The Forrest City times., 1892-01-15
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
rALmAcE ON THE sUN-DIAL OF
 AHAZ.
A sermon Fall of Brightness and Good Chesr-Moraltxing On the Flight Of Time at the Close of Each Year.

| Talmage's sermon this morning was | full of brightness and good cheer. He
 might have called it a recipe for happi-
 ness The buoyancy and elasticity of
 temperament which characterize him were conspicuous throughout and must have been imparted to his hearers His text was: ii, Kings 20:1l, And Isaiah, the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees
 backward by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz."
 Here is the first clock or watch or chronome- ter or time-piecc of which the world has any knowledge. But it was a watch that did not tick and clock that did not strike. It was sun-diaL Ahaz, the King, invented if Between the hours given to statecraft and the cares of ofnce he invented something by which he could tell the time of day This sun-dial may have been great column. and when the shadow of the column reached one point 1t was o'clock am, and when it reached another point it was so'ciock ?. m. and all the hours and half hours were so measured Or it may have been flight of stairs such as may now be found in HiEdustan and other old countries, and when the shadow reached one step it was 10 o'clock nm, or another step it was o'clock ? n.t and likewise other hours may have been indi- cated-
 The clepsydra or water-clcck followed the sun-dial. and the sand-glass followed the cleo- sydra Then came the candle-clock of Alfred the Great and the candle was marked into three parts, and while the first part was burning he gave himself to religion and while the second part was burning he gave himself to politics and while the third part was burning he gave himself to rest After awhile came the wheel and weight clock and Pope Sylvester ths Stc- ond was its most important inventor. And the skill of centuries of exquisite mechanism toiied at the tine-pieees until the world had the vick's clock of the Fourteenth century, and Huyghens the inventor swung the first pendulum, and Dr. Hooke contrived the recoil escaremcnt And the endless chain followed, and the ratchet and pinion lever" took its | place; and the compensation balance and the | stem winder followed. and now we have the | buzz and clang of the great clock and watch | factories of Switzerland and Germany and Eng | land and America turning out what seems to be
 the perfection of timepieces- It took the world e,0oo years to make the present chonometer. ! So with the measurement Of longer spaces | than minutes and hours. Time was | calculated from new moon to new moon: then | from harvest to harvest Then the year was | pronounced to be 354 days and then 3do days | and, not until a long while after, 3S5 days. Then events were calculated from the founda- | tion of Rome, afterward from the Olympic | games Then the Babylonians had their meas urement of the year and the Romans theirs and | the Armenians theirs and the Hfndoos theirs. | Chronology was busy for centuries studying I monuments, inscriptions, coins, mummies and astronomy, trying to lay plan by which | all question Of dates might be settled | and events put in ther right place in the \ procession of the ages. But the chronologists ! only heaped up mountain of confusion and | bewilderment until in the sixth century Dio- | nysius Exiguus, Roman abbot, said, Let | everything date from the birth at Bethlehem | hQ 0f Q | world" The abbot proposed to have things dated backward and forward from that great event What splendid thought for tho worldl What mighty thing for Christianity It would | have been most natural to date everything from | the creation of the world. But l am glad the chronologists could not too easily guess how old the world was in order to get the nations in the habit of dating from that occurrence | in it's documents and histories. For | ever fixed is it that all history Is to
 be dated with reference to the birth of Christ, and, this matter settled, Hales, the chief chro- nologist, declared that the world was made 5,4il years before Christ, and the deiuge came
 s,155 years before Christ, and all the illus trous | events of the last nineteen centuries and all the great events of all time to come have been | or shall be dated from the birth of Christ These things say that you may know what | watch is, what a clock is, what an almanac is,
 and learn to appreciate through what tolls and | hardships and perplexities the world came 10 | it's present conveniences and comforts, and to help you to moro respectful consideration Of
 that sun-dial of Ahaz planted in my text.
 We are told that Hezekiah the King. was l dying of boil. It must have been one of the | worst kind of carburcles, boil without any central core and sometimes deathful 4 fig \ was put upon 1t as pcultice. Hezekiah did l not want to die then. His son who was to take | the kingdom had not yet been born and Heze- | kiah death would have been the death of the | nal So ha rra and fS fold | he will get we'll But he wants some miracu- | lous sign to make him sure of it. He has the | choice of having the shadow on the sundial of | Ahaz advance or retreat He replied 1t would | not be so wonderful to have the sun go down, | for it always does go down sooner or later. He l asks that 1t go backward, in other words, let | the day instead of going on toward sundown, | turn and go toward sunrise. I see the invalid I King bolstered up and wrapped in blankets | looking out of the window upon the sun-dial in the courtyard. While he watches the shadow ! on the dial the shadow begins to retreat In- | stead of going on toward six o'clock in the | evening it goes back toward six o'clock in the | morning. The fig poultice had been drawing for some time and, sure enough the boil broke | and Hezekiah got we'll Now I expect you will come on with your higher criticism and try to explain this away and say it was an optical de- lasion of Hezekiah. and the shadow only seemed to go back cloud came over and it was uncertain which way the shadow did 20 | and as Hezekiah expected 1t to go back he took
 | the action of his own mind for the retrograde
 movement. No; the shadow went back on all
 l the dials of that land and other lands Turn to
 H. Chron- S2 3i, and find that away of in Baby
 lon the mighty men of the palace noticed the
 same phenomenon And if you do not like bible
 | authority, turn over your copy of Herodotus
 and find that away on in Egypt the people mo-
 | ticed that there was something the matter with
 the sun. The fact is that the whole universe
 | waits upon cd and suns and moons and stars
 are not very big things to him. and he can with his little finger turn back an entire world as easily as you could set back the hour hand or | minuteband of your clock or watch.
 At the opening of new year people are nor | aiizing the flight of time You all feel that | you are moving on toward sundown and many | of you are under consequent depression. l | propose this morning to set the hands on your | watches and clocks to going the other way. I | propose to show you how you may make the | shadow of your dial like the shadow the dial | of Ahaz to stop going forward and make 1t go | backward. You think I have big un- | dertaking on hand but 1t can be | done if the same Lord who reversed the
 shadow in Hezekiahs courtyard moves upon us. | While looking at the sun-dial Of Hezekiah and ! we find the shadow retreating. we ought 10 | learn that God controls the shadows We are | all ready to acknowledge his management cf | she sunshine. We stand in the glow of bright | morning and we say in our feelings if not with | 50 many words, This life is from God, this warmth is from God" Or, we have a rush of | prosperity and we say, These successes are | from God What providential thing it was | bought that lot just before the rise of real | estatei How grateful to God am that made that investment Why, they have declared