Lessons from Calamities

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Nov 7, 1907

Lessons from Calamities

[The following remarks of President C. C. Lewis, of Union College, at chapel the morning after the fire, were not intended for publication; yet they contain so many thoughts of high value to the teachers and students of our schools that we deem them most worthy of a place in this department of the REVIEW, and we think they bear such a close relation to the reports from our other schools that they should be placed in this section of this Educational number.—F. G.]

TIMES of crisis are tests of manhood. How we bear up under affliction and calamity is a true index of what we are at heart. Many a soldier of loud and boastful manner has proved a coward under fire, while many another of quiet bearing, who said little about what he could do or would do, has proved a hero in the fight. Many a seemingly frivolous young man or woman has been steadied by burdens of affliction or responsibility, and in a crisis has manifested the genuine qualities of manhood or womanhood. In the present calamity let us be strong and quit ourselves like men.

A time of crisis is a time for calmness and clearness of judgment. Words should be few and well chosen. The manner should be quiet and cheerful, while deeply thoughtful and serious. All jesting and joking and immoderate laughter should be laid aside. Everything like a hysterical spirit should be subdued. A calm and simple trust in God should possess the soul.

Concerning the particular cause of the present fire nothing is known. It was first seen in the very top of the building. It may have caught from the electric wires, but this is only conjecture. The general cause is plain. Fire burns. Water quenches; but there was little water with which to quench, and what there was could not be quickly gotten to the right place to be effective. The whole was under the steady working of a law of

God. A spark, starting anywhere from any cause in the midst of combustible material, increases to a flame, and burns until the material is consumed, unless some other cause operates to put it out. This law is, on the whole, a wise and beneficent law. As man's servant it works untold benefit to the race. With it he warms his body; cooks his food; softens, melts, and shapes his metals; lights his houses and cities, and thus stays the crime that ever lurks in darkness. Without it he would soon lapse into barbarism, and be driven into the warmer latitudes, until if the sun itself should go out in blackness, man would perish from the earth. When this element escapes from control, it brings disaster and ruin to man and his works. But no man in his senses would blot out the law if he could, or would have its operations otherwise than uniform. We know what to depend upon, and must act accordingly.

This thought leads me to speak of the first lesson that should be learned from this fire; and that is that some adequate provision for extinguishing fire should be made by the village of College View, of which the institutions on this hill were the cause and are the center. A water system, with stand-pipe overtopping the highest building, and with mains through all the streets, is the demand of the hour. This demand is so imperative that every man should be ready to vote the necessary bonds to create such a system. It is a duty which we owe to our homes and to our loved ones to use every means within our power to protect them from the disaster of fire, and God will hold us responsible for the discharge of this duty.

But this lesson of a temporal nature, which all can readily see and will acknowledge, should not close our eyes to other lessons of a deeper, spiritual nature. Fire is used as one of the judgments of God upon a wicked world in the last days. Fire is the agency which God will employ to cleanse the universe from sin at last. Was this fire an ordinary accident? or was it a judgment of God visited upon us for our sins? Only the Almighty himself knows, and man should be slow to take upon himself the attributes of divinity by presuming to answer the question. Although no one would dare assert that our Father has purposely sent this calamity upon us, yet our faith in him would lead us all to say that if he has done so, he has done it for our good, as a warning against our sins. That he permitted it is self-evident, since he has permitted all evil and all calamity since the world began. In either case there are individual lessons for us to learn. Let each one listen for the voice of God speaking through this disaster to his own heart, and learn the lessons he most needs to know. It is so easy for those who are leading unconsecrated lives, who bear no burdens, who make no pretensions to acknowledgment of their obligations to God, to make application of this lesson to those who are trying their best to serve God, as if their own sins were pleasing to God, and as if their neglect to acknowledge their obligations released them from those obligations. On the other hand, those who are striving to love and obey God should guard against saying in their hearts, This lesson is for the ungodly. To one and all the exhortation of the Saviour recorded in Luke 13 comes with power: “Those eighteen, upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

To every heart comes the lesson of human tenderness and sympathy. Calamity makes men one. We look into one another’s faces this morning with a deeper love and respect than ever before. We are proud of those who worked faithfully and manifested unusual presence of mind to save property and avert danger. We forget little injuries and losses and inconveniences in the largeness of heart which the Lord is giving to us all through our common misfortune. We are thankful that our main buildings are uninjured, that we already have water, and by night will have light, and in a few days will have heat, from the sanitarium systems. And we especially rejoice in the Lord that no one of our number is missing or injured. Let us not be discouraged by our loss, but lift up our heads and march steadily forward to final victory.