The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1889-03-30

Those ignorant infidels do not know q
window pane from twenty windows.
Then the infidels say that the ark landed
a mountain 1900 feet high, and that,
of course, as soon as the animals came
forth they would all be frozen in the ice.
is geographical ignorancel Ararat
is not merely the name for a mount
ain, but for a billy district, and it
may have been a hill 100 feet high, or 500,
or 1000 feet high on which the ark allght-
Noah measured the depths of the
water above h hill, and it is fifteen
cubits, or twenty-seven feet.
All! my friends, this story of the ark is
no more incredible than IL you say to me:
Last summer l was among the hills Of
New England, and there came on the most
terrific storm 1 ever saw, and the whole
country was flooded. The waters came
up over the hills, and to save our lives we
got in a boa on the river, and even the
dumb creatures were so a~ffrightened they
came moaning and bleating until we let
them in the boat"
We are not dependent upon the Bible
for the story of the flood entirely. All
ages n all l~iteratures have traditions,
broken traditions, indlstinct traditions,
but still traditions. The old books Of the
Persians tell about the nood at the time of
Ahriman, who so polluted the earth that
it had to be washed by a great storm.
The traditions of the Chaldeans say that
in the time when Xisuthrus was King
there was n great flood, and he put his
family and his friends in a large vessel
and all outside of them were destroyed,
and after a while the birds went forth and
they came back and their claws were
tinged with mud. Lucian and Ovid, cell
nhrofad NurttarG uyhn Ind nnNyAf Cnan tho
Bible, described a flood in the time Of
Deucalion. He took his friends into a
boat, and the animals came running to
him in pairs. So oil hands, and all ages,
and all literatures, seem to have a broker
and indistinct tradition of n calamity
which Moses, here incorporating Noah's
account, so grandly, so beautifully, so ac-
curately, so solemnly records.
Another hard thing to be understood {:
The story that the sun n moon stood
still to allow Joshua to complete his VIC
tory. Infidel scientists declare that an
impossibility. But If q man have brain
and strength enough to make a clock, can
he not start 1t and stop it, and start it
again and stop it again? If God had
strength and wisdom to make the clock of
the universe, the great m 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 twenty wheels, or stop
all the wheels? Is the clock stronger than
the clockmaker? Does the corn thresher
know more thar the machinist? Is the
universe mightier than its God? But peo-
pie ask how could the moon have been seen
to stop in the daytime? Well, il you have
never seen the moon in the daytime it is be-
cause you have not been a very diligent
observer of the heavens. Beside that, it
was not necessary for the world literally
to stop. By unusual refraction of the
SUMS rays the day might have been pro-
Ionged. So that, while the earth continued
on it's path in the heavens, it figuratively
stopped. You must remember that these
Bible authors used the v~ernacular of their
own day, Just as you and 1 say the sun
went down. The sun never goes down.
We simply describe what appears to the
human eye.
Beside that. within the memory of man
there lave been worlds that were born
and that died. A few years ago astrom-
ers autographed, through the Associated
Press, to all the world-the astronomers
from the City Of Washington-that an
other world had been discovered. Within
a comparatively short space of time,
astronomers tell us, thirteen worlds have
burned down. From their observatory
they notice first that the worlds look like
other worlds, then they become q deep
red, showing they were on fire; then they
became ashen, showing they were burned
down; then they entirely disappeared,
showing that even the ashes were scat
tered. Now, I say, If God can start q
world, and swing a world, and destroy a
world, He could stop one or two Of them
without a great lea of exertion, or He
could by unusual refraction of the SUMS
rays, continue the illumination. But
infidel scientists say 1t would
have been belittling for other worlds
to stop on account OF sue a battle. Why,
sirs, what Yorktown was for revolution
airy times, and what Gettysburg was in
our civil contest, and what Sedan was in
the Frauco-German war, and what
Waterloo was in the Napoleonic destiny
that was this battle'of Joshua against tn g
five allied armies of Gideon. 1t was that
battle that changed the entire course of
history.
In the early part of this century there
was what was called the dark day. Some
of these aged men perhaps remember it,
1t was known in history as the Ozark
day" Workmen at noon went to their
Il IOllCo auu SOu4D VI dlu hcklSltUuTtS du-
journed. No astronomers have ever beer
able to explain that dark day. Now, II
God can advance the night earlier than It's
time, can He not adjourn the night unit
after its time? I often used to hear my
father describe a night think he said 1
was in 1S33-when his neighbors arouset
him in great alarm. All the heavenly
bodies seemed to be in motion. Peopl
thought our earth was coming to its de
struction. Tens of thousands of star
shooting. No astronomers have ever beer
able to explain that star shooting. Now
does not your common sense teac
you that il God could start and sto]
tens of thousands of worlds or meteors
He could start and stop two worlds? !
Goo can engineer y train of 10, 900 world
or meteors, and stop them without acct
dent or collision, can not He control tw
carriages of light, and by putting down
golden brake stop tine moon? Under thi
explanation, instead of being skeptica
about this sublime passage Of the Bible
you will, when you read it, feel more lk
going down OIL your knees before God a
you read: "Sun, stand thou still abov
Gideon, and thou moon in the valley Q
Ajalon."
Then there is the Bible statement hat
whale swallowed Jonah and elected hir
upon the dry ground in three days. i
you Will go the museum at &~autucket
Mass, you will fine q whale large enougt
to swallow a man. 1 said to the j~nitol
while l was standing in the museum
why it does not seem from the looks o
this skeleton that that story in the bool
OF Jonah is so very improbable, does it?'
U, no." he replied. ut does not" Their
is a cavity in the mouth of the commo
whale large enough for q man to live In
Beside that, the Bible says nothing abou
a whale. 1t says, "The Lord prepared
great fish," and there are scientists VIII
tell US that there were sea monsters /
other days that max the modern whal
seem very Insignificant. 1 know in on
place in the New Testament it speaks O
the whale as appearing in the occurrenc
1 have just mentioned, but the word ma
just as we'll be translated 'sea monster"-
any kind OF sea monster. Procupius say
in the year 532, q sea monster was slai
which had for fifty years destroyed ship
/ suppose this sea monster that took car
Of Jonah may have been one of til
great sea monsters that could hav
easily taken down a prophet, an
he could have lived there three days
he had kept in motion so as to kee
the gastric juices from taking hold {
him and destroying him, and at the end
three days the monster would NATURAL
be sick enough to regurgitate Jonah. b
side that, my friends, there Is one wor
which explains the whole thing. It says
"The Lord prepared a great fish," II
ship carpenter prepare a vessel to carr
Texan beeves to Glasgow, I suppose 1t ca
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