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Testimonies for the Church Volume 9
perilous position in His sight was repeated to the people, as received
from my instructor.
On April 18, two days after the scene of falling buildings had
passed before me, I went to fill an appointment in the Carr Street
Church, Los Angeles. As we neared the church we heard the news-
boys crying: “San Francisco destroyed by an earthquake!” With
a heavy heart I read the first hastily printed news of the terrible
disaster.
Two weeks later, on our homeward journey, we passed through
San Francisco and, hiring a carriage, spent an hour and a half in
viewing the destruction wrought in that great city. Buildings that
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were thought to be proof against disaster were lying in ruins. In
some instances buildings were partially sunken in the ground. The
city presented a most dreadful picture of the inefficiency of human
ingenuity to frame fireproof and earthquake-proof structures.
Through His prophet Zephaniah the Lord specifies the judgments
that He will bring upon evildoers:
“I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the
Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the
heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the
wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.”
“And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, that
I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all such as are
clothed with strange apparel. In the same day also will I punish all
those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters’ houses with
violence and deceit....
“And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search
Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their
lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will
He do evil. Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their
houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit
them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
“The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly,
even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there
bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a
day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess,
a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm
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against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will