p. 3 | THE EARTHQUAKE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · May 23, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 20.

THE EARTHQUAKE.

Copyright 1906, by Rogers and Stewart, Oakland, Cal.

TUESDAY night, April 17, the people in one of the fairest sections of the Pacific Coast, stretching, roughly speaking, from San Luis Obispo on the south to undefined regions in the mountains, beyond Ukiah on the north, went to bed as usual, expecting to awake to a usual day on the morrow.

The most of them were awakened with an awful shock which brought from many lips, "The world has come to an end!" "The judgment day has come!"

After the first shock was over, at 5:15, where were prosperous business centers, builded of brick or stone, were ruined walls, and piles of brick and mortar, while everywhere broken and falling chimneys and crushed and toppling water tanks met the eye.

All who could get out-of-doors left the houses, clad or half-clad, often in their night garments and barefooted.

It seemed as if an infuriated giant demon had reached up from the interior of the earth, buried his steel talons in the fibers of California's heart, and crushed and tore and shook her into the agonies of death.

Short work did the demon make of it,—only a half-minute or less, and the work of destruction was wrought. Never Titan so wrought before in modern western history of which the books tell. And when the paroxysm of his rage was over, the business portions of the beautiful towns of San Jose, Gilroy, Santa Rosa, Hollister, and others, were wholly or in part in ruins, and San Francisco's entire business portion was doomed.

From east to west some say the convulsion came; others, from north to south. The great temblor's signature on another page will show that the movements were in every conceivable direction, straight impulses, gyratory, circular, twisting, up and down, till exhaustion came and the earth was allowed to rest for awhile.

"Terra firma" we denominate the old earth. Those who experienced the shock of April 18, 1906, will call this planet "firm earth" no longer. They have seen it more restless than the sea, and far less merciful in its abnormal moods.

But the stars still glow in the evening sky, and the sun still shines, and trees still stand, and grass and flowers are still kissed by the sun and dew, and nod in the spring breeze.

God rules still, and is above the storm and the tempest and the earthquake—and from this awful blow will He bring good to those in harmony with Heaven.