The Lesson in Natural Calamities

By President Joseph F. Smith

Improvement Era 9, June 1906, p. 651-54

Quite interesting, if not faith-promoting, are the comments of the religious papers of the country, on the great disaster that befell San Francisco. Many hold that cataclysms of the kind are not divine visitations intended to remind the people of their sins, or call them to repentance. One paper is quoted as saying, “Such a calamity has no connection with human sin, but is cosmic in its origin." And that idea is voiced by many of the writers. There appears, therefore, to be a general feeling among the Protestant religious leaders that God has little or nothing to do with nature or her laws; that if the unparalleled disaster were his will, and designed as a judgment upon the wicked, San Francisco, which is openly and freely conceded to have been a very wicked city, would alone have been stricken, and not the several smaller cities, which are not at all corrupt, but which, in this case, suffered equally with the larger and more corrupt city.

This appears to me to be a mistaken view of judgment, for judgment is not an end in itself. Calamities are only permitted by a merciful Father, in order to bring about redemption. Behind the fearful storms of judgment, which often strike the just and the unjust alike, overwhelming the wicked and the righteous, there arises bright and clear the dawn of the day of salvation. In this case one can easily see the mercy of God, for loss of life would have been much greater if the quake had occurred, for instance, when the theatres were full, or when more people were astir. The loss of life would then have been more appalling. Besides, hundreds of stories are told of how people were saved, in a providential way, showing to my mind that God’s Providence was over the people, even in this calamity, and that what he permitted to occur seems clearly to have been for the purpose of calling attention, by the finger of his power, to the wickedness and sins of men – not alone to the sins of the people of the stricken city, for there are many elsewhere who are just as evil minded, but to the transgressions of all mankind, that all may take warning and repent. Men who stand in the way of God’s wise purposes, whether they be good or evil, must suffer in the turmoil. Thus it is that often the righteous suffer for the unrighteous; and it is not satisfactory to the thinking mind to say that therefore God is unjust. The perfect Christ suffered, the just for the unjust: “His visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men." And if, in the wisdom of God, it was so that he who is without sin should suffer for the sins of the world, why should not imperfect man, though less sinful than his neighbor, suffer with the wicked?

There is in the great world of mankind, much social and civil unrighteousness, religious unfaithfulness, and great insensibility to the majesty, power, and purpose of our Eternal Father and God. In order, therefore, that he may bring the sense of himself and his purposes home to the minds of men, his intervention and interposition, in nature and in men’s affairs, are demanded. His aims will be accomplished, even if men must be overwhelmed with the convulsions of nature to bring them to an understanding and a realization of his designs. As long as conditions remain as they are in the world, none is exempt from these visitations: “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful creator."

25 How oft have I called upon you by the mouth of my servants, and by the ministering of angels, and by mine own voice, and by the voice of thunderings, and by the voice of lightnings, and by the voice of tempests, and by the voice of earthquakes, and great hailstorms, and by the voice of famines and pestilences of every kind, and by the great sound of a trump, and by the voice of judgment, and by the voice of mercy all the day long, and by the voice of glory and honor and the riches of eternal life, and would have saved you with an everlasting salvation, but ye would not!
(D&C 43:25)

The Latter-day Saints, though they themselves tremble because of their own wickedness and sins, believe that great judgments are coming upon the world because of iniquity; they firmly believe in the statements of the Holy Scriptures, that calamities will befall the nations, as signs of the coming of Christ to judgment. They believe that God rules in the fire, the earthquake, the tidal wave, the volcanic eruption, and the storm. Him they recognize as the Maker and the ruler of nature and her laws; and freely acknowledge his hand in all things. We believe that his judgments are poured out to bring mankind to a sense of his power and his purposes, that they may repent of their sins, and prepare themselves for the second coming of Christ to reign in righteousness upon the earth. And, as is said in the Book of Mormon (3 Nephi, 21:14-22) woe be unto them,

14 Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots;
15 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strongholds;
16 And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy land, and thou shalt have no more soothsayers;
17 Thy graven images I will also cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee, and thou shalt no more worship the works of thy hands;
18 And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities.
19 And it shall come to pass that all lyings, and deceivings, and envyings, and strifes, and priestcrafts, and whoredoms, shall be done away.
20 For it shall come to pass, saith the Father, that at that day whosoever will not repent and come unto my Beloved Son, them will I cut off from among my people, O house of Israel;
21 And I will execute vengeance and fury upon them, even as upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.
22 But if they will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance;
(3 Nephi 21:14-22)

We firmly believe that Zion – which is the pure in heart – shall escape, if she observe to do all things whatsoever God has commanded; but, in the opposite event, even Zion shall be visited “with sore affliction, with pestilence, with plagues, with sword, with vengeance, and with devouring fire." (D&C 97:26) All this that her people may be taught to walk in the light of truth, and in the way of the God of their salvation.

By freely giving of our means and substance as the Latter-day Saints have rightly done, we have abundantly demonstrated, in this terrible affliction which has befallen our sister city on the west, that we believe in doing all in our power to relieve distress, to aid the afflicted, and to extend to all mankind the brotherly kindness and sympathy which we ourselves crave from our fellow beings and from God.

But we believe that these severe, natural calamities are visited upon men by the Lord for the good of His children, to quicken their devotion to others, and to bring out their better natures, that they may love and serve him. We believe, further, that they are the heralds and tokens of his final judgment, and the schoolmasters to teach the people to prepare themselves, by righteous living, for the coming of the Savior to reign upon the earth, when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.

If these lessons are impressed upon us, and upon the people of our country, the anguish, and the loss of life and toil, sad, great and horrifying as they were, will not have been endured in vain.

Joseph F. Smith