p. 5 | Fire-Proof Buildings by T. E. BOWEN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 22, 1912

Fire-Proof Buildings

By T. E. BOWEN

T. E. BOWEN

In large cities we often read of the fire-proof vaults and fire-proof buildings where human life or money are thought to be secure against loss by fire or otherwise. But in very fact, there are no such buildings, no such vaults. There is absolutely nothing fire-proof in this world so far as life and property are concerned—only the righteous character of Christ developed in his children, the gold tried in the fire. The loss by fire in New York just recently of the magnificent fire-proof (!) Equitable Life Assurance Society building affords an object-lesson worthy of careful study. This becomes especially so to us as a people in view of what God has been pleased to reveal to us regarding these buildings in which men place so much confidence. In “Testimonies for the Church,” Volume IX, under the heading “The Last Crisis,” we find the following concerning “fire-proof buildings:” —

“On one occasion, when in New York City, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. These buildings were warranted to be fire-proof, and they were erected to glorify their owners and builders. Higher and still higher these buildings rose, and in them the most costly material was used. Those to whom these buildings belonged were not asking themselves, ‘How can we best glorify God?’ The Lord was not in their thoughts. . . .”

“The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at the lofty and supposedly fire-proof buildings and said, ‘They are perfectly safe.’ But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire-engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines.”

“I am instructed that when the Lord’s time comes, should no change have taken place in the hearts of proud, ambitious human beings, men will find that the hand that had been strong to save will be strong to destroy. No earthly power can stay the hand of God. No material can be used in the erection of buildings that will preserve them from destruction when God’s appointed time comes to send retribution on men on account of their disregard of his law and for their selfish ambition.”

The above is quoted to emphasize how unavailing is man’s effort to protect his valuables and life itself in the erection of fire-proof buildings; nothing is safe without the protection of the Lord.

In its issue of January 20 the Outlook, published in New York City, in an editorial draws some lessons from the recent destruction of the Equitable building, which point out the truthfulness of the above concerning the destructibility, and that by fire, of buildings supposedly fire-proof:—

“There were features about the destruction through fire of the Equitable building in New York City last week which made it unique. Not, unfortunately, that loss of life through forces set at work by apparently trivial carelessness is unknown; not, happily, that heroism and devotion are uncommon; not that a building thought to be fire-proof proves to be a storehouse of countless tons of inflammable matter which once well aflame makes stone and iron crumble like paper [a tacit admission in passing, however, of the surety of the words quoted above]. But this is the first fire which indirectly all but stopped business on the stock exchange, and closed temporarily several banks; the only one in

which securities and cash to the amount of about a billion dollars remained secure in vaults while a roaring furnace raged around; the first which caused forty-five millions of cash to be carted down Broadway under police escort; the first of magnitude to be met and fought right in the center of the financial district of the metropolis. The strange and picturesque aspects of this great fire sheathed in ice have held people’s imagination, while the tragedy and pathos have moved their hearts. . . . After it is all over, as usual, it is easy to draw lessons: First, the need of individual carefulness in handling matches, cigarettes, and everything inflammable; . . . second, the folly of delay in calling out the firemen until a fire has gained headway; third, the moral criminality of putting stoves and flues near an elevator shaft; fourth, the mistake of concluding that exterior stone walls make a building fire-proof; fifth, the prime necessity of abundant water and strong pressure in a district of high buildings. When one reads the story, however, praise rather than blame comes uppermost. New York owes it to her fearless and efficient firemen that the Equitable fire was not the start of a conflagration which, in the consumption of property value at least, might easily have made the Chicago and Boston fires insignificant.”

The principal lesson in this, as well as in other destructive fires in our large cities, is that nothing considered as secure, is, in this world, secure. Securities in bank-stock, in real estate, in insurance company policies, in fire-proof buildings, while made as secure as man can make them, may still in a moment become a total loss in a bank failure, a money panic, an insurance company’s loss of property, or in the total wreckage of some supposedly fire-proof building that becomes in a few hours a mass of twisted steel and crumbled cement and melted stone. In this particular instance valuable securities in the vaults were not lost. To us whose eyes are upon another city, one that “hath foundations,” the lesson should come with force to invest in heavenly securities, which are secure. We do this when we invest both our talents of intellect and our money in imperishable riches — the winning of souls to shine in Jesus’ crown. Such investments are actually fire-proof.

Washington, D. C.