NO SAFE SPOT ON EARTH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 27, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 30.

NO SAFE SPOT ON EARTH.

ASIDE from the dire results of carelessness, ignorance, greed, and fraud, disaster seems to be, to some degree, a concomitant of the elements, whose sudden freaks become more and more frequent as we near the end. A city located on an island four feet above the sea-level is suddenly inundated by a tidal wave, and five thousand people are drowned. Another city is situated by a modest mountain stream, and a short distance above is a dam. In an evil time the dam breaks, and two thousand people perish by the flood. Still another city is built at the foot of a supposedly-extinct volcano, when an unexpected eruption puts out the lives of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and leaves the buildings a heap of ruins. And yet another, a great city, is proudly planted on elevated ground, by a noble river; and as the waters are flowing peacefully by, a hurricane dashes through the city, and five hundred victims go down to death. But it is not only in the cities that disaster is carried by the elements. The forest fire, the prairie fire, the cyclone, the tidal wave, and the cloud-burst have their records of destruction in the country districts as well as in the city, altho the sparsely-settled country does not present so many victims in a given area.

There are no absolutely safe spots on all the sin-cursed earth; but the Israel of God can console themselves in the thought that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, tho the earth be removed, and tho the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; tho the waters thereof roar and be troubled, tho the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” Ps. 46:1–3, 7. He is preparing us a land of safety, where “there shall be no more sigh, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.” Rev. 21:4.