p. 15 | LO, A MIRACLE! by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 20, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 24.

“LO, A MIRACLE!”

By Editor

The sparing of a private residence from the devastating fire in San Francisco is denominated “a miracle” by one of the daily papers. But the circumstance leads one to suspect that there was more dynamiting of buildings done than was necessary, and it might have been better to have allowed the occupants to save some of their belongings that were immediately necessary, than to drive them out so hurriedly as was done in many cases. We give the story as a specimen of human nature and human presumption:

The handsome home of Gordon Blanding, at 1900 Franklin Street, was saved from destruction by dynamite because Blanding keeps a well-stocked wine-cellar. There was many a broken bottle in that wine cellar, but the house remained intact with its art treasures, its fine pipe organ, and everything that made it one of the notably luxurious homes of San Francisco. Now Blanding, in his villa at Belvedere, is contemplating leasing his strangely-saved home to one of the social clubs at a rental which will easily pay for all those broken bottles.

When, on that fearsome Thursday night, the tired dynamite squad was working along Van Ness Avenue and Franklin Street, the fire having crept across the wide avenue at Clay Street, the blasters began to reach a serious conclusion that it would be necessary to sacrifice the Blanding house in order to save the Western Addition. So they entered the cellar to lay explosives and prepare for the detonation. In that cellar they saw ranged before their astonished eyes rows upon rows of bottles representing the finest vintages of the districts of Champagne and Burgundy, with the soft but exhilarating wines of the river Rhine, and the heavier fermentations of Douro and Oporto.

Their thirst was tremendous and their opportunity unlimited. They had just come from dynamiting the big stone stable of Claus Spreckels and some adjoining residences on the opposite side of Clay Street, and already there had been some blistering of paint on the Blanding house. But there was no resisting the appeal of these cool bottles of sparkling wine in that cool and comfortable cellar, and the worn-out fire-fighters forgot the flames and forgot their fatigue as they quaffed “the imprisoned laughter of the peasant girls of France.”

And, lo, a miracle! As they slaked their thirst the fury of the flames was quieted; the danger from the spread of the fire was over; and there was no need for dynamiting that magnificent home. The squad went on its way to other points of danger, and Gordon Blanding’s splendid residence had been saved because its owner has a discriminating taste in wine and took a pride in his cellar.

Yes, it was “a miracle” of grace. That men would spare a house because it was filled with intoxicating drink, when they were denying the occupants of adjacent buildings the time to remove necessary articles, and that God would temper the wind so as to spare them in their revelry, was a miracle of mercy that every man in that “squad” ought to highly esteem. But to devote a house, so marvelously spared under such circumstances, to “club” purposes, seems to border on presumption.

Men spared the house because of its contents of intoxicating wines, but that such was the purpose of any divine miracle is not a reasonable proposition.

Appreciation of the “miracle,” as of divine providence, would suggest a better use of the premises in the future.