The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-01-04

o'clock is II o'clock, and o'clock is
o'clock, and 10 O'Clock is 10 o'clock, and in
dependent of all weathers, and then thank
God that you live now But notwithstand-
ing all the imperfect modes of marking
hours OF years or centuries Bible chronol
ogy never trips up, never falters, never con
tradicts itself, and here is one of the hest
arguments 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 doing or saying
something in quite another place, you gain
the victory, and infdelity has tried 20 prove
an alibi by contending that events and cir
cumstances in the Bible ascribed to certain
times must have taken place at some other
time, if they took place NJ all. But this
books chronology has never been caught at
fault. II has been proved that when the
Hebrews went into Egypt there were only
seventy of them, and that when they
came out there were 100000 of them.
Now" says infidelity, with guffaw that
it cannot suppress what absurdity
They went down into Egypt seventy and
came out 3,0OO,OO0 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 $50 years in
Egypt and that explains the increase from
seventy persons to 3.OOO,O0O, for it is no
more, but rather less, than the ordinary in
crease of nations The Pilgrim Fathers
cstme TO America in the Mayfiower-one
small shipload of passengers-less than 300
years ago, and now we have nation OF 90,
100000. Where, then, is the so called impos-
sibility that the seventy Jews who went
into Egypt in $50 years became 3,O00O00l
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 minutes to the con
sideration 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 hundreds Of thousands
have stood and watched the hammered
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 again and again the Germans
the palaced and statued Inter den Linden,
Berlin, and strewn garlands under the feet
of Uniformed hosts led on by Won Moltke
or BluctsV r. Frederick the Great. When
Wellington ssnd PonSonby and the Scots
GreyS came back from Waterloo, or Wolse-
ley from Egypt, OF Marlborough from Blen-
helm, what military professions through
Regent street and along by the palaces of
London and over the bridges OF the Thames!
What almost interminable lines Of military
on the streets OF all our American capitals,
while mayors and governors and presidents,
with uncovered heads looked on! But put
all those grand reviews together. and they
are tame compared with the review which
ON this New Years day you from the pew
and from the pulpit witness.
Hear them pass III chronological order
ali the years before the food all the years
since the food decades abreast; centuries
abreast, epochs abreast; millenniums
abreast; Egyptian civilization, BabylOnian
populations, Assyrian dOminions, armies Of
Persian GreCian, Pelopounesian and Roman
wars; byzantine empire, Saracenic host,
crusaders of the first the second, third
and the last-avalauche of men. Dark Ages
in somber epauets and brighter ages
with shields of silver and helmets of gold
Italy, Spain, France, Russia, Germany,
England and America, past and present
dynaStics. feudal domains, despotisms.
mOnarchieS republics, ages on ages, AGES
on ages, passing today in a chronological
review. until one has 10 more power to
look upon the advancing columns, now
brilliant, now squalid, now garlanded with
peace, now crimson with slaughter, now
horrid with ghastliness, now radiant with
love and Joy.
TIIE WORLD GETTING BETTER.
This chronological study affords among
many practical thoughts especially two
the one encouraging 10 the last degree and
the other startling The encouraging
thought II that the main drift of the cen
turtles has been toward betterment, with
only here and there II stout reversal. Gre
clan civilization WAS a vast Improvement
on Egyptian civilization, and Roman civil
liZation vast improvement on Grecian civ
ilizatiOn. and Christian civilization is a
vast improvement on Roman civilization.
What WAS the boosted age of Percles com
pared with the age Of lOngfellow and Ten
nysOnf What was Queen Elizabeth ~ a
specimen Of moral womanhOOd compared
with Queen Victorian 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 PROV
ess-the two military leaders Of our civil
war on northern and southern side com
municant members OF Christian churches
and their home life ~ pure ~ their public
hfei
Nothing impresses me IN this chronology
ical review more than the fact that the
regiments OF years are better and better
regiments ~ the troops move on. ! thank
God that you and were not born any soon
eT than we were born. How could we have
endured the disaster of being born in the
Eighteenth or Seventeenth or Sixteenth
century, Glad am | that we are IN the
regiment now passing the reviewing stand
and that our children will pass the stand
in a still better regiment. God did not
build this world for u slaughter house or a
den of infamy
a good deal of cleaning house will be nee
essaFy before this world becomes as clean
and sweet as it ought to be, but the brooms,
and the scrubbiHg brushes. and the uphol-
sterers and plumbers are already busy, and
when the world gets fixed up as il will be
if Adam and Eve ever visit it, rs ! expect
they will, they will say to each other, well.
this beats paradise when we lived there,
and the pears and the plums are better than
we plucked from the first trees, and the
wardrobeS are more complete. and the eli
mate is better" Since / settled In my own
mind the tact that God was stronger than
the devil / have never lost faith in the en-
paradisation OF the planet With the excep-
ton Of retrOgressiOn in the Dark Ages
the movement of the world has been on
and on, aud up and up, and have two ju-