Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-10-09
PRAYER AND PLAGUE.
Distinction Better Than Devotion
With Which to Meet Cholera.
WORK OF TIE PROPHET JOEL.
His Call for Religious Ceremonials in; thu
Face of the Locusts.
FACTS ON THE ANCIENT PREACHER.
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH,

of the things that we do not know about the
Prophet Joel.
In the first place we do not know what
'JoePs name was. 1t may have been Joel.
That is what one would naturally think.
have been Joel any moro than Malachi
name was Malachi. Some one may have
found these old, sermons, anonymous as SO
much old writing was, and with the authors
name forgotten, and have put this name at
the beginning of them, because they con.
sidered it good name. It 10 not likely,
in any case, that the man who wrote this
book had better name than Joel. The
name means "the man whose God is Jeho-
yah" and he is distinguished as the son Of
Pethuel, "the man who has been persuaded
by God" Out of heaven there has some.
how shined for this man the very truth Of
God. Others may have fallen amidst the
manifold temptations of the time, and have
chosen some of the more popular creeds
which named some other than Jehovah as
the one true God. Here is faith, here is
loyalty, here is unfaltering allegiance, in
this man who has chosen for himself whom
he will serve, and he has chosen well.
Championing the Unpopular Side.
What a difficult choice tina. was and is!
How hard to stand for unpopular truthl
We breathe the same air that other people
breathe; how can we keep from talking the
same language and speaking it with the
same accent and saying the same things? 1t
seems fine thing, that attitude Of Athana-
sius when he stood, as it seemed, against
the world But how hard to take that atti-
tude and keep it! When the, thermometer
in the street goes down below zero how
shall we keep our own thermometer up in
the nineties? When everybody else is cold
how,can we be warm? In the midst of un-
belief. how shall we believe?
We all know, more or less abundantly
and. accurately, how.these questions try us
and find weakness in us And we are all
able in some degree to appreciate the
splendid audacity, the deep faith. the fine
assurance and the courage of the man who
upholds his own convictions in the face of
general contradiction. The man who wrote
this book and bears this name, whether his
mother gave him the name or not, deserves
our admiration. He was the ''man whose
God is Jehovah" altogether good kind of
man. Really, it matters not at all what
the mans name was. 1t may have been
Joel; it may have been James or John.
Who cares?
Judging Things on Their Merits.
A great portion of Holy Scripture is
anonymous Who wrote the Psalms? A
few have name set to them, but the ma
jority are unsigned and without mark of
authorship. Do we get help from Psalm
In, 70 h.efo n
does it matter not at all; the Psalms helping
US just because they are helpful? Nobody
is absolutely certain about the authorship
OF the Epistle; to, the Hebrews, except that
it was not written by St. =, Paul. The Old
Testament histories are mostly without
signature, their authors quite forgotten.
But do we read these books with less inter-
est or get less good out ot-them? We have
our opinion of people who reserve their
opinion of.a beautiful piece of china until
they have turned it over to look at the mark
on the bottom. And we have much the
same opinion of those whose interest in a
beautiful picture is determined altogether
by the little scribble in the. corner which
tells the artists name. And we ought to
have an opinion not at all different of the
readers of the Bible who think more about
questions of authorship than they do about
the books themselves.
1t is good thing that so many of the
books of the Bible are anonymous, for thus
they come to us commended not by the au-
thority of the authors reputation, but by
their own intrinsic merit. If these sermons
which are here written under the name of
Joel are really anonymous, so much the
better must they be. For only good SER
mons could have lasted as these have lasted.
A Difference as to Dates.
Here is second thing that we do not
know about the Prophet Joel. We do not
know when the preacher of these sermons
lived. All the scholars have their guesses
at the date, but the guesses are some of
them 400 years apart And that is long
time, as long as from Chaucer's day to Ten
nyson's. 1t is as if, some time in the dis
tant future, someone should discover vol
ume OF Surgeons sermons, and there
should be discussion among the critics as
to whether the writer lived in the time OF
the discovery of America or in the time of
the opening up of Darkest Africa. You
see how old these last books of the Old
Testament are 1t makes one think of the
fixed stars, which indeed look to be side BY
side in the night sky, when one may be a
million miles farther from US than its neigh
bor Shall we put Joel with the earlier or
with the later prophets? Did he write in
Uzziah's day, contemporary with Amos, or
in Nehemiah's day, coremporary with Nal
achi7
The latest judgment favors the latest
date. The argument is chiefly one of
silence. : It is based upon the things which
Joel does. not say Thus he never men,
.tions the Northern Kingdom. The infer
ence is that that kingdom had ceased to e1-
ist. He has no reproofs for ldola,ry.
Whereas until the return from exile the
Hebrews found fascination in idols, and
we're all the time falling into that strange
temptation. He seems to know no king.