THE GREAT HEAT OF THE SUN.
NEVER before in the history of America has there been such a time of heat and drouth combined as now hangs like a fiery, brazen canopy over the great East. There have been other periods of drouth as long in some localities, but not with such great heat. There have been brief periods of great heat in later July and August, but not so prolonged. The present blasting, blighting, withering, burning conditions have surpassed all previous ones in heat, in drouth, and in extent. One month ago, throughout the entire country, men were congratulating each other on the great prosperity of the country, especially in respect to trade, labor, and crop prospects. To-day what a change! Foreign trade is still prosperous, yet there are ominous, foreboding clouds in the commercial horizon eastward. Some of the European countries are talking strongly of commercial war; and much as Americans may boast, this would mean something, and affect many businesses not a little. We seem to be on the eve of a war between capital and labor, compared with which all the conflicts of the past dwindle into insignificance. It is trusts of billions of dollars against trusts of millions of men; and if the controversy is not soon settled, it will paralyze capital, cause the loss of millions to both rich and poor, result doubtless in more or less violence, and mean untold suffering to thousands upon thousands who are in no way involved in the controversy, yet who must reap its bitterness. These conditions it is in the power of the kings of capital and kings of labor to remedy speedily. But the third element in the trouble, the terrific heat, the ruined crops, are beyond the power of man; for the seat of the trouble is not in human hearts or minds, but in the great sun. From the fearful heat, which might be likened to a great, stifling, hot blanket, with occasional holes, there have been already not less than 2,000 deaths, one-half of this number perishing in New York City alone. Temperature in the country, in the Weather Bureau Stations, and on the high buildings of the great cities in the East, has ranged from 90° Fahrenheit to 110° in the shade, while in the streets it has registered from 94° to 112°. The stone pavements and walls absorb heat all day, and frequently 11 o’clock at night finds the mercury in the lower nineties. Horses have died by hundreds. People have gone to public parks to sleep on the ground. Many little ones, not counted in the mortality lists, have died in the hospitals. Not a few have gone mad. “For over a month,” says one great daily paper, “in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and the Indian Territory the thermometer has been above the hundred mark, and scarcely a drop of rain has fallen. And now the drouth is extending to Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. The damage already done will run into the millions; but even that is slight in comparison with the losses that will result unless relief comes soon. The thirty-six days’ drouth has been marked by frequent electrical disturbances, which, for the moment, brought a hope of relief, but they quickly passed.” July 23, this estimate was given: Loss to Kansas, $100,000,000; Missouri, the same; Nebraska, $75,000,000; Iowa, $16,000,000; Indiana, $14,000,000; Kentucky, $15,000,000; and other States lesser sums. Shrinkage of stocks in the markets, $90,000,000; shrinkage in wheat production, 150,000,000 bushels; in corn production, 200,000,000 bushels. Both corn and wheat have increased in price. Europe also is affected. Says Mr. Garrett P. Serviss, a brilliant astronomical writer of the East:— Only on the assumption that the source of terrible heat is directly from the sun, and due to an extraordinary increase in its effective radiation, can the widespread and long-continued nature of the present meteorologic disaster be satisfactorily explained. Local causes are insufficient. Accordingly we are driven to the belief that the source of the trouble is only in the sun. Mr. Serviss believes these outbursts of heat to be periodical; that the sun is a variable star; that the vapor surrounding it becomes thinner at certain times, and the heat bursts forth. He says:— That is what happened this summer, and the immediate agency that has flung open the furnace door and sent forth the destroying blast is the mysterious power whose visible manifestation is the presence of black sun-spots. These sun-spots themselves, he tells us, have no influence; they are merely indicators of the tremendous solar disturbances. He continues:— The sun is subject to strange physical disorder, which shakes its system to the very center, and, like a malarious disease, recurs in more or less regular periods, but with varying intensity. The great periods of disturbance, Mr. Serviss believes to have been ascertained as thirty-five years, and that this one will continue for four years more. But of this he remarks:— But this time the energies concerned seem to be uncommonly fiery and intense in their display of power, and there is some reason to think that the activity of the sun is increasing rather than diminishing as time goes on. Thus much for what science may have to say. It is largely hypothetical. And yet the word that the sun is suffering from disease is true; it is the truth of God’s Word. Sin is in the universe; and sin is the transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4), the perversion of God’s ways of working. Its highest manifestations in the moral realm, where only it could originate, affected every realm beneath it, and hence “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Rom. 8:23, R.V. The earth is sick; the sun is sick; the universe is sick. God’s law of life and perennial health has been transgressed, and as man, God’s designed prince, increases his transgression of God’s laws, denies even God’s existence, puts insensate, unreasoning Nature and Evolution on His throne, the consequences of transgression also increase, and the malady of the material universe takes on new virulence, and the curse rests more heavily. Sometime the climax of the disease will be reached. Not forever will its leprosy blast God’s realm. Sometime men will so reject God in the face of His unceasing appeals and infinite mercy, that appeal can affect them no more. When God’s Spirit can no more affect men, it will be withdrawn; its ameliorating influence upon earth’s material maladies will be removed, and God will let men have their choice of sin and its inevitable consequences—pain, death, and destruction. Then, with the withdrawal of the Spirit of God from among men, will come the seven last plagues, foretold by the “sure word of prophecy,” the culmination of the results of continued transgression of angels and men. Under the fourth plague the “sure word of prophecy” tells us that the sun is given power to “scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat; and they blasphemed the name of the God which hath the power over these plagues; and they repented not to give Him glory.” Rev. 16:8, 9. These fearful heat spells are the foretastes of what a merciful God is revealing to men of the effects of sin, in order that men may be induced to forsake sin and turn to Him, the only refuge, with all their hearts. Men may ridicule these predictions, and flout them as of no consequence. So also did the Sodomites the warnings of Lot. So also did the Jews the warnings of Jeremiah. So also did the Jews the warnings from the lips of Him who spake as never man spake. But Sodom was destroyed; the king of Babylon took captive the Jews; the Romans came, leveled the temple, and took away the place and nation of the people so abundantly warned. The “sure word of prophecy” will be as surely fulfilled in this generation. The judgments of God will come as the result of men’s wickedness. The plagues of God will fall upon a generation that invites them by every selfish indulgence in pleasure, lust, and power. Jesus Christ will come again; and in the light of the forthshining of His presence, His enemies will die; but those who are in harmony with His law, who know the constant inflow of His life, shall be changed to glorious immortality, soon to inhabit a universe forever freed from sin.