Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1889-09-21
Inspiration.

Now we have to discuss this subject
from all points of view, but mainly
from the direction of objections.
Men love objections, and so they say
there are difficulties, and absurdities,
and errors, and contradictions in the
Bible. You have all heard such as
sertions. After speaking once in the
city of Boston, an ex-minister came
to me and told me that the Bible was
not true, for there was that story
which Moses told about the quails.
Israel lusted after flesh, and the Lord
sent them quails to eat, and they fell
by the camp a days journey on each
side, or over a territory forty miles
across, and they were two cubits deep
on the ground, and the Israelites ate
them for full month. l havei in my
possession an infidel paper which was
published in Boston, in which there
is about column of arguments and
figures on this "quail story;" giving
an estimate of the number of bushels
Of quails that were piled up over the
country, and showing that when they
were divided among the host of Isra-
elites, each one would have 2,1SS,943
bushels of quails, which they were to
eat during the month; giving each
poor Israelite $1,000 bushels of quails
to eat at each meal for thirty days,
and therefore the Bible was not true
said to this gentleman, "The BIZ
bic does not say any such thing!" He
replied that it certainly did; but | an
swered that it did not say any such
thing. He insisted that it did.
"Well," said l "find it," And when
you ask an infidel to find anything
in the Bible, you generally have
him. He could not find the place; so
l turned over to the eleventh chap
ter of Numbers, and there read that
instead of the birds being packed
like cord wood on the ground, three
feet deep, the account says that the
Lord brought the quails from
the sea, and let them fall by the
camp, as it were 1.-TWO cubits high"
or about three feet high upon, or
above the face of the earth. That is,
instead of flying overhead and out of
reach, they were brought in about
three feet high, where anyone could
take as many of them as he chose.
And this sceptical friend had got the
birds packed solid, three feet deep,
over territory forty miles across.
AS if should say that flock of wild
geese flew as high as a church spire,
and some one should insist that they
were packed selid from the ground
up, a hundred feet high! This is a
sample Of the arguments intidels
bring to prove that the Bible is not
true!
The book, to my mind bears the
marks of inspiration in the foresight
which it exhibits. This book fore
tells things. You cannot do that.
You cannot tell what will be next
year, or next week. "The spirits"
cannot tell who will be the next
president, or governor, or emperor.
They may tell great many things
which are past. They may tell you
who your grandmother was, and may
copy the inscription on your grand
fathers grave.stone, and may tell
things which are written in the fami-
lily record. They may reveal many
things in the PASTOR the devil
knows about the past-but they can
not foretell the future. | did hear of
one spiritual medium who fOretOld
her own death, and she died within a
few hours; but when they got the
stomach-pump, they pumped out of
her stomach poison enough to kill
two or three. That kind ofprophecy
requires no omniscient foresight.
Years ago I talked with an infdel
in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and he
wanted me to give him some evil
dence that the Bible was true. AfteI
some conversation, l loaned him n
little volume, an abridgement of
"Keith on Prophecy" Some ten
years after, as l took my scat in a
railway train, he came and sat down
beside me and began to talk, and he
said: you want that book you