The Weather Phenomenon by Adolphus Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 22, 1870

The Weather Phenomenon.

By Adolphus Smith

In this locality (Ottawa Co., Mich.,) as elsewhere, the extreme changeableness of the weather during the past year, and especially during the present winter, has become the subject of general remark. Various opinions are given as to the cause of it, most of them, no doubt, wide of the truth.

The theory most commonly extant concerning this phenomenon, is that it is the result of extreme solar agitation.

The earth evidently forms a natural battery with its positive and negative poles. It is not wonderful therefore to suppose, that, when a superior electric influence like that exerted by the sun, is brought to bear upon it, it should sensibly feel the thrill, especially in the versatile elements that envelop its surface.

But that this is the sole, or even the prime, cause of the changeableness of our climate, is not admissible, from the fact that the same cause would produce a like result upon other dependent worlds, and their sinless inhabitants thereby be made to suffer. The same sunlight and heat that brings vegetation on rich alluvials to a high state of perfection, may cause miasmatic vapors to arise from adjacent marshes, spreading disease and death everywhere within the reach of its infection.

The same laws that are ordained for a terror to evil-doers, are a praise to them that do well. So, also, the same laws of nature that in our world produce such disastrous results, may, in our sister planets, be productive of good, only, to their sinless inhabitants.

Although seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, were to continue while the earth should remain, yet, it is evident, from well-attested facts, that under the curse of God that rests upon it, the earth is becoming less and less fruitful, its climate less and less hospitable for the human race that treads its surface, diminished as they are in stature, impaired in health, and approaching consequent extinction.

Testimonies concerning the former fruitfulness of the earth, when compared with its present productions, would not be fully credited by this generation, were it not for the remains of vegetable productions found in coal-beds, and the living witness of the mammoth trees of California.

Of the former, a species of the club-moss, known as the lepidodendra, attained to a hight of from sixty to eighty feet, with a diameter, at the base, of three feet. Herodotus, in speaking of the luxuriant vegetable productions of Chaldea, states as an incident, that the leaves of the wheat and barley, were four fingers in width; and the yield of grain, was usually from one hundred to three hundred-fold.

A plant of the milkweed species grew last year (1869), in a rich soil adjacent to my garden, and attained to the unusual hight of fourteen feet and three inches. The same species might attain to a greater hight in a tropical climate. But under the most favorable circumstances, it could not approximate in magnitude the usual growth of like plants in former times when a tropical climate evidently reached a very high latitude, probably extending as far north as the coast of Greenland and northern Siberia.

On every hand, rapidly-accumulating evidences go to show that the earth is receding from her primitive youth and loveliness, and approaching, through age and decrepitude, certain dissolution. To this truth the mighty earthquake bears testimony, upheaving islands and continents; and the deep, dark sea responds in dismal wailings, and fearful tidal waves.

The terrific hurricane devastates hamlet, and city, and navy; and what of vegetable and animal life survive the shock of these, remain to be consumed, those, by the insect, the worm, and the inclement seasons as they come and go; and these, by increasing and complicated diseases, whose name is emphatically legion.

Although in some parts of the earth, much that is excellent in the animal and vegetable kingdoms is still produced, yet is it not evident to every candid observer that on this point the average tendency is downward in the scale of excellence and quantity, and where will this all end?

Evidently in dissolution and utter extinction. But for the elect's sake, the work will evidently be cut short by the judgments of God upon those who have corrupted the earth. Then will Jeremiah's pathetic prophecy meet with its exact fulfillment:

'I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.' 'I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.' Jer. 4:23, 25, 26.

Dear reader, if you, in that day, be without Christ, nothing can save you from the death that will be visited upon all the enemies of God. But if you seek Jesus now, it may be you will then be hid in him from the fierce anger of the Lord. That this may be your happy lot and mine, is my prayer.

ADOLPHUS SMITH.