Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-25

Der of them, and he gives the account OF an eye
witness They went in two and two Oh all
flesh.
Years ago 1 was on a steamer on the river
Tay and came to Perth, Scotland. got on,
and 1 saw the most wonderful agricultural
show that had ever witnessed. There were
horses and cattle such as Rosa Bonheur had
never sketched, and there were dogs such as
the loving pencil of Edwin Landseer never
portrayed, and there were sheep and fowl and
creatures OF all sorts. Suppose that "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
should be writing home to America and giving
an account of the occurrence, would have
used the same general phraseology that Noah
used in regard to the embarkation of the brute
creation in the ark-I would have said that
would not have meant 6OO, 600 A common sense
man myself, would have supposed that the
people who read the letter were common sense
people.
SIMPLY ANIMAL INSTINCT.
But how could you get them into the ark?'
ask infidel scientists. How could they be in
duced to 90 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,
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 in2 and seen the affrighted fowl go
upon the perch at MONDAY, and heard the af.
frighted dog and cat calling at the door, sup
plicating entrance? And are you surprised
that in that age of the world, when there were
fewer places of shelter for dumb beasts, at the
muttering and rumbling and flashing and
quaking and darkening of an approaching
deluge, the animal creation came moaning and
bleating to the sloping embankment reaching
mp to the ancient Great Eastern and passed in:
have owned horses and cattle and sheep and
dogs, but never had horse or COW or
sheep or a dog that was so stupid it did not
know enough to come in when it rained.
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 mirthfulness on the
part of infidels. If they knew as much He
brew as you could put on your little finger nail
they would have known that that word trans
lated window there means window course, a
whole range of lights. Those ignorant 1nfdels
do not know window pane from 70 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 per-
ished from suffocation, 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.
were kept nearly month with the matches
down because of some long storm.
GEOGRAPHICAL IGNORANCE.
Then infidels say that the ark landed on a
mountain 1900 feet nigh, and that, of course,
as soon as the animals came forth they would
all be frozen in the ice. That is geographical
ignorancel Ararat is not merely the name for
a mountain but for a hilly district and it may
have been hill 100 feet high, or 500, or 1000
feet high on which the ark alighted. Noah
measured the depth of the water above the
hill, and it is Is cubits, or q 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 terrific
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 boat on the
river, and even the dumb creatures were SO
affrighted 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 food entirely All ages and all
literatures have traditions, broken traditions,
indistinct traditions, but still traditions. The
old books of the Persians tell about the food
at the time of Ahriman, who so polluted the
earth that il 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 out
the birds went forth, and they came back and
their claws were tinged with mud. Lucian
and Caid, celebrated writers 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 him in pairs.
So all lands and all ages, and all literatures,
seem to have a broken and indistinct tradition
of a calamity which Moses, here Incorporating
Noall's account, so grandly so beautifully, so
accurately, so solemnly records.
My prayer is that the God who created the
world may create us anew in Christ Jesus; and
that the God who made light three days before
the sun shone may kindle in our hearts light
that will burn on long after the sun has ex-
pired; and that the God who ordered the ark
built and kept open more than 100 years that
the antediluvians might enter it for shelter,
may graciously incline us TO accept the invita-
ton which this morning rose in music from the
Throne. saying: 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 victory. Infidel scientists declare that an
But if a man have brain and
strength enough to make a clock, can he not
start it and stop it, and start it again and stop
it again? If machinist have strength and
brain enough to make a corn thresher, can he
not start it and stop it, and start it again and
stop it again? If God have strength and wis
dom to make the CLOCK of the universe, the
great machinery of the worlds, has He not
strength enough and wisdom enough to start it
and stop it, and start it again and stop it again?
Or stop one wheel, or stop 20 wheels, or stop all
the wheels? Is the clock stronger than the clock
maker?. Does the corn thresher know more
than the machinist? Is the universe mightier
than its God? But people ask how could the
moon have been seen to stop in the daytime?
Well, if you have never seen the moon in the
daytime, it is because you have not been very
diligent observer of the heavens. Beside that,
it was not necessary for the world literally to
stop. By unusual refraction of the suns rays
the day might have been prolonged. So that
while the earth continued on its path in the
heavens, it fguratively stopped.
You must remember that these Bible authors
used the vernacular of their own day, just as
you and l say the sun went down The sun
never goes down. We simply describe what
appears to the human eye. Besides that, the
world. our world, would have literally stopped
without throwing tie universe out of balance
Our world has two motions-the one around
the sun and the other on its own axis 1t
might have stopped on its own axis, while at
the same time it kept on its path through the
heavens. So there was no need of stellar con-
fusion because our world slackened its speed
or entirely stopped in its revolution on its own
axis. That is none of the business of Jupiter,
or Mars, or Mercury, or Saturn, or the Dipper.
Beside that, within the memory of man there
have been worlds that were born and that died.
A NEW WORLD.
a lew years dsO deIIOuOuSIS IeleBIdpneQ,
through the Associated Press, to all the world
the astronomers from the city of Washing
another world had been discovered.
Within a comparatively short space of time,
tell us, IL worlds have burned
down. From their observatory they notice
first that the worlds look like other worlds,
then they became a deep red, showing they
were on fire; then they became ashen, showing
they were burned down; then they entirely dis
showing that even the ashes were
scattered. Now, say, if God can start world,
and swing a world, and destroy world, he
could stop one or two of them without great
deal of eXertion, or he could by unusual refrac-
tion of the suns rays continne the illumination.
But infidel scientists say il would have been
belittling for other worlds TO stop on
account of such battle. Why, sirs, what
Yorktown was for revolutionary tmes and
what Gettysburg was in our civil contest, and
what Sedan was in the Franco-German war,
and what Waterloo was in the Napoleonic des-
tiny-that was this battle of Joshua against
the five allied armies of Gideon. 1t was that
battle that changed the entire course of his
tory. 1t was battle TO Joshua as important
as though a battle now should occur in which
England and the United States and France and
Germany and Italy and Turkey and Russia
should fight for victory or annihilation. How