The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-12-04


And | wait for light l attiu nothing .
very positively upon these disputed
questions. Mode-ty becomes us all
over things SO remote and recOndite,
but, thus far. the evidence seems to
me in favor of the common reading of
the sacred record. that man was origin
ally made in The image of God.
How to reconcile this with the |
record said to be written in the
drift of the old Ice Age, IN the !
gravel beds of the Sonne, in the
deep silt of the Nile, in the Kitchen
maidens" of the shores of the Baltic, in
the peat beds of Denmark, in the loan
of the Rhine. in the Devonshire caves
and in a hundred other pages of this
unfolding b ,ok OF the earth, do not
quite see as yet. They say that record
is that the human race has been creep
ing up ont of brute-like savagery
through thousands and thousands of
years. But this history says the first
man WAS very good. walking III daily
communion with God. having "domin-
ion over every living thing that movelh
upon the earth. taken into the very
Creators counsels to give names To the
birds oi the air and the beasts of the
field, and hence richly endowed from
the first with this most marvellous gift
of speech. How to reconcile this with
the story of the ice flows, and the caves.
and the kitchen maidens, | do not Ger
tainly know. 1t may he that til, era
from Adam to Noah was longer than the
chronologists make it, giving time for
the scattered race to leave its traces
upon wide regions of the earth. Or
possibly it may yet be found that the
unfinished earth was once peopled by
pre- Adamic race. Or possibly it may
yet appear that the bones of the she'll
mounds and the skulls from the caves are
not so old as we have been imagining
/ do not know. Those questions are not
settled yet. | counsel you to remember
that they are not altogether settled yet
1t is not certain that the piece of pottery
dug up from depth of tbirty-nine feet
out of the delta of the Nile. had
been there 5000 years; for Sir Robert
Stephenson dug out of the same delta.
from deeper depth, brick with the
stamp of Mohamed Ali upon it. 1t is
not certain that the skulls from the
caves are older than the glacial ages.
They found one in California which
they said was dug from under $50 feet
of volcanic deposits, and the State
geologist put it in the State museum,
and heralded to the world that the
Calaveras skull was the oldest human
Uranium known, eating back to the
pliocene ages. But II friend of mine
proved it to be all trick Of Il joking
miner upon his credulous comraue. 1t
is not certain that the stone age was AN
age very far away. Here in Hawaii nei
the stone age was almost within the
memory of living men. 1t is not certain
that the stone age in any given place Is
always the earlier. That is how they
reckon it, you know, the Stone age, the
Bronze age and the Iron age. But DIR.
Schlieman. digging into the ruins of
ancient Troy. found the Stone age way
above the Iron age. At thirteen feet
down he came upon thousands of stone
implements, with scarcely IA trace of
metal, while at twentythree feet down
he came upon the metal. multitudes of
implements and ornaments of copper,
and silver. and gold. of exceeding rich
ness and beauty. There was barbarism
later than civilization. And it may
be that that is the way it las been, the
world over; first a manly race made in
the image of God. fit for IA home in
the Garden of Eden, and fit for the
fellowship of their Maker. but soon
separated from him by sin. and then
going down into barbarism as fast and
as far as they went away from God. |
submit that that is better explanation
of the facts than the other theory of a
brute ancestry and a limitless struggle
up through ages of barbarism into the
light of God. That explains the grand
eur of those ancient empires on the
plains of Shinar and in the valley of
the Nile. Their founders were the near
descendants of Noah who had not yet
H.. ., n,,l I,
ness. And it explains also this other
significant fact, that the degeneracy of
the race has been in proportion to its
distance from that centre of the early
civilization. The farther men wandered
away from the homeland of the race.
the inore they lost the knowledge of
God, and 50 the more. they sunk into
lives of ignorance and animalisn, till,
i'm the jungles of Africa, and among the
wilds of Patagonia, and through all the
mid ocean islands, the race had gone
down to the lowest conceivable saw
agery. Gone down because they had
gone away from God. There is more
evidence OF that tn IN there is of an origi-
nal Simian ancestry. Gone down because
they had gone away from God. And
the way to bring them up again is to
bring them back to Him.
But about Ur of the Chaldees. | have
spoken of it's civilization. 1t was no
mean city for the father of II nation to
be brought up in. And il may explain
something of the nobility of Abram's
character that he was reared in the
presence of those old temples and pal
|, aces. Seventy years, perhaps, he had
gone in and out among the massive halls
, and towers of thar first Chaldean court
, till in snirit ha l,., orown into some
, thing of their stately grandeur. Then
he had learned them; for tradition
says his father was sculptor
And he had studied their astronomy, NJ
, doubt. watching the stars from the TOT
of the great Chaldean towers. He haC
, heard their hymns and had sung then
himself il may be, in the sweet Acca
dian tongue. He had learned their his
tory; for they had history. On the
tablets taken out of the ruins of tina
) old city are found the names of the
Chaldean kings for 1890 years.
So we may well believe it was no
Just simple minded shepherd who
went from Ur of the Chaldees to be tn,
( father of the jewish nation, but a cul
+ tured citizen of cultured city: a MAJ
not only well born, as we know he was
= but well bred, also. and by contact witt
4 that grand old civilization. rounded int
e regal manhood.
I Then there was another factor tina
e entered into Abrams training for hi
: high place and service. Two rival race
= met at Ur of the Chaldees. Very earl
a in their history the defendants of Han
4 had begun to flow back into the oil
y homeland, out of the wilds of Arabia