Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1913-01-02
(RX WILLIAM Z

| a truer apprehension of our possibil1-
| ties. We have a great creator, who has
set us in great world. and given Us
great capacities. The book that best
shows his mind is on a lofty plan. ant
study Of 1t produces noble mindedness
The majestic opening Of the inspired
record. which the Sunday schools study
today, should chasten and exalt the
thinking Of every reader. Let us stud,
afresh this matchless summary of the
creation.
"in tho Beginning"
Why bother to read so old fashion
ed a book as the bible when the
five cent magazine Of get-rich with
out work stories, and the fiction that
we would not want our mothers to
read, lies at our hand? 1t is not
smart to be religious.
A sufficient reason for turning ones
thoughts to the sublime narrative Of
beginnings is that it expands ones
thought power. The effect would be
votion to the ephemeral, could contem-
plate that remote period when nothing
that now is was Salutary results would
follow an attempt to consider chaos.
AS Carlyle said. THE universe Is the
realized thought Of Cod" Amid the
silences Of the vast void. amid the
darkness of the night that preceded the
sun, amid the unthinkable formless-
ness Of universe in which all things
were without form, it is easy to con-
ceive Of supernatural. eternal, self
existing and all-controlling creator. AS
Addisons noble lines testify:
THE spacious armament on high,
X With all the blue, ethereal sky; ~.
And spangled heavens, a shining
frame,
Their great original proclaim
Tho God in Box.
One day in rural Japan. I saw an idol
festival, wherein Shinto ark was car
ried in procession. A Japanese who
had been in Hawaii and could speak
some English volunteered to me the
explanation, God in box" The incident
recurs in connection with the old Ques-
ton, lis your God a big God or a little
god?" Do you worship petty man
made deity, or is the creator OF the
universe your God? :. ..
That is the most pertinent question
as we stand In the presence Of the first
chapter of Genesis. In an earlier day,
before we could read the stately step
pings of the creator in the hills and
valleys, in the minerals under the
earth, and in whole continents and
seas and stars, we held little and lit
eral Interpretation Of this story. We
accepted Bishop Ussher's chronology,
B. c., as being as true as the text OF
Genesis itself. We could not think Of
any other kind Of day than our kind;
and so we mechanically compressed
the processes of creation, which con-
sumed unmeasured millions Of years,
into a week Of six days such as our
clocks measure In all our theology we
our own trivial standards az
the ultimate. Then we called science
Will .
broad lines Of the creation story
broad for the centuries
which knew naught Of geology or as
space for all the testi-
mony Of science.
Lord kelvin's Testimony.
In testimony to his own declaration
that Scientific thought Is compelled to
accept the idea Of creative power" the
great scientist, Lord Kelvin said,
Forty years ago asked Liebig. walk
Ing somewhere in the country, II he be-
saw around us, grew by mere chemical
forces. He answered, No; no more
than l could believe that book OF
ootany describing them could grow by
mere chemical forces" The quota !
ton suggests the familiar words Of
Bacon, "A little natural philosophy,
and the first entrance into it, doth dis |
Jose the OpllliOl 10 StHclSII, puL HUGH |
natural philosophy and wading deep !,
INTO it, will bring about mems minds |
% religion" !
There is no real conflict between
revelation and science. The Genesis |;
story could not, in the very nature Of !
he case be a detailed scientific ,
realise, incomprehensible to man
sind at the time 1t was written But it |
s far more. 1t is q statement OF the |
verities that lie behind and |
animate all scientific teaching. What
nay be comprehended in tine grand |
simplicity Of the bible record Is point
ID out by Tarbells Teachers Guide:
He made the stars also Five lit
lie words; and only two words in the
Hebrew. That is all we are told of the
mighty universe of stars. We are told
nothing Of the far stretching limits of
lebular masses, with their problems
lnsolved and perhaps insolvable; }
lothing of the deep silence and soli- !
ude, the unreasonable vastness of in
er-stellar space; nothing of those
tupendous systems Of star on star
moving in orbits of complexity beyond
he keenest mathematician's skill, yet
III Cbedient to the eternal and i'm
nuta BILE laws of motion and of energy;
nothing of those majestic stars besides
which even the sun is but an atom for
magnitude and but blackness for
light; nothing Of the inconceivable
witness Of the light itself that
streams forth into all space and in all
directions from every star and sun and
planet in the sky, twelve million miles
minute and even so takes centuries
O reach US here" t.
A Time to Walk Softly. Il
The yellow scientists has been heard
Il late talking about Spontaneous
generation Of life" Given some salts
nd gelatine, he says. and it is pos
ible to create life. When pressed, he
dmits that he has not really created
life. but he ia> confident. We shall be
eady to listen\to the learned gentle
nan when he copes forward bringing y
q much as a otAe-eyed tadpole or a