The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1889-04-05

Outl just open your geology and you
will read of twenty foods. Is it not
strange that infideI scientists, wanting us
to believe in the twenty floods of geolog-
ical discovery, should, as soon as we be-
lieve in one food of the Bible, pronounce
US non compos mentis.
Wen, then, another thing, in regard to
the size of the ark. Instead of being a
mud scow, as some Of those sl1eptics
would have US understand, it was a mag
nifcent ship, nearly as large as the Great
Eastern, three times the size Of an Ordi-
nary man 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 pro-
portions as our staunchest modern YES
sells. After thousands of years Of expe-
rimenting in naval architecture and in
ship carpentery, 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 go
ing into this ark. He gave the account of
an eyewitness. They were the animals
from the region where he lived; for the
most part they were animals useful to
man, and if noxiOUs insects or poisonous
reptiles went in it was only to discipline
the patience and to keep alert the gener-
atoms after the food. He saw them GO
ing in. There was a great number of
them, and he gives the account Of an eye
witness. They went in two and two of all
flesh.
'But how could you get them into the
ark" asked infdeI scientists. Chow
could they be induced to go into the ark?
He would have to pick them out and drive
them in, and coax them in" Could not
the same God who gave instinct to the
animal inspire that instinct to seek for
shelter from the Storm However, moth
ing 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
afrighted fowl go upon the perch at noon
day, and heard the affrighted dog and cat
calling at the door, supplicating entrance?
And are you surprised that in that age of
the world, when there were fewer places
of shelter for dumb beasts, at the mutter-
ing and rumbling and flashing and quak-
ing and darkening of an approaching del
uge, the animal creation came moaning
and bleating to the sloping embankment
reaching up to the ancient Great Eastern
and passed in? 1 have owned horses and
cattle and sheep and dogs, but never had
horse or a COW or a sheep or a dog that
was stupid it did not know enough to
come in when it raineG. And then, that
one window in the ark which afforded
such poor ventilation to the creatures
there assembled-that small window in
the ark which excites so much mirthful-
ness on the part of infdels. If they knew
as much Hebrew as you could put on your
little finger nail they would have known
that that word translated window there
means window course, a whole range for
lights. Those ignorant infidels do not
know a window pane from twenty win
dows. 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 suffOca-
ton, l have to say that there are people
in this house to-day who, all the way
from Liverpool to Barnegat lighthouse,
and for two weeks, were kept under deck,
the matches battened down because of the
storm. Some of you, in the Old-time sail
ing vessels, were kept nearly q month
with the matches down because of some
long storm.
Then infidels 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 geographical ignorancel Ar
arat Is not merely the name of mount
ain, but for a hilly district, and it may
have been a hill one hundred feet high, or
five hundred or one thousand feet high on
which the ark alighted. Noah measured
the depth Of the water above the hill, and
it is fifteen cubits, or twenty seven feet.
Ali my friends, this story Of the ark is no
more incredible than if you should say
to me: "Last summer 1 was among the
hills of New England, and there came on
the most terrible storm l ever saw, and
the whole country was flooded The
waters came up over the hills, and to save
our lives we got in "a boat on the river,
and even the dumb creatures were so af-
frighted they came moaning and bleating
until we let them in the same boat"
We are not dependent upon the Bible
for the story Of the flood, entirely. All
ages and all literatures have traditions,
broken traditions, indistinct traditions,
but still traditions. The old books Of the
Persiaus tell about the floods at the time
of Abraham, who 50 polluted the earth
that it had to be washed by great storm.
The traditions 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 destroyed,
and after awhile the birds went forth
and they came back and their claws were
/ tiuged with mud. Lucian and Ovid, cele-
brated writer's, who had never seen the
/ Bible, described flood in the time Of
Deucalion. He took his friends into a
boat, and the animals came running to
l him in pairs. So all lands and all ages
aad all literatures seem to have a broken
and iudistiuct tradition of a calamity
which Moses, here incorporating NOah's
| account, so grandly, so beautifully, so ac-
Curately, so solemuly records,
Ny prayer is that the God who created
l the world may create us anew in Christ
/ Jesus; and that the God who made light
I three days before the sun shone may
/ kindle in our hearts light that will burn
ON long after the sun has expired; and
/ that the God who ordered the ark built
and kept open more than one hundred
/ years that the antediluvaus might enter
/ il for shelter, may graciously incline us
/ to accept the invitation which this morn
/ ing rose in music from the throne, say
/ ing: "Come thou and all thy house into
/ the ark"
/ Another hard thing to be understood:
/ The story that the sun and moon stood
/ still to allow Joshua to complete his VIC
/ tory. Iufidel scientists declare that an
/ impossibility. But if man have brain
! and strength enough to make a clock, can
4 he not start IL again and stop it again? II
+ a machinist have strength and brain
/ enough to make crop thresher, can he
/ not start il and stop it, and start it again
/ and stop it again? If God have strength
and wisdom TO make the CLOCK OF the uni
verse, the great machinery Of the worlds,
/ has He not strength enough and wisdom
/ enough to start it and stop it.
and start ii again and stop it
again? Or stop one wheel, or stop twenty
wheels, or stop all the wheels? Is the
I clock stronger than the clock makerY
| Does the corn thresher know more than
4 the machinist? Is the universe mightier
I than its God? But people ask how
/ could the moon have been seen to stop
/ in the daytimeg Wen, if you have
never seen the moon in the daytime,
il is because YOU have not been a