The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-01-13

thing to thank God for that the modes
are SO complete for calculating the
cycles. the centuries, the decades, the
years, the months, the days, the hours,
the seconds
Think of making appointments as in
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 me
thrice" IF the Master cometh at the
cockcrowing," and that was the way
the midnight watch was indicated The
Growing of that barnyard bird has
always been most uncertain. The crow
ing is at the lowest temperature of the
night, and the amount of dew and the
direction of the wind may bring the
lowest temperature at IL o'clock at
night or o'clock in the morning, and
at any one of six hours. Just before a
rain the growing of chanticleer in the
night is almost perpetual
Compare these modes of marking
time with our modes of marking time,
when II o'clock is IL o'clock, and 6
o'clock is o'clock, and 10 o'clock is 10
o'clock, and independent of all wealth
ers, and then thank God that you live
now. But Notwithstanding all the i'm
perfect modes of marking hours or years
or centuries Bible chronology never
trips up, never falters, never contradicts
itself, and here is one of the best argu-
ments for the authenticity of the Scrip
lures.
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 do
| ing or saying something in quite an
other place, you gain the victory, and
! infidelity has tried to prove an alibi by
contending that events and circum-
| stances in the Bible aScTibed to certain
times must have taken place at some
other time, if they took place at all.
But this books chronology has never
been caught at fault 1t has been
proved that when the Hebrews went
into Egypt there were only seventy Of
them, and that when they came oat
there were 5000, 900 of them.
Now" says infidelity, with a guffaw
that 1T can not suppress, what an alb
surdity! They went down into Egypt
seventy and came out 5000, 900. That
| is n falsehood on the face of it. Nations
do not increase in that ratio" But, my
i skeptical friend, hold moment The
| Bible says the Jews were 4S0 years in
! Egypt, and that explains the increase
from seventy persons to 100000, for 1t
is no more, but rather less than the or
binary increase of nations The pilgrim
| fathers came to America in the May
| flower, one small shipload of pas
sengers, less than 500 years ago,
and now we have a nation of 60, 600, 900.
| Where, then is so-called impossibility
that the seventy Jews who went into
Egypt in 40 years became 100000?
! Infidelity wrong and Bible chronology
right.
Now stop and reflect Why is it that
this sublime subject of Bible chronology
has been so neglected, and that the
most of You have never given ten min
utes to the consideration OF it, and that
/ this is the first sermon ever preached on
this stupendous and overwhelming
theme? 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
dreGs of thousands have stood and
watched the hammered armies go by,
! and the hdzZa has been three miles long
and until the populace were SO hoarse
they could huzza no longer. Again and
| again and again the Germans by hun
| dreds of thousands have stood on the
| palaced and statued Inter den Linden,
Berlin, and strewn garlan6s under the
feet of uniformed 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
professions through Regent street and
along by the palace of London and over
the bridges of the Thames! What al
most interminable lines of military on
the streets of our American capitals,
while mayors and governors and presi-
dents, with uncovered heads, looked on!
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 l
from 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, Asyrian do
minions; armies of Persian, Greclan,
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 pres
emit: dynasties, feudal domains, despot-
isms, monarchies, republics, ages on
ages, ages on ages, passing to-day in a
chronological review, until one has no
more power to look upon the advancing
columns. now brilliant. now squalid,
now garlanded with peace, now Grim
son with slaughter, how horrid with
ghastliness. now radiant with love and
JOY.
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
civilization. and Roman civilization a
vast improvement on Grecian civiliza-
ton, and Christian civilization IS vast
Improvement on Roman civilization.