Connecticut western news., 1897-12-23

did those seashells md seaweeus ana skeletons of sea animals get thersS Did you put them there?"
 But now you do not really believe that story about the storm of fire and birthstone whelming Sodom and Go morrah and enwrapping Lots wife in such saline incrustations that she halt ed a sack of saltp For the confirmation of that story the geologist goes to that region, and after trying in vain to take a swim in the lake, so thick with salt he cannot swim it-the lake beneath which Sodom and Gomorrah lie buried one drop of the water so full of sulphur and brimstone that it stings your tongue, and for hours you cannot get rid of the nauseating drop-the scien- tist then digging down and finding sul- phur on top of sulphur, birthstone on top of birthstone, while all round there are jets and crags and peaks of salt, and if one of them did not become the sar- cophagus of Lots wife they show you how a human being might in that tenn. pest have been halted and packed into white monument that would defy the ages.
 But now you do not really believe that New Testament story about the earthquake at the time Christ was crucifed, do you? Geology digs down into Mount Calvary and finds the rocks ruptured and aslant, showing the work of an especial earthquake for that mountain, and an earthquake which did not touch the surrounding region. Go and look for yourself and see there a dip and cleavage of rocks as nowhere else on the planet, geology thns an nouncing an especial earthquake for the greatest tragedy of all the centuries-- the assassination of the Son of God.
 The World on Fire.
 But you do not really believe that story of the burning of our world at the last day? Geology digs down and finds that the world is already on fire and that the center of this globe is inoandes- cent, molten, volcanic, a burning coal, burning out toward the surface, and the internal fires have so far reached the outside rim that do not see how the world is to keep from complete conf1a- grafton until the prophecies concerning it are fulfilled. The lava poured forth from the mouths of Vesuvius, Mount Etna and Cotopaxi and Kilauea Is only the reorganization from an awful inf1am- nation thousands of miles deep. There are mines in Pennsylvania and in sever- al parts of the world that have been on fire for many years. These coal mines burning down and the internal fires of the earth burning up, after awhile these two fires, the descending and the ascend ing, will-meet. and then will occur the universal confagration of which the Bible speaks, when 1t says, 1.-The ele- ments shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are there- in shall be burned up." Instead of dis believing the Bible story about the final confagration, since I have looked lit- tie into geology, finding that its explo- ration are all in the line of confirmation of that prophecy, wonder how this old craft of world can keep sailing on much longer. It is like ship on fire at sea, the fact that the matches are kept down the only reason that it does not become one complete blaze-masts on fire, ratlines on fire, everything from cutwater to taffrail on fire. After geolo- gy has told us how near the internal fires have already burned their way to- ward the surface it ought not to be a surprise to us at any time to hear the ringing of the fire bells of universal conf1agration. Oh, 1 am sc glsS that geology has been bornl Ast1 ~s.~ -uy is grand because it tells us about other worlds, but I must say that am more interested in our world than in any other world, and geology tells us all about what it was, it's cradle and what will be it's grave, and this glorious geol- ogy is proving itself more and more the friend of theology. Thank God for the testimony of the rocks, the Ten Com mnndments announced among the split rocks of Sinai, the greatest sermon of Christ preached on the basaltio rocks of the mount of beatitudes, the Saviour dying on the rocks of Golgotha and buried amid the limestone rocks of Joseph's sepulcher, the last day to be ushered in with rending of rocks and our blessed Lord suggestively entitled the Rock of Ages" this day proclaim the banns of marriage between geolo- gy and theology, the rugged bridegroom and the fairest of brides. Let them join their hands, and "whom God hath joined together let not man put asun- der" ;"
 History of the Earth.
 If anything in the history or oondi- tion of the earth seems for the time contradictory of anything in geology, you must remember that geology Is all the time correcting itself and more and more coming to harmonization with the great book. In the last century the French Scientific association printed a liat of 80 theories of geology which had been adopted and afterward rejected. Lyell, the scientist, announced 50 theo- ries of geology that had been believed in and afterward thrown overheard. Meanwhile the story of the Bible has not changed at all, and if geology has cast out between 100 and 200 theories which it once considered established we can afford to wait until the last theory of geology antagonizing divine revela- tion shall have been given up. Now, in this discourse upon the geology of the | Bible or God among the rocks 1 charge all agitated and affrighted Uzzahs to calm their pulses about the upsetting of the Scriptures. Let me see. For sev- eral hundred years the oxen have been l jerking the ark this way and that and i pulling it over rough places and trying to stick 1t in the mud of derision and kicking with all the power of their hoofs against the sharp goads and try ing to pull it into the cool shade away from the heats of retribution from a God "who will by no means clear the | guilty" Yet have you not noticed that the book has never been upset? The on- | ly changes made in it were by its learn. ed friends in the revision of the Scrip lures. The book of Genesis has been thundered against by the mightiest bat teries, yet you cannot today find in all | tho earth nopy of tho p{hla xub;cb hou a