CREATION'S GROANS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 8, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 26.

CREATION'S GROANS.

A DAILY paper reports since January 1 of the present year 9 earthquakes, in one of which 6,000 lives were lost; 2 eruptions of volcanoes; the appearance of one island in the sea and the disappearance of another; 6 tornadoes and cyclones, causing immense damage; 2 cloudbursts; 5 great floods, one of which was the great Mississippi deluge; 1 waterspout; 1 tidal wave; 1 fearful hailstorm which broke roofs of houses, plate-glass windows, and killed dogs, horses, and men; seven towns and villages wholly or partly destroyed by these calamities, and nearly 7,000 lives lost. In addition to this the victims of the famine and plague in India number millions. The territory covered by the famine is 160,000 square miles, and the normal population of the district over 40,000,000.

These convulsions of nature recall the terrible earthquake and eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, in which the earth opened, the sea rushed into the boiling caldron, and explosions occurred, which were heard on May 20, it is said, 160 miles away, and on August 27, even to the island of Mauritius, 3,000 miles distant. Ships 100 miles from the eruption were covered with lava and mud, and waves 112 feet high were manifest 30 miles away.

What mean these earthquakes, cyclones, crop failures, convulsions and famines of growing frequency in these latter days? It need not be said that there were as many in past ages, but they were not noted. No doubt many of the smaller convulsions and storms were not, but the class that was then noted were of much less frequent occurrence then than now. Much could be laid to ignorance then that we can not now. What is the cause? The Word of God tells us: The physical, atmospheric heavens and earth "all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed." Heb. 1:11, 12. The earth is growing old, prematurely old, in consequence of sin. The quakes and the storms are tears and rents in the old garment. There are parts of it yet comparatively new, but in general it is rapidly coming to that place, indicated by many prophecies, where the Lord changes the worn-out earth. The apostle declares that the creation was made subject to vanity, weakness, perishableness, not of its own will, but by reason of man, its lord in trust. And now it groans and travails in pain, waiting for its rightful Lord, Christ Jesus, and his reign of righteousness, when it with the children of God shall stand forth in the glorious incorruptible liberty of the sons of God. See Rom. 8:19-23, R. V.