Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1893-09-23

y
In the Midnight Mission of London2s
nOh, yesl I remember But / see
many witnesses present today in the
courtroom, and call you to the witness
stand, but have only second of time
for any one of you. AS you pass along
Just give one sentence in regard to
Christianity. under God It has
changed my entire nature,H says
one. at brought me from drunken
ness and poverty TO sobriety and
good home," says another. 1T solaced
me when lost my child" says another.
at gave me hope of future treasures
when my property was sweptiof by the
last panic, says another. "1t has given
me peace and O satisfaction more to me
4 than all the world beside, T" says another.
"It has been to me light and music and
/ fragrance and radiant anticipation, "
says another. Ali stop the procession
of witnesses. Enough Enough! All
those voices:of the past and the present
have nightly increased our faith.
TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS.
I Again. our belief is REINFORCED by ar
Theological exploration. We must con-
| TESS that good men at one time were afraid
of biologists hammer and chemists cru
chile and psychologists investigation,
but now intelligent Christians are re.
ceiving and still expecting nothing but
confirmation from all such sources. What
supports the Palestine Exploration soci-
ETY.? Contributions from churches and
Christian benefactors I saw the marks
of the shovels of that exploring society
amid the ruins Of ancient Jericho and
all up and down from the Dead sea to
Casarea Philippi. "Dig awayl' says the
church of God, "and the deeper you dig
the better like"
The discovered monuments of Egypt
have chiseled on them the story of the
sufferings of the Israelites in Egyptian.
bondage as we find it in the Bible
there in imperishable stone, representa-
tons of the slave, of the whips and
of. the taskmasters who compelled the
making of bricks without straw. Ex-
humed Nineveh and Babylon, with their
dusty lips, declare the Bible true. Ma
poleons soldiers in the Egyptian cam
paign pried up stone, which you may
find in the British museum. a stone, as
l remember 1t, presenting perhaps two
feet of lettered surface. Itcontains words
in three languages. That stone was the
key that unlocked the meaning OF all
the hieroglyphics of tombs and obelisks
and tells over and over again the same
events which Moses recorded.
The sulphurous graves Of Sodom and
Gomorrah have been identified. The re-
mains of the tower of Babel have been
found. Assyrian documents lifted from
the sand and Behistun inscription, hun
dreds of feet high up on the rock echo.
and re-echo the truth Of Bible history.
The signs Of the time indicate that al
most every fact of the Bible from lid to
lid will find its confederation in ancient
city disentombed, or ancient wall
cleared from the dust Of ages, or ancient
document unrolled by archeologist.
Before the world rolls on as for into
.hetwentieth century as it has already
.olled into, the nineteenth an infdel
| will be q man who does not believe his
spMns senses and the: olnnes ;noY crit
iCIT a1fu ueff7s DrD1r, II
not entirely devastated by the book
worms, will be taken down from the
shelf as curiosities of ignorance or idiocy.
All success to the pickaxes and crow
bars and powder blasting of those apos-
I ties of archaeological exploration. i like
theringing defiance of the old Huguenots
to the assailants of Christianity: Pound
away, you rebels! Your hammers break.
but the anvil of Gods word stands.
How wonderfully the old book hangs
together. 1t is library made up of SO
books and. written by at least 80 authors.
It is supernatural thing that they have
stuck together. Take the writings of any
other 80 authors, or any 10 authors, or any
S authors, and put them together, and
how long would they stay together?
Books of elegant extracts" compiled
from many authors are proverbially
short lived. Inever knew one such book
which, to use the publishers phrase,
| chad life in it'' for five years.
Why is it that the Bible, made up Of
the writings of at least 80 authors, has
kept together for long line of centu-
ries when the natural tendency would
have been to fly apart like loose sheets of
paper when gust of wind blows upon
them? 1t is because God stuck them to-
gether and keeps them together. But for
that Joshua would have wandered off in
one direction, and Paul into aac!Asf, and
Ezekiel into another, AMI dabakkuk into
another, and the 80 authors into 80 dice
| tons.
Put the writings of Shakespeare aud
I Tennyson snd Longfellow, or any part
of them, together. How long would they
stay together7 No book bindery could
keep them together. But the cannon OF
Scripture is loaded now with the same
ammunition with which prophet and
apostle loaded 1t.
Bring me all the Bibles of the earth
into one pile, and blindfold me so that l
cartnot tell the difference between day
and night, and put into my hand any
ore of all that Alpine mountain "'saored
books, and put my finger on the last page
of Genesis and let me know it, and /
can tell you what is on the next page
! namely, the first chapter Of Exodus; or
| while thus blindfolded put my finger on
the last chapter of Matthew and let me
know it, and / will tell you what Is on
! the nest page-namely, the first chapter
Of Mark. In the pile Of 5O0,0OO,OOO
Bibles there will be no exception. In.
other words, the book gives me conf.
| dence by its supernatural adhesion of
writing to writing.
Even the stoutest shipsometimee shifts
its cargo, and that is what made our
peril the greater In the ship Greece OF
the National line when the cyclone
struck us off the coast of Newfoundland,
and the cargo of iron had shifted as the
ship swung from larboard to starboard,