“The Sea and the Waves Roaring.”
THIS is named by our Lord as one of the signs which were to forewarn the world of the coming of the Son of man. In fulfillment, we naturally look for some unwonted disturbance in the great bodies of water that cover so large a portion of the globe; and that such disturbances have taken place of late years, we have ample testimony to prove:— “A letter from New Zealand, Aug. 28, 1868, speaks of an extraordinary tidal wave at several points. At Wellington the tide kept rising and falling two or three times an hour, from low water to extreme high water. It caused immense excitement in the town. . . . At Oamaru, the tide rose and fell fifteen feet in fifteen minutes; and at Lyttelton it receded suddenly to six feet below extreme low water level, and then came in with such a rush that it tore all the shipping away from the wharves, and caused tremendous confusion and considerable damage. The tidal wave fell on the island of Hawaii, destroying a number of houses, and causing much loss of property.” “The New York Tribune, of Nov. 12, 1868, speaking of these things, says the ‘tidal disturbances’ are ‘the most remarkable and extensive of which there is any record.’ It is said their velocity was ‘about a thousand miles an hour.’ The Tribune says that by the tidal waves, ‘Both the great ocean waters of the Atlantic and Pacific have been agitated in their whole extent. We mention in particular the tidal waves at St. Thomas, and all the neighboring islands, which were full fifty feet in height. . . . It is said by those who have witnessed these waves that the ocean’s roar is exceedingly frightful.’” At Arica, the British Vice Consul was an eye-witness. He exclaims:— “Gracious God, what a sight! I saw all the vessels in the bay carried out irresistibly to sea (anchors and chains were as pack thread) probably with a speed of ten miles an hour. In a few minutes the great outward current stopped, stemmed by a mighty rising wave, I should judge about fifty feet high, which came in with an awful rush, carrying everything before it, in its terrible majesty, bringing the shipping with it, sometimes turning in circles, as if striving to elude their fate.” At Lima, a writer says: “I saw the whole surface of the sea rise as if a mountain side, actually standing up. Another shock with a fearful roar now took place. I called to my companions to run for their lives on to the Pampa. Too late; with a horrible crush the sea was on us, and at one sweep dashed what was Iquique on to the Pampa. I lost my companions, and in an instant was fighting with the dark waters. The mighty waves surged, and roared, and leaped. The cries of human beings and animals were frightful.” These convulsions certainly answer most accurately to the words of the prophecy. Our Lord then continues: “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” Mr. Cunninghame, an able English writer,85when looking at the aspect of things in the world, says:— “That the present moral and political condition of the world is altogether without a parallel in the past history of mankind, will be denied by no accurate observer. This is, indeed, universally acknowledged by thinking men, as well as by our leading political journals. And if any further evidence of it were wanting, it is found in that indescribable sensation of fear and expectation, which everywhere fills the minds of men, of some mighty event, they know not what, which is coming.” Says Dr. Seiss, of Philadelphia, an able writer and minister:— “Symptoms of a mysterious metamorphose meet us on every hand, causing some of earth’s most far-sighted men, in church and State, to tremble with amazement and doubt.” “All society, everywhere, with its politics, its philosophy, and its religion, is in a perturbed condition, indicating revolutions and occurrences which no mere human foresight can at all comprehend.” “Christians and Jews concede that we are approaching commotions and changes such as never have been since time began.” “No one, acquainted with the existing aspects of the world, can have any doubt that we have fallen upon very startling and critical times.” “A Paris correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, when speaking of the signs of the times, says the ‘distress of nations and perplexity,’ the ‘failing of the heart for fear,’ have become so ‘universal’ that one might almost be forgiven for supposing that the end of everything was really at hand, and that the universe itself was about to disappear amidst this general and fearful crushing of all its elements.”