L. A. S by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Nov 24, 1904

L. A. S

By L. A. S.

THE year which is drawing to a close has been marked in this country at least, by a succession of catastrophes involving the loss of human life, which has arrested the attention and elicited the comment even of those who believe the world is becoming a better and safer abode for its inhabitants as the years go by. Such events as the burning of the Iroquois theater and of the steamboat “General Slocum,” and railway accidents of unusual magnitude, have never before been so numerously crowded into the space of a single year. To say that such occurrences are the result of carelessness, or of the increase of traffic by sea and rail, is not a sufficient explanation of them. If there is negligence now in the management of railway and steamboat lines, it is equally true that there has always been negligence; and the increase of traffic does not necessarily bring an increased strain upon any part of the system by which the traffic is conducted, or increased liability to accident. With the multiplication of railway and steamboat lines and vehicles of travel, there is a corresponding multiplication of those who have the oversight and handling of the various parts. Nor has negligence always figured as the cause of disaster; some of the worst wrecks have occurred in an almost unaccountable manner.

People who conclude that with the exercise of a proper degree of care in the management of public buildings and conveyances, human life within them is bound to be safe, leave out of their reckoning two essential facts. One is the agency of evil spirits in spreading death and disaster throughout our world; the other is the agency of divine providence in averting calamities, either threatened or unseen, which would otherwise occur. Much of the credit that is given to man for the safety of human life under circumstances which suggest the possibility of calamity, belongs to God, whose restraint upon the forces of evil alone prevent the sudden advent of death. Men are preserved by the divine care upon the right hand and upon the left, guided unconsciously past unseen perils, and imagine that their immunity is due to natural circumstances, and to their own ability to care for themselves. When the divine restraint is removed, and the forces of the evil one, who by Adam’s fall became the prince of this world, are allowed free course to gather their harvest of death, it will be seen that men owe much more to God and much less to themselves for the enjoyment of life, health, and prosperity than they had supposed.