WARNING AND JUDGMENT by T. R. Griffin

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Jun 13, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 23.

WARNING AND JUDGMENT.

By T. R. Griffin

A FEW weeks ago a servant of God delivered an important message to the people of an Eastern city. Among other things, he told them of the wickedness of San Francisco. Unlike Jonah, who loved not the Ninevites and would have evaded duty, this man, filled with the Holy Ghost, solicited the prayers and offerings of his brethren in behalf of a people among whom he had lived and labored, and who were endeared to him by the most sacred ties. His zeal and devotion along all lines fitly attested the sincerity of his affection for their every welfare in long, well-spent service.

God is long-suffering, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and kindliest forbearance toward His erring children. But least of all will He tolerate presumptuous sin, and sinners are growing bolder and more defiant every day. Science, so called, unbelief, and sycophantic, half-hearted Christians may strive to eliminate Him from His works, and relieve Him of responsibility for His actions, but the Scriptures and the events of history will ever confound and rebuke them. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father." The grass and flowers of the fields are precious in His sight. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered."

The highest authority thus emphasizes the Father's solicitude and great love for His children. How then are we to reconcile these declarations of Omnipotence with the actions of that power that tossed and shook our stricken city until, first amazed, then in awful helplessness, she was borne to the ground in magnificent but terrible grandeur. Why were the ordinary safeguards—the water mains—destroyed? Why should the horrors of Sodomic fires complete this mighty devastation?

Brother, the king of great Nineveh proclaimed a fast at the preaching of Jonah's sermon embodied in a single sentence of less than a dozen words. Even the beasts were deprived of food while the king and his people prayed in sackcloth and ashes. Not so in San Francisco. They laughed, jeered, and gibed.

Representative bodies drew up resolutions; the press, and even some of the ministry, took Bishop Hamilton to task and almost threatened him in the discharge of duty divine. Nineveh humbled herself, repented, and was saved. San Francisco scoffed, and ere the ink was dry in the self-righteous editorial columns of a leading daily on that ever to be remembered morning of April 18, the beautiful city by the bay was plunged headlong to her doom.

In speechless grief our hearts are bowed in humble submission, while the mangled, charred remains of loved ones are gently lowered into the trenches. Let us hope that prayer was heard, that all were saved who passed from us in that hour. The beautiful spirit of brotherhood, as shown by humanity everywhere, will ever be among the richest treasures of memory. The world beholds with admiration the sublime courage and optimism manifested by many while passing through this fiery furnace, but,

O beloved brethren, is there no other consideration than the mere "rebuilding of our city more beautiful and grander than ever before"? Would to God that the Holy Ghost might prevail toward the rebuilding of His own temple, that the Holy Spirit would leap from heart to heart as fire among dry stubble, until not only San Francisco, but California and the world be brought to the Lamb of God, to the glory of His adorable Son Jesus, whose second coming without sin unto salvation is even now at the door.

T. R. GRIFFIN. Berkeley, Cal.