The Earth Waxing Old by John N. Quinn

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 1, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 34.

The Earth Waxing Old

By John N. Quinn

“The earth shall wax old like a garment,” is a statement of Holy Writ which has a peculiar significance at the present time. Isa. 51:1. As you know, when a garment has been worn for some time, rents are of frequent occurrence. When a person becomes old, the limbs are feeble and tottering. Does not this account for the fearfully destructive earthquakes occurring so frequently in this generation? The following figures, which give a conservative estimate of the number of earthquakes which have occurred during the past 3,000 years, bear out the Bible idea of old age. When the earth was young, earthquakes were few; as it grows old, they increase; as the end is almost reached, their increase is very marked:

Date	Earthquakes	Average
B.C. 1700 to A.D. 96	16	1 in 112 years
A.D. 96 to 1850	204	1 in 8 years
A.D. 1850 to 1865	15	1 in 1 year
A.D. 1865 to 1868	15	5 in 1 year
A.D. 1885	97	97 in 1 year
A.D. 1886	104	104 in 1 year
A.D. 1907	2,000	2,000 in 1 year

In the United States, during the last fourteen years, earthquakes have averaged 324 a year.

If we wish to arouse a person who is asleep when danger threatens, we call; our call being unheeded, we shake him vigorously in our attempt to arouse him so he may escape the danger. God has been calling men to repentance; His call has been very largely unheeded; and now the earth is shaking in order to arouse men from sin’s lethargy, so they may escape the wrath to come. In Heb. 12:25-29, we are told that the earth’s shaking is proof of the existence of things which are not enduring, and the truth is self-evident that the greater the shaking, the nearer are we to the time when the temporal things will give place to the things that are eternal.

The editor of the New York Witness writes: “It is not pleasant to recount the horrors that have come upon the human race; yet there are times when it is in order, and now appears to me to be the time.”

Ambassador Reid, at a meeting of the Y. M. C. A., in London, said: “The present is a period of great unrest. Things which had been considered as absolutely fixed, and durable as the eternal hills, seem to be breaking up. On every side, beliefs, morals, social order, property, and business relations, and government, all seem to be crumbling. Thoughtful men look on the future with great apprehension.”

JOHN N. QUINN.

Takoma Park, Washington, D. C.