Mineral Point weekly tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1859-1868, 1863-03-11

THE AGE OF THE WORLD.

We will now turn our attention for a
few moments to the lunar cycles The
book of Genesis, first chapter informs us
that God made two great lights; the grea-
ter light to rule the day, and the lesser
light to rule the night" And the Moon
was evidently the one to rule the night
The day that these lights were made was
said to be the fourth Creation day. Well,
now if we begin to count as the Jews do
at this time, and as they have always done,
we will count the evening OF the 22d, and
the morning of the 23d of September the
first day, Sunday the evening of the 23d
and the morning of the Oath the second
day, (Monday,) the evening of the oath
and morning of the 25th (Tuesday,) and
the evening of the 25th and morning of
the Goth the fourth day "wednesday y
Thus we have Bible authority for placing
the first new moon, or the creation of th !.
moon, placed in conjunction with the Sum-
on the evening of the 25th or the morn
ing of the 10Th of September Now let
US examine Frrguson's Astronomy, and
his rules for calculating the changes of
the Moon, and see if there was a change
of the Moon on the evening of the 25th
or morning of the 26th of September 1000
years before the Christian era Well, to
1000 A. NJ, we will add 1776 A. D. maxim :
$40. This divided by 76, (the number
of years in lunar cycle,) goes 76 times.
Multiply this quoticnt by 5 hours 50 min
utes, (what each cycle lacks of rs years,)
and the result is Is days, I3 hours, and
50 minutes Now look in Fergnson's ta-
bles and you will find the time of the new
moon in October, 1916 O. s to be the lst
day, 3. A. Add to this the days, hours,
and minutes found by the foregoing cal
cnlation, and it gives for the time of new
moon, October, Goth day f. b. Som. A
Now subtract from TINS 25 days to alter
the Styles, and it leaves-what? Septem-
ber the 25th 4h 52m. A. for the time Of
new moon, or the Creation of the Moon,
in the year 400l b. C. (We have to add
one to correct the eras when we count
backwards.) The year 400l b. c. is the
year | A. NJ
How strange it is if the Bible be &c
ton, as some say it is, that the writer of
1t, who must have lived some thousands of
years ago, should place his time for tn.
Creation so suited to chronology, and to
the lunar and Dominica Cycles, as for
them to come out precisely right at the
present time You may observe, from
what | have said, that the Dominica cy-
cles started on Sunday, the 23d, and the
Lunar cycles on the next Tuesday-the
25th of September, in the year 400l B. G.;
a circumstance which could not have oc-
Cured in less than 1900 years before the
time, and never since This may sound
s.,...-t-e 70 49, h-t neverthnleeS II -
What strong testimony In favor OF the
truth of the Bible
If the world be more than .000, 900 Of
year old, as the Hindoos say it is, or if
it never had beginning, as some affirm,
how could it be possible for any man that
ever lived, especially for one that lived
more than 1000 years ago, to divide the
days into weeks, and number them, and
to write out a fiction, such as infideis say
the Bible is, and fix on a time $500 years
previous to his own birth for time of the
Creation, and make his divisions of time,
and the lunar cycles agree, so as to come
out precisely right at the present
time?
tell you it would be much greater
strain upon the mind to believe that than
to believe that God told Moses just what
he wrote in the Bible. If God did not
tell Moses what is contained in the book
of Genesis, how came Moses by it! just
look at it How did Moses know when
Creation commenced, how the days were
ated unless God told him? For you will
bear in mind that, according to the Bible
account those things were done before
man made. Who, then, could have
related the story about the creation but
God himself? Now, in conclusion, this
leads to the inquiry, is the Bible true P
OF all the questions put to mortal man
this is the most nome entous. Is the Bible
true? it be not true, as thousands
would have il, how awful must our con-
dition be?
Placed here in this miserable, unfriend-
ly world, without a God without Sa-
viour with no hope of futurity, but GER
tain of humiliation Awful to think
of that we should be like the flowers of
the grass, which shed forth their lovelest
hues to-day, and fall into the earth to-
morrow to come up no more and be seen
no more forever But if the Bible be
true, our hopes are unbounded. We
have full assurance OF God the Father,
and of his Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour.
Blessed thought
My friends, | have detained you long
enough but let us briefly sum up what
has been said. | first showed you from
chronology that the world could not be far
from 1000 years old at the Christian era,
1t you place any confidence In the Bible
In the second place, | showed you from
the Dominical letters that it could be but
1000 years old at the Christian era, or
that it must vary from that age at least
400 years. And thirdly, | showed you
by the lunar cycles that it must vary from
that age at least 1000 years before the cy-
cles would come out right at the present
time. And last of all, | have asked you
the momen.ous question, Is the Bible
true? And if you answer in the affirma-
tive you must agree with me in saving
that the age of the world will be 1862
years on the 23d day of September, 1862;
and with this 1 will, for the psesent, close
my remarks.
JOHN MATTHEW'S.