THIS GENERATION by Wm. Penniman

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 5, 1881

THIS GENERATION.

By Wm. Penniman

BY WM. PENNIMAN.

(Continued.)

"VERILY I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled."

In the preceding article we concluded our thoughts in reference to the spiritual signs, now being witnessed by the last generation. Some physical signs will now be presented indicating also that the coming of the Lord is near.

The prophet Joel (Joel 2:30, 31) predicts wonders in the heavens and in the earth in connection with the darkening of the sun and moon. The 30th verse reads: "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke."

D. T. Taylor in The Christian, alluding to the aurora in the heavens, and to Joel's prophecy, says: "They have caused the knees of terror to smite together, and the scoffer to seek at once the place of prayer, on viewing with amazement God's wonders written on the trembling sky. Aug. 28, 1859, they were seen from California east to Russia, and from the West Indies north to unknown regions in British America. Five days later September 2, the aurora was visible all over the northern hemisphere, in America, Europe, and Asia, being witnessed by millions of people. The brilliant displays of 1870, said to have been more numerous than in any preceding year, were October 14, 23, and 24, visible from ocean to ocean, and from continent to continent in all northern lands. In Italy, the people of Florence and Rome beheld their crimson flashes and said it was a token of more wars and bloodshed in Europe. In the first ten months of 1870, there were witnessed over fifty remarkable displays in our latitudes, where the usual number in the whole year is but fifty. No pen or finger can describe their endless colors, their fantastic forms, their flashing splendors, nor the crimson glories of these celestial hosts arranged in panoplies of light, and marching, and gleaming, and dancing athwart the heavens in shapes of 'blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.' It seemed as if the visions of Pollok had become a reality, and the celestial concave which had but a little before looked serene,

'Now glowed like an oven, with God's displeasure hot.'

And did not science rob them of their terrors, and familiarity with the sight of these mystic flaming wonders prove their harmlessness, the whole world would bow reverently before the marvelous spectacle, and awed by their beauty and grandeur, exclaim with one voice, This is the finger of Deity. There is no resisting the conclusion that these electric coruscations are the strict fulfillment of Joel's prediction. And if modern science had not become practically atheistical to all divinely revealed events, it would at once behold the hand of the maker of the universe in these wonders, and openly acknowledge their relation to the prophetic word, and to the coming day of the Lord. But while scientific men admit their utter inability to explain these magnificent phenomena, they leave God out of the world which he has made, and ignore the working of his hand and the fulfillment of his word, and not only the scientific but the religious press, busy with trifles and occupied with worldly affairs, see no tokens of divine power and providence, and no signs of prophetic fulfillment in these marvels which are blazoned on the mighty heavens."

The preceding is a grand and truthful description of signs in the heavens. There are also many wonderful physical signs on the earth, but people become so accustomed to them that they do not see "the finger of Deity." This generation has not only witnessed famines and pestilences, but also "earthquakes in divers places." Scribner's Monthly of August, 1872, p. 496, contains a remarkable fulfillment of the prophecy in regard to "earthquakes in divers places." "The month of April, 1872, will long be remembered, and will occupy

an important position in geological history as the month of earthquakes and volcanoes. The series of disturbances in question commenced on March 26, with an earthquake at Independence, Inyo Co, Cal., and lasted for five hours, during which time the earth was never for a moment perfectly quiet, and every few moments heavy shocks, of a few seconds duration were occurring; in all there were more than fifty heavy shocks. During the disturbance, flashes of light were seen to issue from the Black Rock, a volcano of the Sierra Nevada range about fourteen miles distant. On April 3, the terrible earthquake of Antioch laid that ancient city in ruins. In this commotion the earth was disturbed over a considerable extent, the shocks being severely felt from Aleppo to Orfa beyond the Euphrates, and occurring at intervals for more than a week. On April 14 and 15, violent shocks of earthquakes were felt at Accra, on the Gold Coast of Africa, and these were attended by a hurricane which wrecked nearly every vessel in the harbor of Zanzibar. On April 24, Vesuvius again burst her bonds and became more active than at any time since the eruption that overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii; Europe, Asia, Africa, America, four out of the five great divisions of the globe, showing serious disturbances of their surface at almost the same time. It is as if Mother Earth was shaking the finger of admonition at those who deny the old geological doctrines, and advance the hypothesis that the globe is not fluid in its interior, but is solid through and through."

It is not "as if Mother Earth," for God's hand is in the earthquake "shaking the finger of admonition" at those who deny that the "end of all things is at hand." A recent telegram (March 6), from Rome announces a terrible earthquake in the south of Europe stating that "the loss of life is appalling." And so it will continue, and we will continually hear in regard to God's wonders "what next, what next," till the coming of the great and final earthquake of which Paul speaks: (Heb. 12:26) "yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven."

Luke adds (Luke 21:25, 26), in addition to what Matthew records should follow "immediately after the tribulation of those days," that there shall be "upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth." It may be seen from what has been written, or by those who know something of the history of the world during the past fifty years of this century, that there has been a

remarkable fulfillment of the prophecy concerning "distress of nations with perplexity, and that even now the hearts of political seers and many others are "failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth."

In regard to the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning "the sea and the waves roaring," D. T. Taylor, in "The Coming Earthquake," p. 49, says: "The increase of terrestrial disturbances, as predicted by Jesus, was to mark the last age above every age before it, and the ocean-tossings of course would accompany these disturbances. And in the ratio in which earthquakes on land increase, in the same ratio, it is seen that the ocean is fearfully turbulent, the same causes operating to produce both, as is admitted by Dr. Burnett." Mr. Taylor gives a condensed record of ocean disturbances from 1746 to 1869. This record is truly wonderful in regard to the frequency and destructive power of the ocean and tidal waves. We quote what he says of these disturbances of recent date as follows: "Since the midsummer of 1867, all the waters of the globe have been disturbed by the earthquake forces beneath them. A clergyman of Concord, N. H., has registered over twenty of these surging waves in as many different localities. Our own records make an equal number. These tossings of the sea would sometimes continue for a whole day. The New York Tribune asserts that they have accompanied all the most serious earthquake disturbances. Both the great ocean waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, have been agitated in their whole extent. We mention in particular the tidal waves at St. Thomas and all the neighboring islands, which were full fifty feet in height, there being three in succession; the great wave at Grenada Island, Dec. 10, 1867; that on the whole coast of South America, in August, 1868, in Peru there being eleven waves in rapid succession; at the Sandwich Islands, April 21, 1868, and subsequently at the Island of Juan Fernandez, at Japan, in New Zealand, and in New South Wales, during 1868; in Lower California, and Kamtchatka, August 15; at Chili, September 14; in the Caribbean sea, April 7; on the Mexican coast, in November; in Peru, October 13; in the Baltic sea in October; at Arica, December 13; in the Pacific ocean in the same month; and at the Sandwich Islands, October 21. The waters of the lakes in California and in Oregon have also been troubled. One lake in Oregon was utterly dried up. The shores of Texas have been swept by the terrible seas, and China has similarly suffered. The great lakes of the United States suddenly rose and fell, and tidal waves have been observed in the harbors of Boston and New York. On the 13th of August, Callao was all dashed away by the sea. The sea rose sixty feet at Hawaii, April 1st to the 13th, and ten villages were utterly destroyed. The shores of all the numerous islands of Polynesia and Australia must have been swept, and more or less submerged, by the seas that rolled westward from the coasts of Peru in August, and by those from Hawaii in April. The first-named waves dashed all night on doomed Hawaii, creating great alarm among the people. The great sea rolling out from South America in August, reached even the shores of Kamtchatka, ten thousands miles away. Never were these waves so numerous and so universal as during the past ten years. A writer in Harper's Magazine (March, 1869) speaks of these as 'that most horrible of phenomena—the tidal wave,' and says: 'How many struggling mortals has it swept back into the deep! What countless ships has it crushed against the shores! What mighty cities has it plundered of life and wealth, strewing their fine streets with the ocean sand, and peopling their palaces with sea monsters! In fact, the terrors of the earthquake are redoubled on the seashore, when we remember that its work of destruction is only half completed until the ocean has come up to share in its dreadful deeds.'"

Again, tempests, hurricanes, and floods are more numerous in this age than they have been in any other, wonderfully making the words of the Psalmist true, "Stormy wind fulfilling his word." Ps. 148:8. We read in "The Coming Earthquake": "No less remarkable and terribly destructive of life and property have been the tempests, hurricanes, and floods of the past few years, and which always accompany the earthquake term." This record is quite lengthy, making the loss of life, wealth, dwellings and ships immense and astonishing. In only a few years preceding 1869 (as nearly as can be estimated) the amount of wealth lost by a few nations amounts to over $409,000,000. In respect to the loss of vessels the record says: "In the first week in December, 1863, there were 1,400 vessels of all descriptions and nations wrecked in the Mediterranean sea. From 1858 to 1866, the total casualties of all countries amounted to 11,711 vessels, of which number 2,513 were totally wrecked. The year 1867 swelled the total casualties at sea for all nations, to 12,513 vessels. Of this sum no less than 2,873 were totally lost, while the loss of life and property was doubtless correspondingly great. Indeed, we have not enumerated one-half the wreck and ruin occasioned by earthquake, flood, tempest, and fire.

"The earth has been made unsafe to dwell on, and the air has been filled with hurtling missiles. Each of the past ten years contributed a shower of aerolites, burning and falling in myriads into our atmosphere; the summer of 1868 saw a great aerolite of five or six tons weight fall in Tennessee; and an enormous bolide of burning stone appearing in mid-air over the city of Warsaw, in Poland, and bursting and scattering in ten thousand fragments all over the earth. This awful implement of destruction is estimated to have been over a mile in diameter! To crown this mass of 'fearful sights and great signs' ('from heaven'), in 1867, a star in the constellation Corona appeared to be on fire, and amid the wondering gaze of men of science seemed to disappear in the flames—a world on fire and consumed in the far-off heavens. (Fourteen of these burning worlds have been seen within a few years.) It is impossible not to see the hand of God in all these extraordinary wonders, these calamities and marvelous events, every year transpiring right before our eyes."

(To be Continued.)