SEA AND WAVES ROARING by A. H. Darrow

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 13, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 50.

SEA AND WAVES ROARING.

By A. H. Darrow

BY A. H. DARROW.

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring." Luke 21:25.

AS the timber has been removed from American forests, east, west, north, and south; and since vast herds of cattle and sheep have browsed the herbage most diligently from the sides and tops of mountains and hills; snow on mountain peaks and other places melts more rapidly; rains no longer are held where they fall, to percolate slowly through drifts and sands and soil. Of late years the water rushes down the hillsides in torrents, during the rainy seasons, swelling the streams of the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Hudson, the Missouri, and even the Rio Grande, into flood-like proportions, bursting banks, breaking levees, inundating vast sections of agricultural and stock-raising country, and spreading far and wide death, devastation, and destruction. Houses, cattle, sheep, hogs, shocks of corn, wheat, oats, and barley, frequently go sailing down stream, halting not in their haste till they, with the angry floods which bear them, reach the gulf or ocean, the great receptacles ready to take what the people do not want or can not retain.

In one instance, here in Prescott, a large house floated down with the raging torrent, with all of its furniture, and the lamp burning on the stand, to be seen no more by those who had known it. This was accomplished, too, by a small stream called Granite Creek, which flows into the Verde River.

All readers are familiar with the Johnstown flood and the "Galveston horror," in which so many lives were lost, so much property destroyed, and so much destitution and distress occasioned.

"In 1876," says a recent journal, "a cyclone rolled the great waves of the sea over three small islands at the mouth of the river Ganges, and 215,000 persons were drowned. In 1896 a cyclone at St. Louis destroyed 200 lives and $50,000,000 worth of property. Less than a month later, a seismic wave washed thirty miles of the Japanese coast line, destroying every dwelling within its scope and 30,000 human lives. In 1903, 200 persons were drowned in the Topeka, Kansas, flood; fifty, as the result of a cloudburst in Clifton, South Carolina, and 500 at Heppner, Oregon."

The Republican of May 6, 1905, speaks of a flood disaster in Apache and Navajo Counties, Arizona, very destructive to property.

The same paper, of June 13, 1905, gives the following dispatch from Hannibal, Mo., June 12: "The flood in the Mississippi River has spread over all the unprotected lowlands, and is from five to ten miles wide between here and Keokuk, Iowa. Near Alexandria, a farmer was drowned, and seven other persons are reported missing. Much live stock has been lost. The flood came so suddenly that farmers had difficulty in saving their families. . . . The loss will run into millions."

A flood at Guan Juato, Mexico, July 4, 1905, destroyed from 600 to 1,000 human lives and $2,000,000 worth of property; and a hurricane and tidal wave on the Marshall Islands, August 17, 1905, killed 100 people. Five hundred people were drowned in the Elizabeth River, near Norfolk, Virginia, as a result of a train plunging into the river.

The roaring of the waves and of the sea is mentioned by Luke in the closest connection with the perplexity of the nations resulting from various causes, among which we can hardly avoid classing the signs in the sun, moon, and stars, going before, and the shaking of the powers of the heavens, mentioned almost immediately after. It is evidently one of the signs of the last days and of the approaching consummation.

It is to be noticed here that there has recently been an increase, not only in the virulence of many diseases, such as pneumonia, consumption, etc., but also in the destructiveness of storms, floods, and cyclones.

One distinguished writer says: "Everything in the world is in agitation. The signs of the times are ominous. Coming events cast their shadows before. The Spirit of God is withdrawing from the earth, and calamity follows calamity by sea and by land. There are tempests, earthquakes, fires, floods, murders of every grade. Who can read the future? Where is security? There is assurance in nothing that is human or earthly. Rapidly men are ranging themselves under the banner they have chosen. Restlessly they are waiting and watching the movements of their leaders. An intensity such as never before was seen is taking possession of the world: In amusements, in money-making, in the contest for power, in the very struggle for existence, there is a terrible force that engrosses body and mind and soul. In the midst of this maddening rush, God is speaking. He bids us come apart and commune with Him. 'Be still and know that I am God.'"

Not only are the powers of heaven being shaken, but men are being shaken as never before, with passion, with lust, and with the contending emotions of good and evil. Not only are the sea and waves roaring, but the waves of sin and strife are raging, and the devil, the prime cause of all this raging strife, goeth about like a roaring lion, with diligence and wrath, knowing that his time is short in which to encompass the ruin of a world.

Let us be up and doing, for the night cometh when no man can work. "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent."