Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1907-11-12
Johns Letter.

The human mind Is so constituted
that there needs must be variety oil
views and a multiplicity of opinions
touching any one thing, unless indeed 1t
be self-eyident, central fact, such as
the dead certainty of death, and the
utter impossibility for a tax assessor to
get purely straight statement from him
whose taxable property is covered. Up.
on such staple truths the children of
men are in perfect agreement. Scien-
fists disagree in science, theologians in
theology; in short, many people differ 10
many ways on many things. Man need
not be dogmatic, but it is perfectly
proper for him to be positive-if he
knows or thinks he knows.
There are great many speculative
ideas afloat in the speculative brains of
this speculative age, in regard to the
manner how, and the time when, man
first set foot on the sloping sides of this
good, green earth. There seem to be
data from which to calculate the time of
his appearance, when he began to make
some little hustle and confusion in the
world; began to gain some little local
notoriety as a SLOUGH and fraud; but
even that time is being set farther back
in the dim and hazy twilight of the past.
There are no data to tell with any de-
gree of exactness or with any shadow of
certainty, when came "the beginning"
spoken of in Genesis. If you consult
the chronological tables of the past you
will come to the easy conclusion that
quite a respectable sum of years has
been used up and laid aside forever since
man came upon the scene, its beauty
and its defilement, its sublimity and its
Righteousness; to-day walking and talk
ing with God in the beauty of holiness,
in the sweet simplicity of perfect
trust; to- morrow smoking in the sweat
of his own lusts, reeking in the consum-
ing fires of his own unholy passions,
herding with swine of the rakish sort
and wallowing in the denominations of
the sty. That is coming down from
the mount in hurry. A fearful down
grade that!
1t is not really essential to our happi-
ness to know just how long ago it was
that this valley of shadows was mere
dab of hot muscle-mud, constitutionally
unfit for human occupancy, but if any
one can give us the figures and the proof
we shall have learned something we
never expected to know this side of
eternity. A few minutes more or less
will make no practical difference.
There is wonderful clock, mythical
time-keeper, set aloft away up some
where in the blue dome of the sky, that
not only sticks out the little lives of
men," but tells off with sonOrous sound
the slow moving cycles of time, striking
once in hundred years, electrifying the
drowsy continents with its magical
chime and waking all the grand old
echoes, and all the sweet, rich memories
that sleep down in-the still, green val
leys of the past. IT'S sacred thing,
that wonderful time-keeper, that magi-
cal clock, with its beautiful dial shining
in the clear light of the heavenly sun,
but invisible to the eyes that look up
through the shadows of earth. The
wheels began to turn and the hands be-
gan to move when the morning stars be-
gan their morning song together, but
science fails to fix the hour.
Modern prophets often tell US that the
weights are running low, that the cold,
dead finger on the dial-plate of time
points to the sunset hour. All right!
Let her point. We can't regulate it and
we have no key. Thank God, it ticks
strong, and we believe it good for a
thousand years and more. Vain attempt
to seek to know the times and seasons
so wisely hidden from us. The future
who can tellp That there is to be a
future of some description we believe;
that there has been a past we know; but
how long that past has been we cannot
know; we cannot enumerate the years;
we can comprehend the eternity past no
more than we can comprehend the eter-
nifty to come.
When the spirit of God first moved
upon the face of the waters, making the
first great change toward solidity and
order, we cannot tell; but we know that
long and indefinite period of time
went down the shadowy silences of the
awful past, after the first movement to
the last perfecting touch of the Creators
hand, when the solid earth rolled out
and rolled on, thing of beauty and
thing beloved, perfect, very good, and in
every part suited to be the dwelling
place of man-and then man came. We
know that unnumbered ages passed dur
ing the formative stages of the earth's
existence, because in the light of
science, like lettered page, it can be
clearly read, for it is craven in well de-
fined characters on the old earth's rocky
tablets. l have yet to learn that the
Almighty Designer has ever denied his
handwriting on the rocks. Geology
and the Book agree.
JOHN.