The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-04-03
SOME BIBLE MYSTERIES.
QUESTIONS SETTLED BY IALMAeg.
hnotfJ Points and Incidents of Bible His.
tory Enthusiastically ExpIained-An-
other Version of the Miracle of
Jonah and the Great Fish


to the outer corridors long before the SER
vices began. Hundred of people who
came late were unable to get further
than the doors. The Rev. DIR. Talmaee
preached sermon in defense OF the bible:
I'm which are many things hard to be
understood. III Peter iii, 10. AS there
are many thing in the bible, according to
the suggestion of my text, hard to be
understood, l purpose this morning to
solve some of these things, hoping to leave
upon the mind of every honest man aid
honest woman in this assemblage the i'm
preston that if five or six or seven of
these hard things may be explained, then
all the other mysteries may be explained
Hard thing the first: The bible saws the
world was made in six days. Geology
says the process of making the world may
have gone on hundreds of thousands of
years, perhaps millions of years. We say
that God wrote the bible, God certainly
made the rocks. Now, is there contra
diction? ''In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth" In the be-
ginning. There you can roll in 100000
years if you want to. There is no date
given. Nowar between science and reve-
lation. You can roll in 100000 years
before the first verse of the first chapter
OF Genesis, or you can roll in 1O,OO0,0 900
years right after that verse. The world
may have been in process of construction
for millions OF years, and yet in one week
fitted up for mans residence; just as you
might be building a great mansion for
many years, and then in one week uphol-
ster it, chandelier it, picture it for bride
and groom. So there is no war between
those two statements-God writing in the
bible, the same God writing on the rocks.
Perfect harmony and perfect accord unless
you want to make discord. And beside
that, we are not compelled to believe that
the day mentioned in the first chapter of
Genesis is a day of twenty-four hours.
The Bible distinctly says that a thousand
years are with the Lord as one day, and it
may have been Gods day. Another hard
thing to understand: The Bible says that
light was created on Monday and the sun
did not shine until Thursday, and hun
dreds and thousands of scientific infdels
have scoffed at the Bible. They say:
"What an absurd book" Why, my dear
friends, heat and electricity emit light in
dependent of the sun. The world in
process of condensation emitted light.
Rocks in capitalization emit light. David
Brewster and Herschel, the astronomer,
and all men of that type-they 90 on to
say that the sun is not light, it is an
opaque mass, it is only the candlestick
that holds the light surrounded by a
phOsphorescent atmosphere. The aurora
borealis emits light Independent of the
sun. All geology asserts that there
were thousands OF miles of liquid granite
all afiame for ages emitting light indie
pendent OF the sun. Another hard thing
to be understood: The deluge and Noah's
ark. Why, the skeptics, the infdel
scientists of our dav say: 'FThat story is
absurd. The ark would not have con-
tanned two of every kind. Beside that
there was only small window in the ark
and these creatures would have been
asphyxiated for lack of ventilation. Be
side that, the ark landed on Ararat, &C
cording TO the bible-that is 1900 feet
Highland all these creatures would have
been Immediately frozen to death" /
must confess there used to be some
mystery about that story of the deluge
and of Noah's ark, but there is no possible
mystery to me now because 1 have the
key to unlock the whole affair. Noah was
Just giving the account of an eyewitness.
He himself measured the depth of the
flood. He talked about the great storm
Just az you and / would talk about any
great storm, and then Moses took Noah's
account and Incorporated it into the
bible. Noah says everything under the
-I-10 To- If
could see. What was the use of the
ancient deluge? 1t was to destroy the
outrageous people of the then thinly in
habited earth. We need not necessarily
believe that that storm covered the Sierra
Nevadas and Mount Washington, Europe
and Africa. There was not q soul living
In all these lands. This deluge was sent
for special purpose and it swept to ruin
the small population of the earth then
around about the place where the ark was
launched. As to so much water coming
down every day in order to make the
great depth, have you noticed that most
OF the flood came up and did not come
down at all? l know the bible says "the
windows of heaven were open, and then
it says that "all the fountains
up" and the rivers, and the lakes,
and the oceans, unmoored by this great
CONFUSION of nature, came up. Most of
the food rose. 1t did not fall at all.
Biologists tell Us that again and again
there has been flood of ice, or food of
fire, or deluge of destructive elements.
You cannot take up work on geology
but you will read about twenty floods;
but, when having had twenty floods, we
ask that they believe the one food of the
bible, they almost charge US with being
non compos mentis. They believe in
twenty. We believe in one. Besides
that, as TO the size of that great ark. 1t
was as large as the Great Eastern of our
time; it was as large as three or four of
our men of war. Before the world had
any shipping at all God constructed the
vessel so that it was the model vessel and
o: about the same proportions as the
stanchest vessels now. In other words,
after we have improved in naval archi-
lecture for thousands of years, we have
Just got up to Noah's ark. That one model
sailing ahead to-day on all the oceans.
Then, as to the small window. Why. if the
infidel scientists knew as much Hebrew as
you could put upon the tip of the little
finger they would know that the word
translated window means window courses,
a whole fight of windows. So if there be
any lawful criticism of the ark on the sub
ject of windows, there were two many
windows considering the great storm. But,
say they, "the whole group of people and
fbe large number of animals Would have