T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
July 1924
416
Building on the Sides of aVolcano Rev. Cortland Myers, D. D., LL. D., A sermon preached In Bible Institute Auditorium, Los Angeles California
“Nations deliberately trample on all history and all law and then are turned into dust and ashes. Suddenly, the eruption is on, and the mountain sides and valleys are covered and death is every where. This nation,— this American nation— may now be building its proud civilization on the sides of a rumbling, raging, roaring vol cano.**** We are all in imminent peril!”
place in this treasure house of the dead, but the most interest ing of all the discoveries, and that which was marked with the most value, was the revelation of the downfall of this civiliza tion and its undoubted cause. It has been made plain that
Etna has been l “ The Villain of Lges.” There are hundred volcanic
mountains, on the surface of the globe, either having spent their fires in the past, or now in erup tion, or making preparation for
when Egypt was at its highest in material prosperity and possessed its greatest riches, then also it lived in its great est danger for, with its materialism, luxury came in and rapidly increased until royalty apparently cared little for the higher things in life and lived for the lower nature and its satisfaction in this life and even made insane prepara tion of the same type for the life to come, gathering the materials for it in the mammoth spaces of the sepulchre. Then the royal underlings caught the same spirit and de manded the same thing; then the atmosphere became sat urated with this poison of the material and even the lower classes and the slaves became dissatisfied and restless and ready for trouble. Also the covetous eyes of other nations became centered on the riches of this part of the world and made their preparations to rob it of its treasures by the least provocation and at the earliest opportunity, with the result that the cities and the country alike became devas tated and were turned into a mass of ruins. I climbed the great pyramid and had the vision in almost every direction of a desert instead of a land of prosperity. Results of Rejecting Religion We have now in this world’s, life, a tfery striking illus tration of this same principle at work— the Soviet Govern ment of -Russia is trying to make the experiment of casting religion out of the nation’s life. It has a policy which is hostile to all religion and to all the churches and all over the land the young people are holding celebrations over the downfall of the old faith. Last Christmas Day anti-reli gious demonstrations were witnessed everywhere, and Christmas Day has been entered in the official records as a permanent holiday called “ The Day of the Deposing of the Gods.” It will undoubtedly take time to uproot the faith of the older inhabitants of Russia. They are too well- grounded in the Christian faith not to cling to it, but a host of the younger generation are growing up and being taught to despise religion. Then, when people lose the idea of God, or any force in their world working for righteous ness, they soon lose their own moral character for they feel no necessity for moral conduct. . If a man is not account able for his acts here or hereafter, why struggle to make these acts right? If he can do wrong and avoid punish ment in this life, there is no reason, according to this abom inable philosophy, why he should not do so. Their people are increasing in number who feel free to lie and steal and even murder as they please, and the standards of mor ality are already rapidly breaking down. One of the saddest results of the world-war and its rela tion to Germany is the sweeping Communist propaganda coming into Germany from Russia, and this tide of infi delity is taking vast numbers of her youth. All the leaders are anxious, beyond expression, concerning this flood of unbelief and irreligion. This always plays havoc with the older people, but ruins youth. For many reasons this is (Continued on page 470)
a future disaster. But of all these, Etna has had the long est, and most frequent overflow of its pent-up fires and has repeatedly destroyed mankind, his home and his possess ions. Nine hundred years before Christ, Thuycidides makes the historic record of the fierce action of this mountain in the century before Christ. Livy tells of the great eruption of Etna and the destruction left in the pathway of its river of fire. Very recently again, the world was shocked with the news of another tragedy from this same monster of the mountains. Ten townships were covered with lava from six new openings in its sides. 100,000 people rushed down into the valleys in mad excitement, praying for safety. Villages, and homes, and farms, and vineyards and gar dens were all alike buried beneath this unconquerable enemy. The strange feature connected with this and with all sim ilar tragedies is that men, as soon as the fires burn out and the lava cools off, rush back to establish their dwellings and their business and their estates just where they orig inally were. This is true of all man’s history in relation to the world and its impending dangers. It is amazing how blind he is, how daring he is, and how foolish he is to im mediately place himself in the same peril and directly in front of the same possibility. Failure to Heed Warnings This is also true of the nations of the earth in their re lation to human history. It is written, and re-written in capital letters all over the pages of the past just what action and what cause produce a certain effect in the face of an unbroken and unbreakable law. They repeat what the nations of the past have done and then inevitably come to their same wreckage and ruin. Nations deliberately trample on all history and all law and then are turned into dust and ashes. Suddenly, the eruption is on and the mountain sides and valleys are covered and death is every where. This American nation may be now building its proud civilization on the sides of a rumbling, raging, roaring volcano. We need simply to turn a few of the pages of the past to make the discovery of this tragic condition. It is difficult to understand just why any man should give his life to the study of archaeology, or Egyptology, and spend his years in the desert sands and the ruins of the ages at tempting to bring some treasures of knowledge and riches out of the buried spaces of ancient civilization. It is rare that he excites any interest whatever from his fellow-men and only occasionally draws the attention of the world. He buries himself in his own burial ground. But recently the world’s attention was directed to the discoveries in one of Egypt’s ancient tombs and an old specimen of royalty was brought back into the world’s life, temporarily. Many valuable treasures, even beyond the imagination of some of the dreamers of fiction, were brought out of their hiding
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