The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 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
noon 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, aud the amount of dew and the
direction of the wind may bring the
lowest temperature at II o'clock at
night or 2 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 IL o'clock is II o'clock, and 6
o'clock Is o'clock, and 10 o'clock is 10
ers, and then thank God that you live
now. But notwithstanding all the inn
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. fr-
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 ascribed 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 out
there we're 5000, 900 of them.
"Now," says infidelity, with guffaw
that it can not suppress, what an alb
surdity! They went down into Egypt
seventy and came out 5000, 600. That
is 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 43O 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
binary increase of nations. The pilgrim
fathers came to America in the May
flower, one small shipload of pas
sengers, less than 800 years ago,
and now we have nation of 60, 900, 900.
Where, then is so-called impossibility
that the seventy Jews who went into
Egypt in 43O years became 5000, 900?
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 1t, 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
dre6s. of thousands have stood and
watched the bapnered armies go by,
and the huzza Jas 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 garlands under the
feet of uniformed hosts led on by Won
Moltl1e 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 food; decades abreast; |
abreast; epochs abreast; mil |
Ienniums abreast; Egyptian civilization, |
populations, Asyrian do |
armies Of Persian, Grecian, |
Peloponnesian and Roman wars; Byzan-
tine empire, Saracenic hosts, crusaders |
Of the first, the second, third and the |
asst avalanche of men; dark ages in |
,omber epaulets and brighter ages with |
shields of silver and helmets of gold; |
italy, Spain, France, Russia, Germany,
England and America, past and pres
snt; dynasties, feudal domains, despot-
SINS, monarchies, republics, ages on
ages, ages on ages, passing to-day in a
review, until one has no
more power to look upon the advancing
now brilliant, now squalid,
low Rarlanded with peace, now Grim
on with slaughter, how horrid with
yhastliness, now radiant with love and
oy.
This chronological study affords,
Lmong other practical thoughts, espe-
tally two-the one encouraging to the
asst degree and the other startling. The
thought is that the main
lrift of the centuries has been toward
with only here and there a
tout reversal Grecian civilization
vas vast improvement on Egyptian
utilization, and Roman civilization a
asst improvement on Grecian civiliza-
ion, and Christian civilization is vast
on Roman civilization.
What was the boasted age of Peric1es
with the age of Longfellow
nd Tannusnno What was Onean |