The record-union., 1896-12-20

tory of the church. Every one knows
how low was the condition of religion
at the beginning of the century in this
country. Only about to 14.5 Of the in
habitants was a communicate; New
England town of 1000 inhabitants
might not have church membership of
more than twenty or thirty. According
to the statistics in DR.. Dorchester's S
Problem of Religious Progress the
ratio of Protestant evangelical COM
municants to the population of this
country was. in 1850, to 6.57 inhab-
itants; in 1870, to 5.7S; in 1880, to 5,
and in 1890, to 453. The increase
would be- much more impressive if his
figures included the Catholic communi-
cants. We have as good reason to be-
lieve that the church membership of the
present day represents converted peo-
pie as we had that such was the fact
thirty or fifty or one hundred years
ago"
'Those who deny the reality Of the
prophetic element, not only reject the
Holy Scriptures" says the New York
Outlook" but reject also the clear and
significant drift of human history. AS
the work of divine mind the uni
verse must, In the very nature OF
things, be a revelation Of that mind.
1t not only declares that there is such
a mind, but it throws light on the laws
of that mind. In like manner, the life
of men, being lived under conditions
provided by divine intelligence, con-
stantly betrays the presence of that in
telligence, and by it's very progression
points onward to a fuller disclosure OF
it's designs. The method of evolution,
once ignorantly pronounced irrelig-
ious, is prophetic in every stage and
moment of it's sublime movement; it is
prophecy wrought into the very fiber
of the universe. Those who run, if they
run with wide open eyes, can read its
message of consolation and promise;
whoever looks at it through the spirit
ual sense sees the whole universe light
ed by it from end to end with the glory
of the Lord and the promise of His
coming. And whoever reads intelll-
gently the history of the older world
finds it full of silent preparation for
the coming of the Christ. Out of all
its confusions, it's ignorance, and its
strife a great order was nOiSelssly
wrought out and Christ came at a mo-
ment when the roads were open to the
feet of His disciples to all parts of the
civilized world. He came, too, at a
moment when the ancient race pref
udices were so far relaxed that new
truth had a chance of worldwide ac-
IL tbo oil
was on the verge of final disruption,
and when a new principle of organiza-
ton was imperatively needed"
Speaking of the discoveries of Pro-
fessor Hilprecht in the ruins OF Nip
pur, the New York Christian Intelli-
gencer" (Ref) says: THE fallacy of
such reasoning as Professor Hilprecht
has INDUCED in rests upon the unpro-
ven and unprovable hypothesis that
man rose by slow and gradual ad-
vances from a condition of savagery.
The discoveries now announced, as in
deed all the established facts of arch
aeology, favor on the contrary the
Biblical view that man began with
more perfect powers and in a higher
type than he retained, and his history
is one of decline quite as generally as
Of advance. AS an instance, not many
years ago it was asserted that the
Pentateuch could not have been writ
ten by Moses, because writing at that
date was too crude and not generally
diffused 1t did not need Professor Hill
prechts recent discoveries to show the
groundlessness of this argument.
Egypt, Assyria, and Palestine have
long ago furnished the proof of a
at very early period than at many a
later date. No lover of the Bible or
believer in its inspiration need be dis
turbed by these discoveries. If the
largest claims become established they
will do nothing more than confirm what
students of the Word from internal ev-
idence have long concluded, that it is
no purpose of the inspired writer's to
furnish data on which any system of
worldchronology can be built. In fact,
it would seem the spirit guided them
so to write that the record should
never be confounded with ordinary his
tory, or be used as a mere chronicle,
but be always a divine unveiling of
Gods dealings with men, in which time
is an altogether subordinate factor-a
continuous reminder that with God one
day is as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day."