Hearts Failing for Fear
By Calvin P. Bollman
Conditions on Sea and Land Are Portentous—Turbulence and Strife Cause Well Founded Anxiety In giving an account of the several signs foretold by our Saviour, Luke supplies some details passed over by Matthew. For instance, after making mention of the phenomena in the sun and the moon and the stars, Luke adds, “And 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.” Luke 21:25, 26. More Frequent and Violent
We need only mention the well-known and alarming increase, within the last hundred years, of tornadoes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. These have increased not only in frequency, but in violence as well. In the last 1,700 years before Christ, there were only 58 recorded earthquakes, or an average of one in 29 years. During the first 900 years of the Christian era, there were 198 recorded earthquakes, an average of one in about four years. During the next 600 years, there was an average of nearly one earthquake each year; while for the next 300 years—that is, from 1500 A. D. to 1800 A. D.—there are records of 2,804 earthquakes, or an average of over nine a year. And all these were recorded before the invention of the seismograph, so that they were all shocks of considerable severity, though not all were what are known as destructive earthquakes. Who But God Could Have Known?
But according to the “scientific” theory of the earth, instead of increasing, earthquakes ought to be far less frequent than formerly. Who but our Lord could have known, in His day, that before the end there would be a marked and alarming increase of these little-understood disturbances? Probably the most destructive single earthquake was that of Lisbon, in 1755, when 90,000 lives were destroyed in a few moments of time by the earthquake and by the tidal wave that followed it. Yet there have been quite a number since that time whose victims were numbered by thousands, and some even by tens of thousands. In the earthquake and volcanic eruption of Mont Pelée, May 12, 1902, 30,000 lives were snuffed out in a moment of time by the explosion of gases which, issuing from the volcano, overspread the city of St. Pierre, enveloping in flame and instantly destroying every living thing, not only in the city, but for some distance beyond its confines. Appear Where Before Unknown
With the increase of earthquakes, there has been a corresponding increase in the number and destructiveness of tidal waves. Among the most notable, because the most destructive, of these, was the one that followed upon the heels of the Lisbon earthquake, and by which a large part of the destruction was wrought upon that occasion; and also the great tidal wave caused by the earthquake and volcano in the Strait of Sunda, August 26-27, 1883, when the island of Krakatoa was blown to dust, and all low-lying islands for many miles in every direction were swept by a mighty wall of water many feet in height and of almost irresistible power. It will be necessary merely to mention the great frequency of tornadoes, popularly called cyclones. Only a generation ago these were almost unknown in this country. Now,278however, they are quite common, even in sections regarded as wholly exempt from them only a few years since. Wars, Riots, and Pestilence
But perhaps the most significant sign of our times is the strife and commotion, not of the elements, but in society and among nations. Truly men’s hearts are to-day “failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” Strikes and riots render life and property unsafe in many places; murders, robberies, and other crimes of violence are frightfully common; while a large part of the world is to-day engaged in the most destructive and widespread war ever known. Not only is this war terrible because of improved engines of destruction, but it is rendered more terrible than any war of past ages because it is fought not only upon land and sea, but under the sea and in the air. What is or can be more awful than the destruction of the lives of noncombatants by means of bombs dropped upon crowded cities from high in the air, or more terrifying than the secret attacks of submarine vessels of war, not only upon other war vessels, but upon merchant ships and even passenger-carrying craft? And to crown it all, pestilence seems to be following in the wake of the destroying armies, so that with the opening of spring, disease is almost sure to carry off more victims than even this the most dreadful war of all the ages. Surely this part of our Lord’s great prophecy is being fulfilled most strikingly before our very eyes.