Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-01-06
THE MARCH OF YEARS
A NEW YEARS SERMON BY THE
REV. TALMAGE.
The Departure OF Friend and the
Entrance of n stranger-The Past and
Present Ages and Time-Flight of
Centuries.

the subject OF his New Years Day sermon,
the Centuries Before the discourse. the great
audience whieh fully crowded the Tabernacle,
sang the hymn
OurGod, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come.
The text chosen was Deut. 81: z: Consider
the years OF many generations"
At IL o'clock last night, while SO
many good people were watching, an
old friend passed out of our homes and
n stranger entered. The old friend
making valedictory was 1892; the
stranger arriving is 1898. The old
friend was garrulous with the occur
rences of many days, but the stranger
put his finger over his lip and said
nothing and seemed charged with
manv secrets and mysteries. did not
see either the departure or the arrival,
but was sound asleep, thinking that
was for me the best way TO be wide
awake now. Goodbye, 1892! Well
come, 1881
AS an army is divided into brigades
and regiments and companies, and
they observe this order in their march,
and their tread is majestic, so the time
of the worlds existence isrdivided into
an army, divinely commanded; the
eras, are the brigades, the centuries
are the regiments, and the years are
the companies Forward into the
eternity past, out of the eternity to
come. Forward! is the command, and
nothing can halt them even though
the world should die. While obeying
my text, Consider the years of many
generations, / propose to speak of the
Chronology of the Bible, or God
among the Centuries"
Il hot
and eternity, but time is only piece
of eternity, and chronology has been
engaged in the s;:blime work of divid-
ing up this portion of eternity that we
call time into compartments, and put
ting events in their right compart-
ments. 1t is as much an injustice
against the past to wrongly arrange
its events, as it would be an injustice
if, through neglect of chronological
accuracy, it should, in the far distant
future, be said that America was dis
covered in 1916 and the Declaration of
/ independence was signed in 1902, and
/ Washington born on the ED of March,
and the Civil War of the United States
was fought in 1910. AS God puts all
the events of time in the right place.
let us be careful that we do not put
them in the wrong place. The chro-
nology of the Bible takes six steps, but
they are steps so long, it makes us
hold our breath as we watch the move
ment From Adam TO Abraham. From
Abraham to the exodus out of Egypt.
From the exodus to the foundation of
Solomon's Temple. From the founda-
ton of Solomon's Temple TO the de-
struction of that temple. From
the destruction OF the temple
to tie return from Babylonish
captivity. From Babylonish cap
tivity to the birth of Christ. Chro-
nology takes pen and pencil and call
ing astronomy and history 10 help, says:
"Let us fix one event, from which to
calculate everything. Lett be a star,
the Bethlehem star, the Christmas
STAR" And from that we go back and
see the world was created 4,004 years
before Christ, the deluge came 2,33s
years before Christ, the exodus out OF
Egypt l,49l years before Christ, and
Solomon's temple was destroyed $50
years before Christ. hronology enters
the first chapter of Genesis and says
the day mentioned there is not day
of twenty-four hours, but oil
ages; the word there translated
as day" in other places meaning
ages, and so the Bible account of the
creation and the biologists account OF
the creation are completely harmoni
GUS Chronology enters the Book OF
Daniel, and says that the words "time
and a-half' mean year and a-half
Chronology enters at another point
and shows us that the seasons of the
year were then only two-summer and
winter. We find that the Bible year
was $50 days. instead of 365; that the
day was calculated from six o'clock in
the morning to six o'clock at night
that the night was divided into -four
watches, namely, the late watch, the
midnight. the cocl1-crowing, the
early watch. The clock and watch
were invented so long after the
world began their mission that
the day was not very sharp.
ly divided in Bible times. Ahaz had q
sun-dial, or a flight of stairs with q
column at the top, and the shadow
which that column threw on the steps
beneath indicated the hour, the shadow
lengthenlng, or withdrawing from
step to step. But the events of life
and the events of the world moved sc
slowly, for the most part, in Bible
times, that they had no need of such
|
or carry in our pockets in an age when
man may have half dozen or a
dozen engagements for one day and
needs to know the exact minute for
each one of them. The earth itself il
Bible times was the chief timepiece
and it turned once on its axis and that
was day, and once around the
sun and that was year
1t was not until the fourteenth
century that the almanac wa.
born, the almanac that we toss care.
lessly about, not realizing that it took
the accumulated ingenuity of more
than 5000 years to make one. Chro
nology had to bring into its service the
monuments of Egypt and the cylin.
ders of Assyria, and the bricks OF
Babylon, and the pottery of Nineveh
and the medals struck at Antioch for
the battle of Actium, and all the hero
glyphics that could be deciphered, and
had To go into the extremely delicate
business of asking the ages OF Adam
and Seth, and Enoch, and Methuselah
who, after their Booth year wanted t.
be thought young. L think it must
have been in recognition of the stu
,pendous work of making an almanac
that all the days of the weel,
/