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<3(gi^T

SERMON

^, I

PHKACHKD AFTER THE

DRUMMONI) COLLIERY EXPLOSION

OF MAY 13th, 1873,

AT ST. COLUMBA, HOPEWELL,

On May 25th, 1873.

BY REV. D. MACRAE, A. M.,

E. {f W. Branches of the E. River of IHntou.

PUBLISHED BY BEQUEST,

HALIFAX. N. S
PRINTKD BY JAME8 BOWES & SONS, BEDFORD ROW

1873.

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S E R M O N^

PREACHED AFTER THE

DRUMMOND COLLIERY EXPLOSION

OF MAY 13th, 1873,

AT ST. COLUMBA, HOPEWELL,

On May 25th, 1873.

BY REV. D. MACRAE, A. M.,

E. if W. Branches of the E. River of Pictou,

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

HALIFAX, N. S.
PRINTED BY JAMES BOWES & SONS, BEDFORD ROW.

1873.

SERMON.

■'Shall there be evil in a City, and the Lord hath not done it?" — Amos iii. 6.

The remembrance of the horror which occurred, eince
] -st we met for worship in this place, is already waxing faint
in some minds. For, in these days we live fast ; the ends of
the earth are being brought together ; every day, fresh tidings
come under our notice from one or other quarter. The effect
is as if events followed each other more lapidly in the pro-
vince of our own immediate experience ; and hardly have we
time to meditate for a little on one, before the next claims
attention. And so impressions enjoy less opportunity of
being rivetted, than was the case in days when information
was received more scantily.

Tt cannot be, however, that the Westville tragedy can be
readily forgotten, or that the shudder it occasioned has utterly
ceased, as yet, to vibrate through our being. It was too
awful in itself. It concerned many of us too closely ; and,
in some cases, it opened wounds hardly to be healed until
i'cne shall be no more. When the sky was darkened by that
\ast cloud of smoke which was seen for miles around, men's
liParts everywhere sunk within them for fear. Instantly it
eeemed as if the air was filled with the wail of widows
bemoaning husbands, — of children lamenting fathers, — of
mothers, like Rachel of old, weeping for theii- eons, — not to
be comforted, because they were not.

TI.e disaster was too sudden for its fiill burden of calamity
to be realised at once. But when oome of us hastened to

I -

where " the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a
furnace," and saw with our own eyes the hungry flames leap-
ing from the mouths of the pits, and knew that beneath lay
the charred and mangled frames of some sixty to eighty
souls — frames, a few hours before instinct with life and
strength, defaced, and dead, and blackened, and felt that all
hope of saving even one had vanished in an instant, then our
tongues clave to the roofs of our mouths, — our thoughts were
voiceless, — we were " dumb, we opened not our lips, be-
cause He had done it." Whither could we turn for to[)ic8
of consolation ? What urge in mitigation of the blow ? It
was too complete. It was not possible in the first hours of
grief, to distinguish between soul and body. It was not pos-
sible to realise that from those dark depths the spirits could
escape, — that the men were not there, — only the outer
tabernacle, the tenement of clay. It was not possible for a
mother's heart to feel that the manly form of him she called
her son, was onl\ a form, — that the hand was but an instru-
ment, and the voice an organ, — and that the sovd, the reality,
the man, was independent of all these, — " that the spirit had
returned to God who gave it."

But now that with somewhat of calmness we look back,
and review the event, lessons are suggested by it which it would
be well for us to gather up. It is well for us to " hear what
God the Lord doth speak." With our Bible in our hands,
to gather up some of these lessons ought not to be difficult.
For the Bible, under one aspect, is a record of human sor-
rows. From the 3rd chapter of Genesis onwards, it is the
history of a sorrowful race. It is full of tears, — from those
of Eve over muixlered Abel, to those of Jesus at the tomb of
Lazarus, — a roll of " lamentations, and mourning, and woe."

I. Opening my Bible, and pondering its teaching on
human sorrow, I remark that this evil is of the Lord ; and

there is comfort in that. It is of the Lord, I say. It might
be — by all accounts it was — of man's misdoing ; but, none
the less is it God's doing. Take the greatest crime ever per-
petrated by the hands of men — the murder of Jesus — it was
done " by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God." It was God's doing. "Are not two sparrows sold
for a farthing ? and one of them shall not fall to the ground
without your heavenly Father." " Shall there be evil in a
city, and the Lord hath not done it."

Now, the word, evil, is used in two senses. And between
these we must carefully distinguish. There is evil in the
sense of sin, and evil in the sense of calamity, and between
these, though' there be a connection, yet is there no necessary
connection. Evil, in the sense of sin, is never traced to God
as its author. On the contrary, he hates it, abliors it. All
his redemptive providence is devised for its overthrow and
destruction. He permits it, indeed, bears patiently with its
commission ; but, in every shape, it is repugnant to his
nature.

It is evil in tiie sense of calamity, that is meant in the
text, — that was meant l)y Job when he cried, " Shall we re-
ceive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive
evil?" and it is good for us to know that evil, in this sense,
is from him. It is under his o-overnment «and control. It is
no result of chance or fate. It is by the permission, and in
obedience to the will and dictation of God. And God is
good. No calamity, therefore, however awful in itself, is .in
unmitigated evil. Good is in it somehow, however impos-
sible it may be for us to show, in any particular instance,
the particular good designed, — good, mercy, whether we
can point out the lines and traces of love, or not. That evil
in the sense of calamity has no necessary connection with, —
or, anyhow, is no necessary mark of evil in the sense of sin,

is evident from this. Many of the best who have ever lived
have been among the greatest sufferers. See Paul lingering
in his dungeon, v/hile Nero is fiddling in his palace. See
Pilate washing his dainty hands, while Jesus is being led
forth to be crucified. Were, then, the one the mark of the
other, we should be compelled to pronounce many of the best
and greatest, up to our Lord himpelf — the man of sorrowa-
among the greatest criminals.

But it is not so. Crime is one thing, calamity another.
*' Those eighteen," asks Christ, '* on whom the tower in
Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwell in Jerusalem ? I tell you nay !"
Thank God for that nay, uttered by the gracious lips of him
who "spake as never man spake." Let it lighten our
hearts. Let it mitigate our sorrows. Let it help us to con-
sider our calamity with calmer souls And

before Christ came, what was the sublimest spectacle exhibited
on the platform of human history ? Is it not that of Job ?
But let us turn to the chapter and read. (Here was read
from the book of Job, the Ist chapter, the passage from verse
13th to 22d.)

I believe thai the meaning of human sorrow is, perhaps,
never clearly revealed in the present life. It cannot be fully
understood for the simple reason that the present is only a
part, and the smallest part of existence. It is only the
threshold of eternity. But I am sure that its meaning will,
one day, be unfolded. I am sure of it, just because it is of
the Lord, and, therefore, my first counsel to the broken in
heart is a counsel of patience. Oh ! There are gray hairs
here, which shall go down with sorrow to the grave. There
are wounds in hearts here, which shall be open, till these
bodies of ours shall be consigned to the tomb. But, as God
is in the heavens, I believe that, one day, he will show by

manifold proofs, that, without this calamity, a note of sweet-
ness would have been lacking in the songs of eternity.

II. " Shall there be evil, etc." How frail, my second
in^brence is, how uncertain are the storehouses of earthly
riches. Twelve days ago, Drummond Colliery v/as a mine
of wealth, present and prospective. It furnished one, and
not the least of the reasons why we spoke of our county with
pride. Men t:.lked of " our boundless resources. ' " Were
{horc but enterprise," the cry was, '' our county should be
ricli, populous, attractive," — God not in all, perchance, not
in any of our thoughts on these matters. One short hour
and what a change is yonder ! A single spark, and the deed
is done. A calamity unexampled in the history of this
colony — almost unprecedented for violence, it is said, in the
annals of mining, caused by a single spark. With what a
<Hiict, swift, and then appallinjif and terrific suddenness and
unexpectedness it happened. The little flash, leaping, as it
vere in play, from seam to seam, and vault to vault, ad-
vancing thus towards the outlets of escape about to be closr d
forever, — a moment's pause, and then a rush and roar, — and
above is the smoke of a furnace, and beneath are three-scor«i
<3orpse8.

It is a lesson continually being renewed, and as continually
forgotten. Why is it being taught? Why will not God let
us alone ? Surely there is mercy in the disturbinpr causes by
which our worldly slumbers are broken. " Lay .,p for your-
selves treasures in heaven." Who inclines voluntarily to
deposit his money in this bank ? Who is willing cheerfully
to wait for the getting of its interest ? Its dividend-day is
too remote, we think, too uncertain. Or, it will be .time
enough to deposit there by and bye. Go then, and survey
the ruins of yonder mine. Recall those swift explosions.
See how all is brought into desolation as in a moment. Be

persuaded by the voice of God that, if this world is good,
heaven is better; if wealth here is good, wealth there is bet-
ter ; be persuaded by him if not by the lips of man, that
all here is dark, dread uncertainty, — that nothing is sure but
heaven.

" Shall there be evil, etc.," and, therefore, thirdly ^ we
cannot violate any divine la»/ with impunity. Nor, fourthly.,
shall human greed, which is ever one principal motive
prompting to the violation of tho^e laws, go unpunished.
There is no doubt whatever, I believe, that the dread West-
ville disaster was due to human folly. It was of man's mis-
doing. It is traceable to the running a known and awful risk
for the sake of gain. I am not competent to speak (1) of
the merits or demerits of the str kc by which it was preceded ;
or (2) of the condition of foulness, into which it is alleged,
as a partial consequence, the mine was suffered to fall ; or
(3) of the propriety or impropriety of the use of gunpowder
in works of this nature ; or (4) how far the right, or the
reverse of right was on the part of those refusing a higher
wage, and permitting the use of the dread explosive instead,
or on the part of those de nanding either a higher wage, or
permission to use explosive materials. All these and similar
points lie beyond my province, — beyond my power to deter-
mine. But it is within ray province to denounce human
greed, — to declare that men cannot serve God and Mammon ;
and to proclaim that when Mammon in any form becomes
uiau's idol, then that God who, for his own glory and for
man's good, is a jealous God, is near to vindicate his own
glory, and that, at times, by most swift and dread penalties.
And thus, it seems plain and undeniable, it was here.

How does mammon operate for the punishment of its
votaries? Just by repeating the old, primitive temptation,
v;hereby Adam fell. *'Ye shall not surely die," it says.

((

ye may run this and that risk." But first it dazzles the
eye by holding before it the golden apple. Faecinated by
that, the pursuit becomes eager. Nothing is seen but that,
— nothing is cared for but that. Life is counted cheap in
comparison with that. God is forgotten. Money against
man. Grold instead of God. But God reigns all the while,
and none the less that he is forgotten. And his laws are
<iperating steadily, albeit they are neglected. And whether
it be the winds and currents of ocean, or gas and its explosive
qualities in mines, or the conditions of health, and their neg-
lect in cities, none of the difficulties created by these are got
rid of, or surmounted by being forgotten. And so it comes
to pass, in all departments of our being, that sooner or later
whether we believe it or nt)t. we may be sure, " Our sin will
find us out." I

Human greed, that cold and murderous spirit I By it our
shores are strewn with wrecks ; by it our newspapers are filled
with details of destructive fires ; by it our jails are stocked with
Cx'iminals, and our hospitals with fevered victims ; and by it
our mines are ever and anon transformed into fiery tombs.
For God lives : His laws are fixed : broken, they take ven-
geance — and the catastrophes caused by their transgression
remind us continually of the ancient prophet's question :
' ' Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done

lb. . ■! ■ -. "i , -

The sting is, that, so continually, righteous and wicked
are involved in the same calamity. Abraham's question
comes buck to us. Abraham's expostulation we feel tempted
to repeat : ' ' Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the
wicked? That be far from thee. Shall not the Judge of all
the earth do right?" Oh! yes. He does right. There
is no doubt about that. But yet, righteous and wicked,
believer and unbeliever, so far as appearances indicate,

are continually involved, by violations of his laws, in one
common doom. And were this life our all, I do not see how
we could vindicate the righteousness of God. Were, I say,
this life our all. For, however a Paul might be bitten by a
venomous serpent, and yet feel no harm, there are no such
favorite children of heaven in this world now. And, how-
ever a Peter might walk on the stormy waters, with a
Master's hand near to hold him up, when he began to sink,
no such interpositions are vouchsafed now. And, however
it was promised to the early disciples that, should they drink
any deadly thing it would not hurt them, it is not so now.
There are no charmed beings who can put their hands or
cockatrice dens with impunity, or catch the revolving saw,
or pass through the fire unscathed. Piety affords no cloak
of protection against fever's infection, or the volcano's explo-
sive violence. No. So far as appearances warrant,
righteous and wicked are liable to common dangers, and in-
volved, at times, in a common doom.

What then? Kaise the curtain. Look within the vei:.
Lazirus dies : Dives dies : both die. Look beyond. See
piety vindicating itself. Both chaff and wheat pass through
the winnowing fan. la it to the same purpose? See the
wheat — every grain of it — gathered into the garner, and the
chaff — only the chaff — burned with fire unquenchable.

This is our consolation. Was there a Christian in that
mine I Ah ! I hope there were many ; but was there only one ?
That cue is not lost. Aye, was there one who had there
time and thought to offer the publican's prayer, or turn iike
the thief on the cross, to Christ? That prayer, that work, is
not lost. Of such dead we say, they are not dead ; they arr
living. They are not yonder, charred, blackened, smoulder-
ing, calcined in the horrible pit. No; they are risen, —
saved so as by fire. Ours only is the horror of thought.

^iw

Theirs is the joy of rescue and of rest. To our imagination
the death was unspeakably awful. To them the sudden death
was only the transition to sudden glory.

*' Shall there be evil, etc. ?" We see, fifthly, with what
ease the judp^ment fire may do its work. We go about the
world and its duties, and plan and purpose for years to come ;
^nd who thinks that the earth beneath his feet is mined — the
solid earth — and that at any moment the whole may be shat-
tored and shivered, suddenly, swiftly, as was that Drummond
Coal-iield ? Almost we smile in our hours of ease and seem-
ing safety at the Scriptural declaration that the earth and the
works that are therein shall be burnt up. The statement has,
no doubt, often been laughed to scorn. What 1 The solid
earth, men say, consumed I absurd. The solid earth. Go then
and view yonder scene of desolation. Recall that cloud
darkening the heavens, caused by a single spark. Visit,
lext, in thought, some volcanic region, where burning moun-
lains, sanietimes by fits and starts, and sometimes perpetually
vomit forth their fiery contents. Descend into the bowels of
the earth, ard behold that molten sea of fire of which its
centre is by many believed to be composed. Take the teles-
cope, and view in the heavens, attached to the same solar
system of which our earth is a member, and at no g:eat com-
parative distance from ourselves, what astronomers believe to
be the wrecks of a once considerable planet. Think how
small a change in the composition or elementary adjustments
of the air we breathe and of the watei we drink, would ren-
der these substances explosive like the gas of yonder ruined
colliery. Ah I our earth is vast in our eyes. Its destruction
seems impossible of accomplishment. But to the universe of
God it is no more than is a leaf to the forest ; its destructioi*
would cause a blank only as the shrivelling of a leaf. *

1* # » » * There are quiet times

when religion tends to formality and sentiment. The right
words are used, and the right forms observed in a grave and
quiet and decorous manner. But there is no life, no reality.
Then God, if he has not forsaken a land, wakes it up, some-
times by terrible judgments ; by breaking up the fountains of
the great deep, — by floods and fires and pestilences and
famines. These are his scourges. With these he consumes
— strips off masks. Men are taught that the words they are
idly using have a meaning. These judgments are the hurri-
canes that purify the atmosphere. They summon our atten-
tion to the " still small voice." Yes, as we read of that dread
flame leaping along the vaults of the mine, and hear the
hoarse cry ringing through the " bords," "Escape for thy
li^e," the thought comes home with power, " Our God is a
consuming fire." We seem to hear afresh that calm, dread
utterance, "Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye
think not, the Son of Man Cometh."

"Be ye also ready. Behold the Judge standeth at
the door." My young friends, young men, for you especially
the warning seems written here. For months the deaths
occurring among us were almost exclusively of the old. Some
seven in succession were taken who had exceeded even the
four score years. Almost you may have begun to think,
religion is for age, for sickness, for the weak and effeminate.
Death does not ooncern himself with us who ure in the prime
of our years. Is it so? Look into yonder pit. Wlio were
they who fell in vault or shaft or slope, — some within a foot
or two of the surface ? Young men, I believe, nearly all. All
men in the prime and vigour of their powers ; the hale , the
healthy, the strong. And they are gone. One whiff of
pestilentious vapour, one tick of the pendulum, one thunder-
ous volley ; and they are gone. " What is your life? It is
even as a vapour," «&c. ^ "': <

" Be ye also ready." I have no hope, indeed, of fright-
ening men into Godliness. I would rather, at any time I
endeavor, as a rule, to appeal to nobler principles in human
nature. And of the nobler man the gospel is expressly
adapted to lay hold. It ought to come home with
peculiar force to youthful minds. It was wrought out
by one wlio laid down his life in the prime of his years. It
was first jireached by young men. Paul was a young man
when he was converted. Surely his was a manly life.
Would that I could persuade my young men that true man-
liness is to be Christ-like ; my young women that true
womanliness is to be Christ-like. See what composure
Ciu'ist-likeness bestows. The tempest rises on Galilee's lake.
The di8ci{)lc8 tremble. Death stares them in the face.
Tiiey look for the Master. He is asleep. Yes, let evil
come. It would bo " the Lord's doini?." Let the thunder

voUev. It is " mv father's voice.'

But if

ye will hear it, there are " terrors of the Lord." There is a
'* Avrath to come." And it may come suddenly. They who
do not use God's time cannot expect him to await their
time. His smouldering fires, how easily, swiftly may they
break forth ! " Like a thief in the night."

" Shall there be evil," &c. But there was good in it —
thank God — good in it, then and there. Thank God, no
evil is done by him, but we may sec *' the bright light in the
cloud." His fires of destruction are also fires of purification.
See this (1) in tlic heroism that the catastrophe called forth ;
and (2) in the far-reaching sympathy to which it gave birth.
(1) Heroism, I say, — yes, noble, heroic, daring, — not less
noble, not less heroic than that evinced by the soldier on the
battle-field, or leading the fi)rlorn hope to the fortress's cap-
ture. Honour to the brave, who, hearing of danger begun,
paused not to think of safety, bowed at once to the dictates

of duty, and rushed, hoping to be of use, hoping to stand,
with Aaron of old, " between the living and the dead, and
etny the plague." Honour to the brave, who would be where
duty and danger summoned) and who, with a calm disregard
of self, fell at their post, enriching the sacrifice of human
victims with the incense of human devotion. And honour,
yet more, to those volunteers who would have saved, were it
possible, the lives of neighbours, — not brothers, not friends,
simply neighbours, and so trying, lost their own. Such
deeds show that the stuff of which ma "tyrs are made still
exists in humanity. Man's primitive dignity, as created \n
the iniaije of God, however defaced, is not destroyed. Ever
and anon it leaps to life. It asserts its existence. It mani-
fests its power. It vindicates man's birth-right and original
heritage. It declares that man is the child of God.

Out of this inexpressibly noble heroism I gather a hint.
and more than a hint of man's immortality. Man's immor-
tality, I say. There is something dearer to him than life.
It is honour. There is something in comparison with which
life is as the small dust in the balance. It is duty. There
is something, to compass which life is parted with as uncon-
sciously as the breath goeth forth from the nostrils. It is to
obey the behests of love. For man is immortal. The dead
live. And therefore the living, — the truly living — are always
ready to die. Is a ** cup of cold water" remembered for
ever ? Shall the * * breaking of an alabaster-box" be made
mention of while the gospel continues to be preached ? And
shall God forget — shall the pulpit disdain to refer to those
rough, ready miners, who counted not their lives dear to
them — who brake, not an alabaster-box, but were themselves
broken, — shivered on the desperate attempt to save brother^
men ? Oh I God seeth not as man seeth. I believe that
these men's heroism is recorded in the book of remembrance
for ever.

Once more. Thank God for the wide-spread sympathy
evinced on behalf of the widows and orphans, — sympathy
assuming to so great an extent a practical form, — sympathy
manifested by those in the business pursuits of life, large,
liberal, spontaneous. In this way, also, if the Lord does
evil, he evokes good out of the evil. Along with the heroism
already referred to, this constitutes one of the strongest
proofs, in my belief, tnat God lives and reigns, — that he has
not forsaken the world, — that his spirit is operating, mightily,
in unexpected ways, in unexpected quarters. Perhaps so to
touch our hearts is one of the main reasons why evil, in such
forms as that referred to, is permitted.

Till we think of i'c, we can hardly estimate how much of
our nature would lack cultivation — would become barren and
unfruitful, were it not ploughed and harrowed by the tales of
distress that ever and anon come to our ears. If all went
well with us, and all around us, if there were no calamities,
no poor, no bereaved, no sufferers, how would the good that
is in us be kept alive? We should sink down into hardness,
selfishness, be the victims of "pride, and fulness of bread,
and abundance of idleness," be wrapped • up in sloth and
sensuality, till, like Dives, we should die, and like him *' in
hell open our eyes." But got sends one Lazarus or another
to our gates, — reminders that ** it is more blessed to give
than to receive." Do we accept them? The blessing is ours.
We are linked in bonds of living sympathy with Christ.
God asks us to " look not every man on his own things, but
every man also on the things of others." Do we *' let this
mind be in us ?" Honour to those in places near and remote
whose liberality has been evinced on behalf of the fatherless,
the widow, the bereaved. *' God is not unrighteous to forget
their work and labour of love."

And now, finally, God has spoken loudly, terribly. Let

God's word set forth the application of the whole. '* Sec
that ye refuse not him that spcaketh. For if they escaped
not who refused him that speaks on earth, much more shall
not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from
heaven ; whose voice then shook the earth, but now he hath
promised, saying : *' Yet once more, I shake, not the earth
only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more,
signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken as of
thinjrs that are made, that those things which cannot be
shaken may remain. Wherefore wc, receiving a Kingdom
■which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may
serve God acceptably, with reverence and Godly fear. For
our God is a consuming fire."