LATTER-DAY SCOURGES by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 29, 1871

LATTER-DAY SCOURGES

By Uriah Smith

Items.

LATTER-DAY SCOURGES.

Accounts just received from Persia state that a famine of unparalleled severity is now desolating that land. Thousands of people have already died of starvation, and in places where every other vestige of food has been consumed, men have been driven to eat their own offspring. “Such scenes of misery,” says the account, “have never been witnessed elsewhere in modern times.”

A short crop the present year adds to the accumulating horrors. All the inhabitants of Faruz have been obliged to leave and seek refuge in other quarters. Selling their children failed to gain them sustenance. In Cairman the government has seized all the grain for taxes. Ten or twelve are dying there per day. At Zezd fifty per day die of starvation. At Ispahan shops are opened for selling camels’, asses’, dogs’ and cats’ flesh, and seventy or eighty die daily. The people go about trying to sell their children. At Khorassan about 18,000 men have been swept off through hunger and disease. In some parts men have begun to eat grass and vegetables like cattle in the fields, and are plagued with a foot-sore of which they die after lingering a few days.

It will be remembered that in some parts of India famine was quite severe last year. Can it be that this scourge is traveling westward, and that we are soon to hear of its ravages on the soil of Europe?

Newburyport is said to be in danger of pestilence from the number of menhaden (a species of fish) dying at the mouth of the Merrimac.

A telegram from London, dated Aug. 14, says that a dreadful calamity has visited the small island of Tagolanda, in the Malay Archipelago about fifty miles north-east of the island of Celebes. An outburst of the Volcano of Ruwang accompanied by a convulsion of the sea, and a wave forty yards in height, swept all the human beings, cattle, and horses, from the island. The number of persons who perished was four hundred and sixteen.

On Thursday of last week a great cloud of locusts was swept from the sea, falling on Plum Island, off Newburyport, Mass., literally covering the ground. They might have been raked up by bushels. This is a new experience for this section.

A GOOD MOVE AMONG THE MORMONS.

A certain Mrs. Hawkins of Utah, overcome with shame and remorse at her position as one among twenty or thirty Mrs. Hawkinses, has brought an action against her husband to have him taken and held for adultery. As there is no law which recognizes polygamy, the charge will doubtless stand. Quite a sensation is created by this movement, and several of the Mormon dignitaries are said to be trembling in view of similar contingencies. Any movement will be hailed with pleasure by all who understand the evils of that ism which tends to stir up its nest of iniquity. Thousands, it is thought, will avail themselves of this method of seeking release from that degrading system.

KEEPING IT BEFORE THE PEOPLE.

The disposition to keep the Sabbath before the people is seen in the following item. A sentence is chosen for a memorial inscription in Plymouth Harbor, setting forth the practice of the Pilgrims respecting the Sabbath. This will be a continual reminder to the people, at least in that vicinity, of the early introduction of what is called the Christian or American Sabbath into this country, and tend to arouse all their feelings of patriotism in its behalf. “Straws show,” &c.

“THE PILGRIM MEMORIAL. Acting upon the suggestion of Hon. R. C. Winthrop, in his address at Plymouth last December, it has been decided to place the following inscription on the great rock on Clark’s island in Plymouth Harbor, near the small burial inclosure:

“ON THE SABBOTH DAY. WEE RESTED.” 20 December, 1620.

“The revenue cutter Mahoning conveyed to the spot Wednesday, Mr. Winthrop, Hon. E. S. Tobey and others, who, after viewing the situation, selected for the place of the inscription the face of the rock looking to the sea, under the shadow of which the Pilgrims who landed there probably conducted their first devotions, sheltered from the northerly winds.” U. S.