The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-04-10

| QeSn.
Years ago was on steamer on the river
Tay, and came to Perth, Scotland. goi
off, and I saw the most wonderful agricul-
tural show that have ever witnessed. There
were horses and cattle such as Rosa Bonheur
never sketched and there were dogs such as
the loving pencil of Edwin Landsser never
portrayed, and there were sheep and fowl
that 1.-TWO and two' Of all the
creatures of that agricultural show
were put upon the Tay steamer to bt
transported to Dundee, and the next day
should be writing home to America and Civ
ing an account of the occurrence. I would
have used the same general phraseoiogy that
| Noah used in regard to the enlbarkation of
the brute creation In the ark-I would have
said that thev went in two and two Of every
sort would not have meant six hundred
thousand A common sense man myself, l
would suppose that the people who read the
letter were common sense psop!e.
"But how could you get them into the
ark" ask infidel scientists. "How could
they be induced to go into ths ark. He
would havo 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 neces-
sary. Have you never been in the country
up and heard the cattle moan at the bars to
get in? and seen the affrightei fowl go upon
| the perch at MONDAY, 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 fever
! places of shelter for dumb beasts. at the NUT
| tering and rumbling and flashing and auak-
ing and darkening of all approaching deluge.
the animal creation came moaning and
bleating to the soping embankment reach
ing up to the ancient Great Eastern and
passed in! have owned horses and cattle
and sheep and dogs, but never had a horse
or a cow or a sheep or dog
that was so stupid it did not know
enongh to come in when it rained
And then, that one window in the ark which
afforded such poor ventilation to the crea-
the ark which excites so much mirthfulneSs
on the part of infidels. If they know as
much Hebrew as you could put on
your little finger nail they would have
known that that word translated win
dow. there means window course. a
whGe range Of lights Th9ss ignoranff tin; in,
twenty windows So if there is any criticism
of the ark, there seems to be too much win
dow for such a long storm. And as to the
other charge that the windows OF the
ark must have been kept Shut and con.
ssquently all inside would have perished
from suffocation, 1 have to say chat
there are people in this house to-day who,
all the way from Liverpool to Barne5at
lighthouse, and for two weeks were kept
under deck, the matches battened down be-
cause Of the storm. Some of you, In the old
time sailing vessels, were kept nearly a
month with the matches down because OF
some long storm.
Then infide,s say that the ark landed on
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 ignorance! Ararat is
not merely the name for a mountain, but for
hilly district, and it may have been hill
one hundred feet high, or five hundred, or a
thousand feet high on which the ark allghted
Noah measured the depth of water above the
hill. and it is fifteen cuoitS, or twelty-ssyen
feet.
Ah! nv 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 ever saw, and the whole country was
flooded. Tue waters came up over the hills,
and to save our lives we got in boat on the
river, and even the dumb creatures was 50
affrighted they cams moaning and b.eatIng,
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 tradi-
tions, indistinct traditions, but still tradi.
tons. The old books of the Persians tell
about the food at the time of Ahriman.
who so polluted the earth that it had
The II traditions ons of the GhsIdeans | 'i say @
that in the time when Xisuthrus was King
there was great food, and he put his family
and his friends in a large vessel and all out
side of them were destroyed, and after
while the birds went forth aud they came
back and their claws were tinged with
mud. Luciaa and Ovid, celebrated writ
erS, who had never seen the Bible
described a food in the time of Deu.
Gallon. He took his friends into boat, and
the animals came running to him in pairs.
So all lands and all ages, and all literatureS
seem to have broken and indistinct tradi.
ton of calamity which Moses, here incor-
porating Noah's account, so grandly, so
beautifully, so accurately, SO so!emnly re-
cords
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 expired; and that the God who or.
dered the ark built and kept open
more than one hundred years that the ante.
graciousy incline us to accept the invitation
which this morning rose in music from the
Throne, saying: "Come thou and al! 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. Inf.
del scientists declare that an impossibllity.
But if q man have brain and strength
enough to make a clock, can he not
start it and stop it, AMI start it again
ard stop it again? If a machiniSt have
strength and brain enough to make corn
thresher can hs not start it and stop it. and
start it again and stop it again! II God have
strength and wisdom to make the cock Of
the universe, the great machinery OF the
AMI wisdom enough to start it and
stop it, and start it again and stop it
agalnt Or stop ono wheel, or stop twenty
wheels, or stop all the wheslS! Is the clock
stronger than the clock-makeri Does the
corn.thresner know more than the machinlst!
Is the universe mightier than its Col?
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 be-
cause you have not been very diligsnt OBJ
server of the heavens. Beside that, it was
not necessary for the world literally to
stop. By unusual refractions Of the suns
rays the day might have been prolonged.
So that, while the earth continued on
its path in the heavens, it figuratiyely
stopped. You must remember that these
Bible authors used the vernacular of their
own day. just as you and say the sun went
down. The sun never goes down. We SIM
ply describe what appears 20 the human eye
Besides that, the world, our world,
could have literally stopped without
throwing the universe out of balance.
Our world has two motions-the
| nd ND tha m re
axis. 1t might have stopped ON its own axis,
/ while at the sams time it kept on its path
| through the heavens. SO there was no neel
| of steller confusion because our world slack