Connecticut western news., 1900-06-28

sands or years ago they are ulstn guishable, they are kept separate until the Lord takes them to their native land.
 How could those old prophets fore tell that? How could they know that thousands of years ago? Was it mere human skill? Could you have seen so far ahead? Could you have predicted like 1t? Those old prophets stood looking down In the great fu- ture and said Messiah would be born in a certain nation, in Il certain tribe, in a certain family, in certain place, at a certain time, thousands of years ahead Ages rolled on, ages on ages, and after awhile Christ, the only one who has been called Messiah by any great number of people-Christ was born in that very nation predicted, In that very tribe, In that very family, In that very place, at that very time. Could human skill have predicted 1t! Does not that prove beyond all contro- version and beyond all doubt that those prophets were inspired of the Lord looking down in the future and seeing thousands of years ahead occurrences to take place, just as plain ly as I see your faces this morning.
 Well" says some one, now 1 am ready to take the New Testament as from the heart of Christ, and l am ready to believe the prophecies. The evidence Is beyond all dispute. But you must remember" says my friend, 'that the prophecies are only small part of the old book. You don't ex- pcct us to believe all the old book" If you found one of your good, honest letters in an envelope with 10 or 20 cruel, lying, filthy letters, how long would you allow that honest letter to stay there? In a half minute you would either snatch 1t out of the en- velope or you would destroy the whole envelope. Now, do you suppose the Lord God would allow these pure prophecies, these prophecies which you admit must have come from the hand of God, from divine inspiration-do you suppose God would allow these pure prophecies to be bound up and put in the same envelope with the book of Job, and the book of Psalms, and the book of Deuteronomy, and the other books; if those books were not good books?
 Stood the Fire of Centuries.
 Besides all this, you must remember that the most of the writers of this book were uneducated men. How can you account for the fact that when Thomas Babington Macaulay, stand Ing in the house of parliament In Lon- don, wanted to finish off a magnificent sentence he quoted from the fishermen of Galilee, or, sitting in his house, wanting to finish one of his great par agraphs of history, he quoted the words of the fishermen of Galilee? Why is 1t that those uneducated men have more influence on modern times than all the scholars of antiquity? Because they were divinely inspired, because God stood back of them. They were not educated and scholarly. 1t was not by force of rhetoric that they triumph ed, but today those humble fishermen, those uneducated fishermen, wield more influence In all our modern cities than any 25 men living in this genera ton and day. They must have been inspired. There must have been a di- vine influence behind them and before them and above them and within them.
 Besides that, you must remember that this book has been under fire for centuries, and after all the lombard ment of the skeptics of all the centu- ries they have not knocked out of this Bible piece as large as the small end of sharp needle. Oh, how the old book sticks together! Unsanctffed geologists try to pull away the book of Genesis. They say they do not be- lieye 1t. It cannot be there was light before the sun shone, 1t cannot be all this story about Adam and Eve, and they pull at the book of Genesis, and they have been pulling great while, yet where Is the book of Genesis? Standing just where 1t stood all the time. There Is not a man on earth who has ever erased 1t from his Bible.
 Then all the undevout astronomers went to work to pull away the book of Joshua. They say: That cannot be true, the suns halting above Gibeon and the moon over the valley of Ala lon. It cannot be possible. We must pull that book of Joshua away" And they pull away at 1t, and they pull away at 1t, and yet what has become of the book of Joshua? Like the sun lbove Gibeon and like the moon over the valley of Ajalon, it stands still
 All the undevout anatomists and phys ,ologists get hold of the book of Jonah, and they pull away, and they say,
 That story about Jonah and the whale can't be true" Every infidel carries harpoon especially for that whale, and they pull away at the book of Jo- nah. But where Is the book of Jonah today? Just where 1t has been all the time-the grandest thing that was ever written to prove that when God sends a man to Nineveh he cannot get to Tar shish, If God to stop him has to upset the Mediterranean sea with a cyclone.
 MtracIe~ still Triumphant.
 And so the infidels have been trying to pull away the miracles, pulling away at the blasted fig tree, at the turning of the water into wine, at the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Can you show me Bible from which one of these miracles has been erased? How mar velously the old book sticks together! All the striking at these chapters only driving them In deeper until they are clinched on the other side with the hammers of eternity. And the book Is going to keep right on until the fires of the last day are kindled. Some of them will begin on one side and some on the other side of the old book. They will not find a bundle of loose manu- scripts easily consumed by the fire.
 When the fires of the last day are kindled, some will burn on this side, from Genesis toward Revelation, and others will burn on this side, from
 Revelation toward Genesis and In all