The Penn's Grove record., 1889-04-13

believe In this flood OF the Bible, when
biologists tell us that again and again
and again the dry earth has been
drowned outp just open your geology
and you will read Of twenty foods. Is
1t not strange that inidel scientists
wanting us to believe in the twenty
floods Of geological discovery, should.
as soon as we believe in mi flood OF
the Bible, pronounce us non compos
mentis2
Well, then another thing, in regard
to
THE SIZE OF THE ARK.
Instead of being a mud-scOw, as
some of these sceptics would have
US understand. it vas a magnifi-
cent ship, nearly as large as the
Great Eastern, three times the size
of an ordinary an-of-war. At the
time in the world when ship-building
was unknown, God had this vessel
constructed, which turned out to be
almost in the same proportions as our
stanchest modern vessel. After thou
sands of years of experimenting
in naval architecture and in ship-car-
pentry, we have at last got up to
Noah's ark, that ship leading all the
fleets Of the world on all the oceans.
Well, Noah saw the animal creation
going into this ark. He gave the &C.
count of an eyewitness. They were
the animals from the region where he
lived; for the most part they were ami
mails useful to man, and II n0xi0us in
sects or poisonous reptiles went in, 1t
was only to discipline the patience. and
to keep alert the generations after the
food. He saw them going In. There
were a great number of them, and he
gives the account Of
AN EYEWITNESS.
They went in two and two of all flesh.
Years ago 1 was on q steamer on the
river Tay. and l came to Perth, Scot
land. l got of, and / saw the most
wonderful agricultural show that l had
ever witnessed. There were horses and
cattle such as Rosa BoHheur never
sketched, and there dogs such as the
loving pencil of Edwin Landseer
never portrayed. and there were sheep
and fowl, and creatures Of all
sorts. Suppose that 1.-TWO and two"
of all the creatures of that agricultural
show were put upon the Tay steamer to
be transported to Dundee, and the
next day l should be writing home to
America and giving an account Of the
occurrence, L would have used the
same general ~phraseology that Noah
used in regard to the embarkation of
the brute creation In the ark would
have said that they went IN two and
two Of every sort. l would not have
meant six hundred thousand. A COM
mon sense man myself, l would sup
pose that the people who read the letter
were cOmm0n-sense people.
"But how could you get them Into
the arkf" ask infdel scientists. "How
could they be induced to go into the
arkp He would have to pick them out
and drive them In, and coax them In"
Could not the same God who gave In-
stinct to the animal inspire that
INSTINCT TO SEEK FOR SHELTER
from the Storm However, nothing
more than ordinary animal instinct
was necessary. Have you never been in
the country when an August thunder
storm was coming up, and heard the
cattle moan at the bars to get in, and
seen the affrighted fowl 60 upon the
perch at MONDAY, and heard the
affrighted dog and cat calling at the
door. duplicating entrance3 And are
you surprised that, in that age of the
world, when there were fewer places of
shelter for dumb beasts, at the
mutteriDg and rumbling and fash
ing and quaKing and darkening
OF an approaching deluge, the AMI
NAL creation came moaning and
bleatlng to the sloping embankment
reaching up to the ancient Great East
ern, and passed IMP l have owned
horses and cattle. and sheep and dogs,
but l eve had a horse or q COW or a
sheep or a dog that was 81 stupid 1t did
not know enough to come in when 1t
rained. And then, that one window In
the ark which afforded SO poor ventila-
tlon to the creatures there assembled
that small window In the ark which
excites so much mirthfulness on the
part of mfidels. II they knew as much
Hebrew as you could put on your little
6nger-naIl they would have known
that that word translated window there
means window-course. Those
IGNORANT INFIDELs
do not know a window-pane from
twenty windows. So If there is any
criticism of the ark, there seems to be
too much window for such a long
storm. And as to the other charge,
that the windows of the ark must have
been kept shut, and consequently all
inside would have persisted from suf-
location, l have to say that there are
people in this house to-day who, all the
way from Liverpool to Barnegat light
house, and for two weeks, were kept
under deck, the matches battened down
because of the storm. Some of you, in
the old-time sailing vessels, were kept
nearly a month with the matches down
because of some long storm.
Then infidt Is say that the ark landed
on a mountain seventeen thousand
feet high, and that, of course, as soon
as the animals came forth they would
all be frozen In the ice. That is geo.
graphical ig~norancei Ararat is not
merely the name for a mountain, but
for a billy district, and it may have
been a hill one hundred feet high, or
five hundred, or a thousand feet high
on which the ark alighted. Noah
measured the depth of the water above
the hill, and 1t is fifteen cubits, or
twenty seven feet.
We are not dependent upon the Bible
for the story OF the tiood, entirely. All
ages, and all literatures have traditions, |
broken traditions, indistinct traditions,
but still traditions. The old books of
the
PERsIANs TELL ABOUT THE FLOOD
at the time of Ahriman, who so pol
luted the earth that 1t Lad to be
washed by a great storm. The tradi-
lions OF the Chaldeans say that in the
time when Xisuthrus was king. there
was a great flood, and he put his family |
and his friends In a large vessel,
and all outside OF them were de-
and after a while the birds ,
went forth, and they came back, and
their claws were tinged with mud.
Lucian and Ovid, celebrated writer's,
who had never seen the Bible, de-
scribed a food In the time of Deuca-
lion. He took his friends into a boat,
and the animals came running to him