The Fire Which God Has Kindled in His Anger.
Moses tells us that God has kindled a fire in his anger that shall burn forever, and shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains. Deut. xxxii, 22. Such a fire is now burning in the interior of the earth. Recently I copied the testimony of a correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune concerning the great lake of fire in the Sandwich Islands. Here is an article from the “Christian Almanac” for the year 1869, that is well worthy of an attentive perusal. “VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.”
“In March and April of last year, one of the two great volcanoes of Hawaii, Mauna Loa, was the scene of an unusually violent eruption. It commenced late in March; on the 28th, one hundred earthquake shocks were felt, and during the two weeks following to April 13, two thousand more. The devastation was chiefly in the south part of Hawaii, and especially in the district of Kau. “At Waiahinu the earth opened in many places, and a tidal wave sixty feet high rose over the tops of the cocoa-trees for a quarter of a mile inland, sweeping human beings, houses, and every thing moveable before it. A terrible shock prostrated churches and houses, and killed many persons. In all, one hundred lives were lost, besides a thousand horses and cattle. Half a million dollars’ worth of property was destroyed. “The craters vomited fire, rocks, and a river of red-hot lava five or six miles long flowed to the sea at the rate of ten miles per hour, destroying every thing before it, and forming an island in the sea. A new crater two miles wide opened, and threw rocks and streams of fire a thousand feet high. Streams of lava rolled to the sea. “At Waiahinu a conical island rose suddenly, three miles from the shore, emitting a column of steam and smoke. It is 400 feet high, and is joined to the main land by a stream of lava a mile wide. “The greatest shock occurred April 2. Prior to the eruption, there was a great shower of ashes and pumice. During the great shock, the swinging motion of the earth was dreadful, so that no person could stand. The earth rose and sank, and its surface rolled like the ocean in a storm. In the midst of the tremendous shock an eruption of red earth poured down the mountain, rushing across the plain three miles in three minutes, and then ceased, leaving a mass of earth, rocks and mud, covering eight or ten square miles, and from four to fifteen feet deep. Then came the great tidal wave, and then the stream of lava. “The summit and side of a hill, fifteen hundred feet in height, are said to have been thrown a thousand feet over the tops of trees, and landed in the valley below.”