who owns these gigantic
natural forces we are constantly reading
about? Whose hand is on the throttle
valve of the volcanoes? Whose foot, sud-
be at
continents quiver? God! 1 must
peace with Him.
Through the Lord Jesus Christ this God
is mine and He is yours.
quake that shook Palestine at
fixion against all the down rockings of the
centuries. This God on our side, we may
challenge all the centuries of time and all
the cycles of eternity.
Those of you who are in midlife may well
thank God that you have seen so many
wondrous things, but there are people
alive to-day who may live to see the shim-
mering veil between the material and the
spiritual world lifted.
Magnetism, a word with which we cover
up our ifuorance; will yet be an explored
realm. Wectricity, the fiery courser of
the sky, that Benjamin Franklin lassoed
and Morse and Bell and Edison have
brought under complete control, has
greater wonders to reveal.
Whether here or departed this life, we
will see these things. It does not make
much difference where we stand, but the
higher the standpoint the larger the pros-
pect. We will see them from heaven if
we do not see them from earth.
Years ago I was at Fire lsland, Long
Island, and I went up in the cupola from
which they Selegraph to New York the
approach of vessels hours before they come
into port. There is an opening in the wall,
and the aperator pute his telesc through
that opening and looks out and sees ves
sels far out at sea. While I was talking
with him he went up and looked out. He
said, “We are e3pecting the Arizona to-
night,” I said: “Is it possible you know
all those vessels? Do jou know them se
ou know a man’s face?” He said: “Yes.
never make a mistake. Before | see the
hulls I often know them by the masts. I
know, them all—I have watched them so
ong.
Oh, what a grand thing it is to bave
ships telegraphed and heralded long before
they come to port, that friends may come
down to the wharf and welcome their }
absent ones! So to-day we take our sta
in the watch tower, and through the glass
of inspiration we look off and see a whole
fleet of ships coming in. That is the ship
of peace, with one star of Bethlehem
floating above the topgallants, That is
the ship of the church, mark of salt water
high upon the smokestack, showing she
has had rough weather, but the Captain
of Salvation commands her, and all is well
with her. The ship of heaven, mightiest
craft ever launched, millions of passengers
waiting for millions more, prophets and
apostles and martyrs in the cabin, con
guerors at the foot of the mast, while from
! igging hands are waving this way as
if th new us, and we wave back again,
for hey are ours, They went out from
our own households. rs! Hail, hail!
ff t k put on the white,
ing the funeral bell and ring the
Shut up the hearse and
ship comes around the
BOAR Eos el oy Ae ire}
and we will go Jooard her. ears for
out,
EA Sh at
wu
Stand back and til h
pouck oy arewsi 1 1
to wicks
have eternity of
way or mil
Farerel to ,
ness! wrevill 5 dea are
35 who suber in the gates into
COMMERCIAL REVIEW,
General Trade Conditions.
R. G. Dun & Company's Weekly Re-
view of Trade says: Current trade is of
imple dimensions, but traffic congestion
grows worse, and labor controversies
add to the embarrassment of shippers.
Prices of commodities tend upward, Al-
though nominal quotations of iron and
steel are unchanged, figures refer only to
future deliveries, and in most cases
prices for current shipment command a
considerable premium
Activity and strength are conspicuous
in the markets for domestic wool. Cot-
ton goods are in better request, but
mills delay new undertakings because
of the sudden rise in raw material, and
if it is sustained there will probably be
a new price list of prints, :
Staple products continue advancing,
corn making a most sensational gain.
Cotton was aroused from its lethargy
by an unexpectedly low official estimate
of the current crop at only 9,674.000
bales, when about a million more was
predicted by the members of the leading
exchanges.
Bradstreet's says:
Wheat, including flour, exports for
the week aggregate 4,004,846 bushels, as
against 5,117,478 last week and 3.432,1%
in this week last year. Wheat exports,
July 1 to date (twenty-three weeks) ag-
gregate 132,423,000 bushels, as against
80,175,152 last season. Corn exports ag-
gregate 362844 bushels, as against 630,
vear; July 1 to date corn exports are
Season
Business failures in the United States
for the week number 237, as against 189
last week, 224 in this week last year, 220
n 1890, 237 in 1808 and 292 in 1897. Can-
adian failures nu
week and 27 a year ago.
LATEST QUOTATIONS.
Best Patent. $4.75; High
Extra, $4.25: Minnesota Bakers,
$3.00a3.25
Wheat—New
Philadelphia N
IR AN
No
.]
i
IOUT wm
Grade
Hower L008
$1.50a2.50
: 1
, Per gozen sLaiKs
wax, $200a2%0
per bushel box 20a23¢
Potatoes. — White ——
Ivania, Nt
6oaysc; New
8sagoc; do, yon,
prime, ¥3a00c
Virgin
Her
per
per u
stock, CO
Western Maryland and Penn-
Eastern
Ro
az;
Virgini
Western,
23a25¢. ;
Butter,
gathered
Creamery — Separator,
22323: mmtation,
Md. Va. and Pa. Dairy prints,
small creamery blocks, (2-1b.),
206c ; choice rolls, 18a10c
Cheese New cheese,
1033 to tic; do, flats, 37 hs, 11 to
11l4c; picnics, 23 Ibs, 1i1'gatiiie.
Live Poultry —Turkeys—Old, 8Va0c:
young, fat, oagiic; do, small and poor,
~aBe., Chickens —Hens, —a7lic: do
old roosters, each 2%a3joc; do, young
good to choice, BaBlic: do, rough and
poor, —aze. Ducks.—Fancy, large, ¢
a—; do. small, —aBc; do, muscovy and
mongrels, Bage. Geese, Western, each
£c,
Hides. —Heavy steers, association and
salters, late kill, 60 Ibs and up, close
selection. 1115a12¥c; cows and light
steers, gl4aloc,
Live Stock.
Chicago. —Cattle—Good to prime $6.50
B75: poor to medium Rta
stockers and feeders $225a4%50; cows
$1.25a4.75; heifers $2.50a5.50; canners
$r.25a2.30; bulls $2.10a475; calves $2.50
35.75; Texas fed steers $5.15. Hogs
Mixed and butchers $5.75a6.20: oy to
choice heavy $5.9526.30; rough heavy
5.55a35.00; hight $5.25a5.00; bulk of sales
5.75a0.15. Sheep active, steady: heavy
ewes lower: lambs strong to 10c. higher;
good to choice wethers $3.50a4.15; West.
ern sheep $3.00a4.00; native lambs $2.50
35.25; Western lambs $3.00a4.25.
East Liberty —Cattle—choice $5.7%a
5.00; prime $5.50a5.70; good $5.15a5.48.
Hogs active; prime heavies $6.20a6.25;
heavy mediums $600a6.15; light do,
$58s5a5.05: heavy Yorkers 3 Boas. 8s
light do, $s. 5.70; pigs $5.40a5.55;
skips $4.50a500; roug! $4.50a5.70.
Sheep dull; best wethers $3.5021.65;
culls and common $1.00a2.00; yearlings
$2.50a3.75; veal calves $6.00a7.00.
cream,
large G60 ibs.
TEN Dec. 90—Balto N U -
Nantes has municipal kitchens,
Wales has a woman lamplighter.
London boasts three lady architect.
England has woman truant hunters,
France announces a surgical sewing
machine.
The world's cables stretch 187,353,
172 nautical miles.
There is a lady, Miss Penman, who
has control over more than $00 condue-
tors in the es, but he ony woman
er Ia ce aly woman
the United States.
a
»
FUnable to Stand For Mouths Because of
Sprained Ankles,
mh p——
CURED BY ST. JACOBS O15,
(From the Cardiff Times.)
Among the thousands of voluntary endorse:
ments of the great value of §t. Jacobs Oil for
sprains, stiffness, and soreness, is that of Mrr.
G., Thomas, 4 Alexandra Road, Gelli, Yebrod,
near Pontypridd, Bouth Wales, who says:
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ing testimony to the invalnabls excellence of
your celebrated 8t. Jacobs Oil, as experienced
ir. my own case, I sprained both my ankles
in walking down some steps so seversly that I
was unable to stand for several months. The
pain I suffered was most severs, and nothing
tha: I used helped me until I applied Bt.
Jacobs Oil, when they immediately became
better daily, and in a short time I was able to
go about, and soon after I was quite cured, |
am now determined to advise all persons snf-
fering from pains to use this wonderful rem.
edy, which did so much for me.”
Mrs. Thomas does not enlighten nus as to
what treatment sde pursued during the
months she was unable to stand, and during
which time she was suffering so much, hut we
venture to suggest that had she called in any
well known medical man he would have at
once have prescribed 8t, Jacobs Oil, for thas
doctors know there is nothing so good.
remedy of the world.
posed largely of the most eminent
men obtainable.
Oil is held by almost every progressive wed.
ical man,
When one woman makes
than fifteen minues, ten of which she con-
sumes in saying good-bye.
makes Lhings
who don’t pa;
Ave lured Bom
warm for his cus
their bills
mies
Lomers
We refund 10¢c, for every package of Por
want Favrress Dre that falls to give satisfac
The Japancse earthquake of 1703 was
the most destructive on record. It killed
180,000 people.
There is more Catarrh in this section of the
coyntry than all other diseases put together
or until the last few years was supposed
For a great many years de
prone unced it a local disease and prescribed
local remedies, and by constantly falling t«
Beienoce has proven estarrh to be »
constitutional disease and therefore requires
Hall's Oatarrh Cure
manufactured by F. J. Chenery & Co., Tolods
Ohio, is the only constitutional enre on the
market, It is taken internally in doses fron
10 drops to a teaspoonful. It sete directly or
the blood and mucous surfaces of the svsten
They offer one hundred dollars for any cas:
it fails to cure ninrs and test
monials, Address F J Cuzxey & Co. Toledo (
Sold by Druggists, 7
Hall's Family Pills are the best
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Some naturalists say that no insect ex
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of the mulberry
A Doctor's Testimonial,
Dr. C. 1 B. Cawthon, of Andalusia, Aa
disoanes.”’ 60c, a box by mail from J
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keep it.
Shug
Justice often pursues with a leaden hee!
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BE
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UNION MADE
84.00 Gilt Edge
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in the W. L. Donglas £30) and $5.50 shoes (han he
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L. Douglas maker and sells
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Carriage,
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Take ineasurements of Toot as show?
width asaslly worn © plain or eap Loe; heavy, medio or light soles,
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Mate siyie desired
$2000.00 PER
oe stamped
DAY |
is heroby
fexcept Present No. 129)
ing brands of our tobacoo:
Mahogany, Speckled Beauty, Apple Jack,
Man's Pride,
and 0. N, T. -
To appreciate our offer, these faots alionld
be considered:
being deceived by imitators.
. tags will be furnished upon request
to
Acts Gently;
quality or substance.
as they are
plants
act most beneficiall
San Francisco,