Connecticut western news., 1893-01-05

the Bible days for the time of the new moon. Think of making one of the watches of the night in Bible times a
 rooster growing. The Bible says, "Be- fore the cock crow thou shalt deny lue ,hrice," If the Master cometh at the
 cockcroving." and that was the way the | midnight watch was indicated. The growing of that barnyard bird has al . ways been most uncertain. The crow ing is at the lowest temperature of the night. and the amount of dew and the di- | rection of the wind may bring the low est temperature at Il o'clock at night or o'clock in the morning, and at any or- of six hours. Just before a rain the growing of chanticleer in the night is al l most perpetual.
 BE THANKFUL.
 Compare these modes of marking time with our modes of marking time, when 12 o'clock is 12 o'clock. and o'clock is o'clock. and 10 o'clock is 10 o'clock. and independent of all weathers. and then thank God that you five now. But not withstanding all the imperfect modes oi marking hours or years or centuries Bible chronology never trips up, never falters, never contradicts itself, and here is one of the best arguments for the authenticity of the Scriptures.
 If you can prove an alibi in the courts, and you can prove beyond doubt that you were in some particular place at the time you were charged with doing or saying something in quite another place, you gain the victory, and intidelity has tried to prove an alibi by contending that events and circumstances in the Bible ascribed to certain times must have taken place at some other time, if they took place at all. But this books chro- nology has never been caught at fault. It has been proved that when the He
 brews went into Egypt there were only
 seventy of them, and that when they
 came out there were 5000 GOO of them.
 "Now." says infdelity. with guffaw
 that it cannot suppress, what an ah
 surdityl They went down into Egypt
 seventy and came but 3.OO0,O GOO. That is
 a falsehood on the face of it. Nations
 do not increase in that ratio." But, my skeptical friend. hold moment. The Bible says the Jews were 430 years in
 Egypt. and that explains the increase from seventy persons to 5000, 900. for it is no more, but rather less. than the or dinary increase of nations. The Pilgrim Fathers came to America in the May
 flower. one small shipload of passengers less than 300 years ago, and now we have nation of 60, COG. .O00. Where, then is so called impossibiity that the seventy Jews who went into Egypt in 43O years
 became 3,0OO,O009 Infidelity wrong and Bible chronology right.
 SPLENDID REVIEW.
 Now stop and reflect. Why is it that this sublime subject of Bible chronology has been 30 neglected. and that the most of you have never given ten minutes to
 the consideration of it. and that this is
 the first sermon ever preached on this stupendous and overwhelming theme2 We have stood by the half day or the
 whole day at grand reviews and seen
 armies pass.
 Again and again and again on the Champs Elysees Frenchmen by the hun.
 dreds of thousands have stood and
 watched the bannered armies go by, and
 the huzza has been three miles long and
 until the populace were so hoarse they
 could huzza no longer. Again and agair
 and again the Germans by hundreds of
 thousands have stood on the palaced and
 statued Unter den Linden, Berlin, and
 strewn garlands under the feet of uni
 formed hosts led on by Won Moltke or
 Butcher or Frederick the Great.
 When Wellington and Ponsonby and
 the Scots Grays came back from Water
 loo. or Wolseley from Egypt, or Marl
 borough from Blenheim, what military
 processions through Regent street and
 along by the palaces of London and over
 the bridges of the Thames! What al
 most interminable lines of military m
 the streets of our American capitals.
 while mayors and governors and presi
 dents, with uncovered heads, looked oni
 But put all those grand reviews to-
 gether. and they are tame compared with
 the review which on this New Years
 day you from the pew and fir pm the
 pulpit witness.
 Hear them pass in chronological order all the years before the flood; all the
 years since the flood; decades abreast;
 centuries abreast; epochs abreast: mil
 lenniums abreast; Egyptian civilization,
 Babylonian populations, Assyrian do- minions; armies of Persian, Grecian. Peloponnesian and Roman wars; Byzan- tine empire. Saracenic hosts, crusaders of the first, the second, third and the last avalanche of men; Dark Ages in somber epaulets and brighter ages with shields of silver and helmets of gold; Italy, Spain, France, Russia. Germany, England and America, past and present; dynasties, feudal domains, despotisms, monarchies republics, ages on ages, ages on ages, passing today in chrono- logical review. until one has no more
 power to look upon the advancing col umns, now brilliant, now squalid, now garlanded with peace, now crimson with slaughter, now horrid with ghastliness,
 now radiant with love and joy.
 THE GLoRIEs OF THE PRESENT. This chronological study affords, among other practical thoughts, espe- cially two-the one encouraging to the
 last degree and the other startling. The encouraging thought is that the main drift of the centuries has been toward
 betterment. with only here and there a
 stout reversal. Grecian civilization was vast improvement on Egyptian civili. 1 zation, and Roman civilization vas: improvement on Grecian civilization, and Christian civilization is vast inn provement on Roman civilization.
 What was the boasted age of Pericles compared with the age of Longfellow
 and Tennyson? What was Queen Eliza
 beth as specimen of moral womanhood
 compared with Queen Victoria? What
 were the cruel warriors of olden times
 compared with the most distinguished warriors of the last half century, all of
 them as much distinguished for kindness
 and good morals as for p, owess--the two military leaders of our civil war ol