I1I0
and the door. A great calmness settled down
upon the congregation, and with the exception
of one or two who had reached the door be-
fore the singing began, no one tried to escape
from the building. They continued the song
until the shock was past, and then it was found
that the arched stairway leading from the
building had partially collapsed; and if the
people had rushed from the door, they would
surely have fallen to the ground. When it is
also known that not a single brick church in
the city was left upright, it surely seems to
us providential that the walls of our church
were left standing. The church building was
totally wrecked, yet the walls did not fall
Another providential circumstance in con-
nection with the appointment of this meeting
was that if the meeting had not been ap-
pointed, many who were attending that service
had planned to go down into the business por-
tion of the city at that hour to visit the stores
and transact business. As we look back upon
the experience in all its details, our hearts are
filled with gratitude to God for his over-rul-
ing providence.
I am certain that no one who attended the
Sunday night service in the town hall, and
heard Elder Warren's stirring appeal to the
people to repent because the hour of God's
judgment is come, will ever forget the appro-
priateness of the message the Spirit gave at
that time. The editor of the Daily Tclegraph,
one of the leading papers of Kingston, in the
first issue after the earthquake, stated that
without a single exception those who escaped
alive from the business portion of the city
thought at the time of the earthquake that
the end of the world had come. Men may
scoff at the preaching of the nearness of the
end, they may bring their so-called philosophy
to prove it impossible; but when they stand
in the midst of such an appalling disaster,
with all the buildings falling about them, and
the earth heaving and with such
a mighty power, their minds still recognize
the fact that there will be an end to the world
some day.
The houses in which the visiting delegates
were staying were both materially damaged,
but none of the brethren were seriously in-
jured. As soon as possible the Jamaica tent
was pitched upon the race course, and our
Union Conference proceeded with its regu-
lar business.
shaking
It is safe to say that no union
conference of Seventh-day Adventists ever be-
fore transacted its business
the same conditions.
under exactly
Upon this race course
thousands of people were living in the open
air, surrounding the tent, and when the earth-
quakes which succeeded the first awful shock
would come, hundreds of these people, think-
ing that the end of the world was at hand,
would lift up their voices in prayer or in
cries of terror in such a way that the busi-
ness would have to stop until the noise had
subsided. But we think that our own people
were able calmly and deliberately to consider
all phases of the progress of the work in that
portion of the field.
Because of the early sailing of some of the
steamers, and the danger of pestilence and
famine, it was necessary that many of the
THE WATCHMAN
LIFE IN THE SUBMARINE
NoruiNc but real experience can give an
idea of the desperate conditions of the life,
the unceasing effort, the crushing labor, of the
men who serve in the submarine torpedo boat,
the long steel tube which at any instant may
become their coffin. From an article in the
Annales (Paris), by M. Durand, we glean the
following :—
“The is a nar-
row runway, like a space between piled-up
packing boxes left open to permit the passage
of the handlers.
interior of the submarine
The inner sides are lined
with the cases containing the generators, which
run through the ship from end to end. In
the narrow passage hetween the generators
Each has his place:
by rigorous official assignment.
live the men. it is his
Down there
the least of liberties would be fatal. Running
along the ceiling of this death-trap are the
wires, painted white or red, — the hoat’s arter-
ies, circulating the power that animates the
different organs, while along the inner sides
or walls are the dials of the indicators and
the shining knobs of the generators. When
the ship dives, lights are reverberated from
the gleaming metal, and for an instant they
reveal the anguish of the crew; the ghastly
faces, every nerve tense, appear and vanish.
Then the hoat shifts, and black darkness falls
again.”
Immediately under the only opening in the
steel tube directly in the center of the ship
is the place corresponding to the “office” of
men who live under normal conditions. Here
is a place just large enough to hold a man.
a NS a Ve UW Ua Tava We We Ua a aN
visiting delegates should leave within three
davs after the earthquake. This helped to ex-
pedite business matters materially. Elder TU.
Bender, of Arkansas, was elected president of
the Union Conference, and Elder D. E. Well-
man vice-president. Professor C. B. Hughes
was put in charge of the school enterprise.
Important matters concerning the establish-
ment of that school were decided. Tt was
also decided to issue a special number of the
Caribbean I atchman at once, and print in the
first edition twenty thousand copies.
Following the earthquake. a large tent, sent
from America, was pitched, and Elders
Bender. Tanner, and Strickland are holding
services in it. On the first Sabbath, T learn,
one hundred people, most of whom had heard
the truth and heen convinced of it, but who
were halting, were moved to come out and
take their stand for God’s Sabbath and for his
truth.
Answering the call of the Mission Board, 1
am leaving the West Indian field, where I have
labored nine years, to go to India.
G. F. Exocm.
It is called the maneuver bureau, or some other
equally high-sounding name. The motors,
the dynamos which furnish the power of pro-
pulsion, are usually in the rear.
Breathless, tight-sealed as in a tomb, is the
place where the men do their deadly work.
“Cramped there, within limitations just
large enough to hold their bodies, hang the
crew, eyes haggard, hair drenched with acrid
sweat, jaws set, crushing back the tortured im-
pulses of the physical. They cannot stretch
leg or arm; they know that they poise the
let them stir a muscle, and the whole
ship trembles.
ship;
There is no exercise, no rest.
To relax self-control, to forget, is fatal, and
an unguarded movement may bring about
death appalling circumstances. The
watch is on day and night. But down there
there 1s no day. It is always night,— not the
night of rest, but the night of torment.”
under
The boat is balanced, the men are cramped
into their allotted places, and the man who
maneuvers the ship is on the top rung of a
little iron ladder running straight up and down
under the cap of the ship.
“On one of the rungs of the ladder crouches
the first officer, with feet wide apart, balancing
the ship. The second officer is on a rung be-
low, his head between the knees of the first.
The second officer gives the orders. ‘There
they perch on the torturing rungs of their lad-
der, and there they are forced to hang during
the greater part of the maneuvers. The ship
is ready for her work. ‘On guard to the
fill the ballast!’ From the instant
that the ballasts are full,— silence, black night,
anguish! The life of the depths has begun,
and all communication with the world has
ceased. They are darting down. The en-
gines are driving. It has begun! The sub-
marine is rushing downward like a fright-
ened fish,— not borne downward by her weight,
but forced downward by her propelling power
and steered downward by her helm. There
is no rest for her. To rest for a submarine is
to rush upward. Rest, ever so little, and she
would appear above the surface. She must
keep moving to keep down. That is the way
she works, forever moving until her work is
done,
“As for the men who run her, sealed in her
hollow tube,— in war they are on deadly duty;
in peace on drill almost as deadly. As men
they have ceased to be. Once on duty as tor-
pedoists, they are nothing but elements of the
submarine, an integral part of it. Down there
is the noisome darkness of that pulsing thing;
they are one with the wires of the dynamos.
They are part of the machinery.
plunger!
The only
difference between them and the other parts
of the working gear is that they can suffer.”
— The American Monthly Review of Reviews.