The Coming Tempest by L. D. Santee

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 31, 1910

The Coming Tempest

By L. D. Santee

L. D. SANTEE

“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Joel 2:1.

THERE'S a hush before the tempest, but that hush is the hush of fear; And the heart of the world is troubled, for the day of the Lord is near. No pause or stay in the stream of time, but resistless its waters be, As its waves flow on with a rhythm sublime to the sea of eternity.

The winds are held by the angels till the sealing work is done, And “the Father’s name in their foreheads” is received by each waiting one. Till the truth has gone for a witness to the nations in the dark, And the “seal of the living God” is preached, to warn of the papal mark.

The sun in the shining heavens grew strangely dark at noon, While faces of fear looked upward,— they thought ’twas the day of doom,— And the moon, in her peaceful sailing, was changed to the hue of blood, Fit type of the Armageddon and the wine-press’s crimson flood.

The lights in the darkened azure fell fast in a rain of fire, Bright heralds of the advent and the day of Jehovah’s ire, When from earth’s guilty nations the hopeless prayer shall rise For shelter in earth’s caverns from the Saviour in the skies.

O day of wrath and of mourning! O solemn day of the Lord! When the vine of the earth will be gathered, and the vials of wrath be poured. List to the pleadings of mercy while offers of pardon are given, For the tares will go to the burning, while the wheat finds place in heaven.

Moline, Ill.