Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-01-06


the clock and the watch seem TO have
reached perfection, and all the
nations of Christendom have SINH
larity of time calculations and have
adopted what is called ''New Style"
except Russia, which keeps what is
called the ''Old Style" and is twelve
days different, so that, writing from
there, IL you wish to be accurate, you
date your letter Jan. l and Jan. 12, or
Dec. 10 and Dec. 90. 1t is something
to thank God for that the modes are
SO complete for calculating the
cycles. the centuries, the dec
AIDES, 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
ROSTERS growing The Bible
says, "Before the cock crow thou shalt
deny me thrice;" "If the Master cometh
at cock crowing;" and that was the
way the midnight watch was indi-
Gated. The growing of that barnyard
bird has always been most uncertain.
Compare these modes of marking
time with our modes of marking time,
when 12 o'clock is l2 o'clock, and Is
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
imperfect 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 arguments for the authentic
~ ho va
an alibi in the courts, and you can
some particular place at the
time you were charged with doing
or saying something in quite
another place, you gain the
victory, and infidelity has tried to
events and circumstances in the Bible
ascribed 10 certain times must have
taken place at some other time, il they
took place at all But this Book S
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 were three
millions of them. Now" says Inf
deity, with a guffaw that it cannot
suppress, WIN an
They went down into Egypt seventy
and came out three millions.
That is falsehood on the face of it..
Nations do not increase in that ratio. I"
But, my sceptical friend, hold a
moment. The Bible says the Jews
were 430 years in Egypt, and that ex-
plains the increase from seventy per-
sons to three millions, for it is no more
but rather less than the ordinary in
crease of nations. The Pilgrim Fathers
came to America in the Mayhower, one
small shipload of passengers, less than
800 years ago, and now we have ma.
tion of sixty million. Where then is
the so-called impossibility that the
seventy Jews who went into Egypt in
43r years became three million? In
fidelity wrong and Bible chronology
right.
Now, stop and reflect, why is it that
this sublime subject of Bible chronol-
ogy has been so 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 over.
whelming 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 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, 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 Vor
Moltke or Butcher or Frederick the
Great. When Wellington and Pom
sonby and the Scots Greys came bacli
| from Waterloo, or Wolseley from
Egypt, or Marlborough from Blen
helm, what military procession.
! through Regent Street and along by
| the palaces of London and over the
bridges of the Thames. What almost
interminable lines of military on tn,
streets of all our American capitals
while Mayors and Governors and Pres
idents, with uncovered heads, looked
on. But put all those grand review
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 then
pass in chronological order; all tn,
years before the flood; all the years
since the flood; decades abreast; centu
ries abreast; epochs abreast; millenni
ums abreast; Egyptian civilization
Babylonian populations, Assyrian do
minions, Armies of Persian, Greciar
Peloponnesian and Roman wars
Byzantine Empire. Saracenic hosts
| Crusaders of the First, tn,
! Second, Third and the last-avalanch,
! of men: Dark ages in somber epau
/ lettes and Brighter ages with shield.
of silver and helmets of gold: Italy
| Spain, France, Russia, Germany, Eng
land and America, past and present
| dynasties, feudal domains, despotisms
monarchies, republics, ages on ages
ages on ages, passing to-day in
chronological review, until one has n,
more power to look upon the advanc
! ing columns, now brilliant, nov
squalid, now garlanded with peace
now crimson with slaughter, now hor
rid with ghastliness, now radiant will
love and joy.
This chronological study affords
among many practical thoughts
especially two-the one encouraging /,
the last degree and the other startling
The encouraging thought is that TIL
main drift of the centuries has beer