Luke 21:7-28 And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?… An earthquake is only a volcano hushed up. When Stromboli and Cotopaxi and Vesuvius stop breathing, let the foundations of the earth beware. Seven rheum and earthquakes in two centuries recorded in the catalogue of the British Association. Trajan, the Emperor, goes to ancient Antioch, and amid the splendour of his reception is met by an earthquake that nearly destroys the Emperor's life. Lisbon, fair and beautiful at ten o'clock on November 1, 1755, in six minutes sixty thousand have perished, and Voltaire writes of them: "For that region it was the last judgment, nothing wanting but a trumpet!" Europe and America feeling the throb. Fifteen hundred chimneys in Boston partially or fully destroyed. But the disasters of other centuries have had their counterpart in our own. In 1812 Caracas was caught in the grip of the earthquake; in 1822, in Chili, one hundred thousand square miles of land by volcanic force upheaved to four and seven feet of permanent elevation; in 1854 Japan felt the geological agony; Naples shaken in 1857; Mexico in 1858; Mendoza, the capital of the Argentine Republic, in 1861; Manilla terrorised in 1863; the Hawaiian Islands by such force uplifted and let down in 1871; Nevada shaken in 1871, Antioch in 1872, California in 1872, San Salvador in 1873, while in the summer of 1883 what subterranean excitements! Ischia, an island of the Mediterranean, a beautiful Italian watering-place, vineyard clad, surrounded by all natural charm and historical reminiscence; yonder Capri, the summer resort of the Roman emperors; yonder, Naples, the paradise of art — this beautiful island suddenly toppled into the trough of the earth, eight thousand merry-makers perishing, and some of them so far down beneath the reach of human obsequies that it may be said of many a one of them as it was said of Moses, "The Lord buried him." (Dr. Talmage.) Parallel Verses KJV: And they asked him, saying, Master, but when shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass? |
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