THIS GENERATION by William Penniman

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 12, 1881

THIS GENERATION.

By William Penniman

BY WM. PENNIMAN. (Continued.)

The following from The Traveler's Record, published at Hartford, December, 1880, taken from Detroit Free Press, will give some idea of recent storms on the lakes: "Do you know what it is to be at sea with a gale blowing eighty miles an hour? You may read of the wrecks which today strew the shores of every lake; you may read of the rigid bodies cast up on the sand, you may cast your eyes over hulk and spar and battered plank, but yet you cannot realize the fury of that awful gale of Saturday. Vessels on Lake Michigan were bowling along before a topsail breeze, when almost in a moment, the gale came howling down from another quarter, bringing a terrible sea with it. Sails were split into ribbons before a rope could be loosened, and masts went overboard like broken sticks. No man living ever saw such waves on our lakes before. In an hour after the gale set in they were running twenty-five feet high, and they ran with the speed of a race-horse. The gale caught them as they reared up, and tons of foamy water were broken off and hurled down into the trough, to mingle with the base, of the next wave. One of the largest propellers on the lakes, standing twenty feet out of the water, had to put about before the gale was an hour old, and even while running before it at full speed the waves swept over her entire decks. Seamanship availed but little. Schooners were almost picked up bodily by the wind and flung ahead, and the biggest barks were knocked about like chips. When day broke Saturday morning those out at sea must have realized the wrath of death. Every plunge of an ordinary schooner rolled floods of water over her decks, to pour from the scuppers as she climbed at an angle of forty-five degrees. Men had all they could do to save life without moving a finger toward navigating their crafts. The loudest shout could not be heard two feet away, and the roar of the sea was awful to hear. The passengers on the Alpena were roused from sleep when the gale reached her. It brought such a sea that no one could have slept longer. When the fourscore souls aboard were told that death was near, they looked out on that howling, roaring, hungry sea without a shadow of hope that one of them would ever land again. Rafts and boats would have been blown about like feathers. Life preservers buoyed up corpses until they were cast ashore to be identified. Those who put them on in the final grasp for life could not have lived an hour in the keen wind and icy water. Men who lived out the gale still speak of it with terror. Only once again will the door of death open wider to them. Spars and bulks are beating to pieces on the rocky shores, and beaten and disfigured corpses are thrown upon the sandy beach, to be wept over and buried. It was the wrath of death turned loose upon the wild wastes, and that a single vessel escaped destruction seems almost a miracle."

Still these wonders and terrible events continue to come on both land and water. The Chicago Tribune of Feb. 16, 1881, comments thus upon "A Year of Horrors": "If good old Mother Shipton, instead of frightening timid people with the prophecy that the world would come to an end in 1881, had announced that it would be an extraordinary year, and that the natural elements would be in unusual commotion, involving vast destruction of property, and entailing great human suffering over wide areas, and that an era of casualties would set in occasioning severe loss of human life; and that violence, murder, and suicide would run rampant, she would have hit much nearer the mark. There yet remains ten months and a half of the year, and if the destruction which has been caused during the past six weeks continues in anything like the same proportion for the rest of the year, it will be set in all future time as the year of horrors." The winter seems to have accumulated its ravages since the first of January. Fierce blizzards have continuously swept down from the arctic regions via Manitoba, piling up snow almost mountain high, and burying many victims beneath its avalanches, while numerous others have frozen to death, exposed to its pitiless blasts. Continuous rains have inundated the Pacific coast, and have washed out several mining towns. The ice gorges have burst with great violence in the thaw, and flooded Washington, Toledo, and other cities, involving damages to property that amount to millions. A large part of New Orleans has been under water for days. Innocent little brooks and creeks in the rural districts, that have barely life enough to run in the summer, have been transformed into raging torrents, and have swept away mills, farm-houses, bridges and fences, and have inundated quiet country villages. Railroads have been blocked up, and supplies of food and fuel have grown scarce, and prices have mounted upward with astonishing velocity. The ocean has been strewn with wrecks. Not satisfied with their damage in their own region, the snow blizzards have crossed their natural boundaries and devastated unfamiliar regions killing the fruit. Disease has followed in the path of these extraordinary natural manifestations, and epidemics of scarlet fever, small-pox, diphtheria, and other diseases, have spread with fearful fatality. Every element of destruction seems to have been let loose. In this country alone the railroads have killed 102 persons, and severely maimed 120 others. By marine disasters 470 persons have lost their lives. By explosions and other casualties 205 persons have been killed in this country, as reported by the telegraph which only takes cognizance of larger casualties. Not content with the loss of life by natural and unavoidable causes, eighty wretched persons in this country have taken their own lives, and 118 others have been murdered in six weeks' time, and these figures only include those whose names have been mentioned in the telegraphic news, which, of course, only includes part of the whole number." It is no wonder that the editor of the Chicago Tribune calls this the "Year of Horrors," when the first six weeks have set in so ominously.

We read (Isa. 29:6): "Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire;" and in Acts 2:19: "And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, fire, and vapor of smoke." We give one or two testimonies from the many which might be cited showing the fulfillment of these prophecies. The Detroit Post, under the head of "The Great Fires Supernatural," says: "Those who were exposed to the terrible tornado during which Chicago, Peshtigo, Manistee, White Rock, and other towns on Lakes Michigan and Huron were burned, testify nearly unanimously that 'the air seemed to be on fire.' These words are almost invariably used in describing the phenomenon. The fire did not spread gradually from tree to tree and house to house, but a great sheet of flame, overcoming them like the clouds, and moving with the rapidity of a hurricane, rushed upon them without warning. It surrounded them. The atmosphere seemed filled with fire. Many people who inhaled the hot air fell dead. Corpses were found without a trace of fire upon them, or even upon the clothes which still covered them. There were frequently no marks of fire among the adjacent trees and fences. Many were killed in compact masses as if by a blast of death. They were found huddled together away from trees and buildings. Fish were killed in the streams by the intense heat. Many of these people believed that the last day had come; as well they might. The roaring of the whirlwind which preceded the blaze sounded enough like the last trump to suggest a prelude to the final catastrophe. The black midnight sky suddenly burst into flame."

The following account of "a storm of fire" will be found in "Facts for the Times," p. 180:— "Milwaukee, Oct. 15.—Later accounts from northern Wisconsin confirm all previous reports and rumors. The loss of life in the neighborhood of the burnt district of Peshtigo will reach over 1,800, and 15 per cent. of those injured can not recover. The fire tornado was heard at a distance like the roaring of the sea. Balls of fire were soon observed to fall like meteors in different parts of the town, igniting whatever they touched. People rushed with their children in their arms for a place of safety, but the storm of fire was upon them, and enveloped them in flames, smoke, and cinders, and those unable to reach the river were suffocated and roasted alive. This terrible scene happened on Sunday night, the 8th of October, already made famous by the Chicago horror. The fiery cyclone swept over a tract of country eight or ten miles wide. Every building, fence, and all the timbers were licked up clean by the tongue of fire. The town of Peshtigo numbered 2,000 inhabitants, one third of whom perished in that fearful night. Reports from the east shore of Green Bay place the loss of life as high as at Peshtigo."

This is not only an age of wonders, but also an age of great disasters. The grand and truthful thought that the Almighty rides upon the storm is the consolation of the Christian. The fearful and fateful bolts of wrath descend upon land and sea. The swift lightning, the swelling flood, the tempest of fire, the crushing ice, the destructive cyclone, gaunt famine, the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the quaking earth testify alike to a power which man can not control and to the instability of even the earth on which he stands.

One of the greatest wonders of the nineteenth century is that there are so many who do not see the hand of God in these wonders. If the news should come to-day that the whole eastern continent had become an ocean, no doubt some of the skeptics, scientists, and philosophers of our land would attribute the calamity to natural causes, and probably the great mass would not heed the warning, thinking our hemisphere all right for thousands of years. But denying God's hand in this great event, should it happen, would be no more strange than that men will blaspheme God under the pouring out of the seventh and last vial of wrath upon the earth. Rev. 16:21.

Another remarkable sign of the end is the fulfillment of Nahum 2:3-5, in which the prophet says: "The chariots shall be with flaming torches (margin, or fiery torches) in the day of his preparation." Mark that the prophet says, in the day of his preparation. As the railroad is a modern invention (the first in the United States was constructed in 1833) and as there is abundant evidence that this is the time of which the prophet speaks, this can also be numbered among the latter day signs. Adventists are not the only ones who see the fulfillment of the prophecy in the railroad car. Talmage preached in Brooklyn, N. Y., on the Tay-bridge disaster, and took for his text Nahum 2:4: "The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broad ways; they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings." The Inter-Ocean reports him as saying: "If that be not an express train under full headway at night, what is it? While reading the text you hear the clasp of the car coupling, the roar of the wheels, and the terrific velocity which at any night may be heard on the iron track between New York and Buffalo, between Cincinnati and Pittsburg, between Charleston and Savannah, between Edinburg and Dundee."

Events which are especially connected with the people of God and are now taking place, plainly teach that "in the day of his preparation" the end is near. As the opening of the seven seals represents a completeness in the events of the Christian age, the seven trumpets and the seven last plagues, the fullness of the woes and of the plagues upon the earth; so the seven churches correspondingly represent the condensed and entire history of the Christian church to the end. Rev. 3:14-22 is Christ's message to the Laodiceans. This message should be read prayerfully and heeded by all of God's people, as it will prepare them for the final judgment. Laodicea signifies "the judging of the people"; or, according to Cruden, "a just people." The language, "These things saith the Amen," implies that this is the final message to the last stage of the Christian church, and brings to view the closing scenes of probation. (See "Thoughts on Revelation," pp. 58-73.) The first and second angel's messages have already gone forth, and the third or closing message is now going before the world, to "peoples, nations, and tongues." Nahum's chariots and ocean steamers are carrying hundreds of tons of reading matter far and wide, and the living teachers have gone into nearly all parts of the earth.

It is during the Laodicean stage of the church and the sounding of the seventh trumpet that Rev. 11:19 is fulfilled: "And the temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament; and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." A condensed and yet comprehensive view of the events included in the opening of the temple is as follows, on page 200 of "Thoughts on Revelation": "The temple is opened; the second apartment of the sanctuary is entered. We know it is the holy of holies that is here entered; for the ark is seen, and in that apartment alone the ark was deposited. This took place at the end of the 2300 days, when the sanctuary was to be cleansed, the time when the prophetic periods expired, and the seventh angel commenced to sound. Since then the people of God have seen by faith the open door in Heaven, and the ark of God's testament there. They are endeavoring to keep every precept of the holy law written upon the tables therein deposited. They have received the reed, and are measuring the temple, the altar, and them that worship therein. They are uttering their last prophecy, before nations, peoples, and tongues. And the drama will soon close with lightnings, thunderings, voices, an earthquake, and great hail."

The reader who is not already familiar with these truths is earnestly requested to read and compare carefully Isa. 56:2; 58:12, 14; 8:16; Rev. 7:1-8; 14:9-12 with what is now being fulfilled. In short, do not these texts teach that a reformation is to take place in the last days bringing people back to the observance of the ancient Sabbath? The context of the texts referred to in Isaiah teach plainly that these texts refer to the last days, when men have got their feet upon the Sabbath and are trampling upon God's law, and that God in mercy is restoring his seal to his broken law. Rev. 7:1-8 describes the rising or ascending message, and the company sealed. Rev. 14:9-12 describes the terrible fate of those who reject the message, and again brings the company to view who have patience, and keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

The very fact that such a work is now going on, and that God is restoring his seal to his broken law, and that thousands are receiving it in their foreheads (minds) preparatory to the coming of Christ; that the dragon is wroth with the woman, and has gone forth to make war with the remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ; that the testimony of Jesus Christ, the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10), is now in the church (teaching that this is the last generation); and that while comparatively few are receiving the genuine seal, the evidence is continually increasing that millions will soon receive the counterfeit "mark (Rev. 13:16) in their right hand or in their foreheads," are strong proofs that the end is near. As there seems to be no end to the evidence which might be given that the end is near, we will briefly close this part of the subject by giving a brief synopsis or recapitulation of some of the principle signs of the end, enumerating some facts or events which have not already been presented. We are living in the time of which the prophet Isaiah speaks (Isa. 24:5, 6): "The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth;" in the time when "they will not endure sound doctrine," but "shall turn away their ears from the truth" "unto fables," 2 Tim. 4:3, 4; when perilous times have come, 2 Tim. 3:1-8.

(To be Continued.)