Milford chronicle., 1889-03-29
KNOTS IN TIE BIBLE.
DR.. TALMAGE MAKES AN INGENIOUS
DISSECTION OF THEM.

It Is Not Necessary to believe That the
World Is Only 6.OOO Years OId-Joshua's
Command to the Sun and Sioon-The
Whale Swallowing Jonah.
BROOKLYN, March 24-At the Tabernacle
this morning, after expounding some passages
Of Scripture in regard to the mysteries, the
Rev T. De Witt Talmage. D. D., gave cut
the hymn beginning;
How flrm foundation, ye saints Of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word
The subject Of his sermon was Tough
Things in the Bible" and his text, II Peter
iii, l6: "ln which are some things hard to be
understood" DR. Talmage said;
The Bible is the most common sense book
In ali the world But there are many things
In 1t which require explanation. It oil de
pends on the mood in which you come to this
grand old book You may take hold Of the
handle Of the sword or its sharp edge. You
may employ on its mysteries the rule of null
duplication or subtraction There are things,
as my text suggests, hard to be understood,
but I shall solve some of them, hoping to leave
upon all honest minded people the impression
that If four or five Of them can be explained
perhaps they may all be explained
Hard thing the first: The Bible says the
world was created in six days, while geology
says it was hundreds of thousands Of years in
process of building. I'm the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth. I'm the
beginning" There you can roll in ten
million years If you want to- There is no
particular date given-no contest between
science and revelation. Though the world
may have been in process Of creation for
millions Of years, suddenly and quickly, and
In one week, it may have been fitted up for
mans residence. Just as a great mansion
may have been many years in building, and
yet in one week it may be curtained and
chandeliered and cushioned and upholstered
for bride and groom.
You are not compelled to believe that the
world was made in our six days. It may not
have been day of twenty-four hours, the
day spoken of in tho first chapter; it may
have been Gods day, and a thousand years
with him are as one day. "And the evening
and the morning were the first dayn-Gods
day. And the evening and the morning
were the second dayn-Gods day. "And
the evening and the morning were the sixth
day"-God's day You and | living in the
seventh day, the Sabbath Of tho world, the
| day of gospel redemption, the grandest day
/ of all the week in which each day may have
been made up of thousands Of years Can
/ you tell me how a man can get his mind and
soul into such a blasphemous twist as to scoiP
/ at that first chapter of Genesis, its verses
| pillows Of light surging up from sapphire
seas Of gloryi
! AN EXPLANATION ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS.
/ The Bible represents that light was created
/ on Monday, and the sun was not created until
| Thursday Just think of it'll book declaT-
ing that light was created three days before
1 the sun shownl Why, don't you know that
heat and electricity emit light independent
4 Of the sunl Beside that, when the earth was
in process Of condensation, it was surrounded
! by thick vapors and the discharge of many
! volcanoes in the primary period, and all this
/ obscuration may have hindered the light Of
| the sun from falling ON the earth until that
/ Thursday morning Beside that, David
| Brewster and Herschel, the astronomer, and
] all the modern men Of their class, agree in
the fact that the sun is not light, that it is an
/ Opaque mass, that it is only the candesticls
/ that holds the light, a phosphorescent atmOs-
| phere floating around it, changing and chang
/ ing, so it is not to be at all wondered at that
not until that Thursday morning its light fell
/ on the earth Beside that, the rocks in crys-
tallization emit light There is light from a
thousand surfaces the alkalies, for instance
| The metallic bases emit light. There was q
! time in the history Of the world when there
| were thousands of miles of liquid granite
| flaming with light, Beside that, it has been
found that there are burned out volcanoes in
| other worlds which, when they were in ex-
| plosion and activity, must have cast forth an
insufferabe light, throwing glare all over
| our earth. Beside that, there are the Aurora
/ Borealis and the Aurora Anchalis A book
| on Physical Science says
/ "Capt. Bonnycaste, coming up the Gulf Of
! st. Lawrence ON the nth Of September, 1926,
/ was aroused by the mate Of the vessel in
! great alarm from an unusual appearance. It
was a starlight night, when suddenly tho sky
! became overcast. In the direction Of the
/ high land of CORVALLIS county, an instan-
taneous and intensely vivid light, resembling
the aurora. shot out on the hitherto gloomy
| and dark sea Oh the lee bow, that was SO
| brilliant it lighted everything distinctly,
/ even to the masthead. The light spread over
/ the whole sea between the two shores, and
/ the waves, which before had been tranquil,
became agitated Capt Bonnycastle describes
the scene as that of a blazing sheet of awful
/ and most brilliant ight-a long and vivid
line Of light that showed the face Of the high
! frowning land abreast. The sky became
| lowering and more intensely obscure Long,
/ tortuous lines Of light showed immense mum
bers Of largo fish darting about as il in con
sternation The topsail yard and mizzen boom
! were lighted by the glare as if gaslights had
been burned directly below them, and until
just before daybreak, at 4 o'clock the most
minute objects were distinctly visible" Ny
! hearers. there are ten thousand sources OF
| light besides the light Of the sun
A WRONG CONCEPTION ABOUT NoAH's ARK.
Another hard thing The story of the del
uge and Noah's ark. They say from the ac-
count there it must have rained eight hun
dred feet Of water each day in order that il
might be fifteen cubits above the hills. They
say that the ark could not have been large
enough to contain 1.-TWO Of every sort, fol
there would have been hundredsof thousands
and hundreds Of thousands Of creatures
They say that these creatures would have
come from all lands and all zones They say
there was only one small window in the ark
and that would not have given fresh air t.
keep the animals inside the ark from sui3oca-
tion. They say that the ark finally landed
on a mountain seventeen thousand feet high
They say they do not believe the story.
Neither do L There is no such story in the
Bible ] will tell you what the Bible story
is must say that have changed my mind
to me very mysterious They arc no more
mysterious This is the key to the facts
This is the story Of an eye witness, Noah, his
story incorporated afterward by Moses in
the account Noah described the scene just
as it appeared to him He saw the flood and
be iathomed its depth. As far es eye could
reach everything was covered up, from hori
zon to horizon, or, as it says, under the
whole heaven He did not refer to tho Sierra
| Nevadas, or to Mount Washington, fol
America bad not been discovered, or, If il
had been discovered, be could not have seer
50 far of. He is giving the testimony Of an
eye witness. God speaks after the manner Of
men when he says everything went under
and Noah speaks after the manner Of mer
when he says everything did go under An
eye witness. There is no need Of thinking
that the kangaroo leaped the ocean or that