The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-01-07
A NEW YEARS. SERMON.
DR.. TaImage's Discourse at the
Brooklyn Tabernacle.

Was Regarding "Ihe chronology OF rne
Eible, or God Among the Centuries"
BROOKLYN, Jan. Rev. DR.. Talmage
mis- morning appropriately took for the
ulbiect of his New Years day sermon
1.-THE Chronology of the Bible, or God
Among the Centuries" Before the dis
course the great audience which fully
provided the Tabernacle sang the hymn:
Our God, ouy nelp in ages past,
Our hope tyr years to come.
The text CHOSEN was Deuteronomy
xxi, Z. tCAs1der the years Of many
generations
At IL o'2iock last night, while SO many
good people were watching, an old friend
passed gut of our homes and stranger
snterex. The old friend making valedic-
tory was 1852; the stranger arriving is
kseS The old friend was garrulous with
We occurrences of many days, but the
stranger put his finger over his lip and
said nothing and seemed charged with
many secrets and mysteries. ! did not
zee either the departure or the arrival,
but was sound asleep, thinking that was
for me the best way to be wide awake
aow. Goodby, 1899! Welcome, 1898!
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 is divided into an
sr1ny divinely commanded; the eras are
the brigadss, the centuries are the regi-
ments, 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
sbeying my text, 'sConsider the years of
many generations" propose to speak of
the Chronology Of the Bible, or God
Among the Centuries.
ARRANGING EVENTS.
We make distinction between time
Ind eternity, but time is only piece of
eternity, and chronology has been en-
gagged in the sublime work Of dividing
np this portion Of eternity that we call
lime into compartments and putting
svents in their right compartment. It
Is as much an injustice against the past
% 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 discovered in 1776, and the Declare
lion of Independence was signed in 1892,
and Washington born on the 22d 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
10 not put them in the wrong place. The
chronology Of the Bible takes six steps,
bat they are steps SO long it makes us
hold our breath as we watch the move
inent. From Adam to Abraham. From
Abraham to the exodus out Of Egypt.
from the exodus to the foundation of
r,ololnon's temple. From the foundation
ii Soomons temple to the destruction
pf that temple. From the destruction
Df the temple to the return from Baby
ionish captivity. From Babylonish cap
tiyity to the birth of Christ.
Chronology takes pen and pencil, and
calling astronomy and history to help
says: LET us fix one event from which
to calculate everything. Let it be star,
the Bethlehem star, the Christmas star"
And from that we go back and see the
world was created 1904 years before
Christ; the deluge came 2, 348 years before
Christ; the exodus out Of Egypt occurred
l ,491 years before Christ, and Solomon's
temple was destroyed $50 years before
Christ.
Chronology enters the first chapter of
Genesis and says the day mentioned
there is not day of twenty-four hours,
but of ages, the word there translated as
"day" in other places meaning ages.
and SO the Bible account Of the creation
and the geolegists' account Of the crea-
ton are completely harmonious. Chro-
nology enters the book of Daniel and says
that the words slime and half" mean
D year and half.
Chronology enters at another point
and shows as that the seasons Of the
year were then only MIDSUMMER and
winter. We find that the Bible year was
800 days instead of 365; that the day was
calculated from 6 o'clock in the morning
to O'Clock at night; that the night was
divided into four watches-nanely, the
late watch, the midnight, the cock crow
ing, the early watch. The clock and
watch were invented so long after the
world began their mission that the day
was not very sharply divided in Bible
times. Ahaz had sundial, or fight
of stairs with column at the top, and
the shadow which that column threw on
the steps beneath indicated the hour, the
shadow lengthening or withdrawing
from step to step.
But the events of life and the events
of the world moved so slowly for the
most part in Bible times that they had
no need of such tinepieces as we stand
on our mantels or carry in our pockets
in an age when a man may have half
dozen or dozen engagements for one
day and needs to know the exact minute
for each one of them. The earth itself
in 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.
THE ALMANAC.