THE 
 
 BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 BY THE ^i 
 
 REV. ANDREW W. ARCHIBALD. 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 By PROF. RANSOM B. WELCH, D. D., LL.D., 
 
 Of Auburn Theological Seminary. 
 
 30 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 
 
 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 \ 
 
£541* 
 
 .5H 
 
 I* 
 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY 
 
 THE TRUSTEES OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
 AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 
 
 All Big Ids Reserved. 
 
 Westcott & Thomson, 
 Stereoiypers and Eleclrotypers, Philada. 
 
*> 
 
 TO HIS CHILDREN, 
 WARREN, KENNETH AND CECIL, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages were not originally pre- 
 pared with any thought of publication. They are 
 sermons that have been preached in the ordinary 
 course of a busy pastorate. They were not a set 
 series of discourses even. In these days of biblical 
 criticism questions as to the authority of the Script- 
 ures have arisen from time to time. To answer 
 these inquiries, which have made their way into 
 the popular mind, a sermon would be preached 
 along one line, and in the course of time another 
 along a different line. So doubtful was the author 
 about launching a volume upon the sea of public 
 thought that he concluded to offer for publication 
 what he has written only on the condition of a fa- 
 vorable judgment and of encouragement from two 
 of his former highly-esteemed instructors — Prof. 
 E. B. Welch, D. D., LL.D., formerly of Union 
 College (later of Auburn Theological Seminary), 
 
,; PREFACE. 
 
 and Prof. G. E. Day, D. D., of the Yale Divinity 
 do] and one of the American Old-Testament 
 ( fcmmittee In the preparation of the Revised Ver- 
 sion of the Scriptures. 
 
 The author hopes that both clergy and laity may 
 find the book to be stimulating and helpful, and 
 that they may discover no glaring mistakes in 
 statements of fact or in expressions of opinion. 
 Where there is room for different conclusions he 
 has simply stated his own, without a nice balancing 
 of arguments pro and con. which would be unsuit- 
 able for the pulpit. 
 
 He frankly confesses to leaning toward the con- 
 servative side of the issues raised by the Higher 
 Criticism. In the fulfillment of prophecy he cannot 
 Speak disparagingly, as one eminent Christian scholar 
 does, of dwelling upon " remarkable minute corre- 
 Bpondenoes between old-time prognostications and 
 new-time events." He is ready to be as old-fash- 
 ioned as the New-Testament writers, who did see in 
 the minutiae of history secondary, if not primary, 
 fulfillment of previous predictions. Some examples 
 may be mentioned. Prediction in Zechariah : " Be- 
 hold, thy King cometh unto thee: . . . lowly, 
 and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal 
 of an ass " ; corresponding fact to which John calls 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 attention : u And Jesus, having found a young ass, 
 sat thereon." Prediction in Isaiah : " He opened 
 not his mouth " ; fact in Matthew : " And he gave 
 him no answer, not even to one word." Prediction 
 in the Psalms : " In my thirst they gave me vine- 
 gar to drink w ; fact in Matthew : " One of them 
 ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, 
 and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink." 
 Prediction in the Psalms : " They part my gar- 
 ments among them, and upon my vesture do they 
 cast lots " ; fact in John : " The soldiers therefore, 
 when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, 
 and made four parts, to every soldier a part ; and 
 also the coat: now the coat was without seam, 
 woven from the top throughout. They said there- 
 fore one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots 
 for it, whose it shall be." Prediction in Exodus 
 regarding the paschal lamb : " Neither shall ye 
 break a bone thereof" ; fact in John regarding the 
 Lamb of God : " When they came to Jesus, they 
 brake not his legs." Prediction in Zechariah : 
 " They shall look unto me whom they have 
 pierced " ; fact in John : " Howbeit one of the sol- 
 diers with a spear pierced his side." These illus- 
 trations — and they might be multiplied — are suffi- 
 cient to justify not only the tracing of great lines 
 
8 PREFACE. 
 
 of prophecy, but also the verifying in detail of 
 
 predictions. 
 
 No claim is made to originality. The writer is 
 indebted to the standard authorities along the va- 
 rious lines of his research. Professor Welch has 
 kindly written an Introductory Note, for which the 
 Author is grateful. The writer also desires to say 
 how he has been reassured in a sometimes wavering 
 purpose by private letters (quoted by permission) 
 from Professor Day, who in the reading of the 
 manuscript was " increasingly interested" as he 
 proceeded, who bore testimony to the " fresh and 
 popular treatment given to the interesting subjects 
 discussed," and who recognized in the discourses 
 "grasp of thought and fullness of illustration and 
 balance of judgment." 
 
 The Author would simply add that the volume 
 includes two sermons written after he had submitted 
 hifl manuscript to his scholarly critics, and, not 
 wishing to trouble them further, he ventures to 
 insert without their critical supervision the dis- 
 courses on " Formidable Objections to the Bible" 
 and " Biblical Signs preceding the Destruction of 
 Jerusalem." 
 
 A. W. A. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 By Professor RANSOM B. WELCH. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to say that when a professor 
 in college I knew the author of these sermons as a 
 student. He was diligent, accurate, trustworthy; 
 waiting ever to report until he had found; then 
 reporting unostentatiously, but truthfully and sym- 
 pathetically, what he had found. 
 
 This gave assurance that if he ever ventured 
 into authorship he would be an honest writer, aim- 
 ing to furnish real information, striving earnestly to 
 convince others because of his own thorough con- 
 viction, patiently guiding and lovingly helping 
 others because he himself by patience and hope 
 had sought and found. 
 
 His is a judicial rather than a partisan spirit, 
 loyal to the truth, yet liberal toward honest doubt 
 and sincere search — the more tolerant because the 
 more truthful. 
 
 9 
 
1 1 ) IS TR OD UCTOR Y NO TE. 
 
 The genera] subject of the book is important. 
 Tin* particular topics are timely. The treatment is 
 irons and truthful. The style is clear, compact 
 and in keeping with the plan and purpose of the 
 inns. The book is never dull, while it is 
 always instructive, and at times especially impress- 
 ive and quickening. It mainly pursues the historic 
 method, which, if not the exclusive, is the most 
 ready and effective, method for such a course of ser- 
 mons. The author does not claim to be original, 
 but wisely avails himself of facts both recent and 
 remote in almost every field of investigation. 
 These facts are not only informing, but they 
 serve also the twofold purpose of argumentation 
 and illustration, stimulating the attention while 
 they convince the judgment. 
 
 The book cannot fail to reflect credit upon the 
 author and light upon the reader. 
 
 We heartily commend it to all who would the 
 better understand some of the vital questions of 
 these stirring times — who would search the Script- 
 \wr< % especially to seek and find the truth as it is 
 in J< 
 
 Ransom B. Welch. 
 Auburn Theo. Seminary. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE, By Prof. K. B. Welch . . 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The Canon ; or, What Constitutes the Bible? . . 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Bible in Manuscript 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Bible in English 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Inspiration of the Bible 52 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Bible and the Miraculous 65 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Formidable Objections to the Bible 79 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Incidental Confirmations of the Bible 91 
 
 11 
 
1 2 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Bible and Science; or, the Creative Week . 108 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 The Bible and the Mummies of the Pharaohs . 121 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 Elevating Influence of the Bible 136 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 The Bible and the Golden City of Babylon . . 151 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 The Bible and the Commercial City of Tyre . . 164 
 
 CHAPTEK XIII. 
 Biblical Signs Preceding the Destruction of Je- 
 rusalem 279 
 
 CHAPTEK XIV. 
 The Bible and the Destruction of Jerusalem . . 190 
 
 CHAPTEK XV. 
 The Bible and the Peculiar Jews 202 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CANON; OR, WHAT CONSTITUTES THE 
 BIBLE? 
 
 " Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye 
 have eternal life ; and these are they which bear witness of 
 Me."— John 5 : 39. 
 
 AVERY natural inquiry in these days, when 
 we are searching for the foundations of things, 
 is, What exactly is the Bible ? What books con- 
 stitute the Scriptures ? " These are they," says our 
 text, indicating a definite number. 
 
 1. The reference, of course, is simply to the Old 
 Testament, and the contents of this have been fixed 
 for ages with tolerable certainty. While the books 
 from Genesis to Malachi were composed at different 
 points of a period covering more than a thousand 
 years, they seem to have been gathered into one 
 sacred collection some four hundred years before 
 the Christian era. They were arranged under 
 three great divisions, which Christ once called the 
 Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. This meant 
 
 13 
 
1 j THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Bometkfag specific, for we find the same threefold 
 division used by the son of Sirach at least 130 B. a, 
 and by Philo, who was born only a few years 
 before Christ, and by Josephus, who was born 
 37 A. D. It was as if different persons to-day 
 should refer to the three volumes of Motley's Dutch 
 Republic, It would prove that such a work existed 
 and in that form. Both Philo and Josephus quote 
 from each of the three great divisions and from 
 most of the individual books, giving us the same 
 evidence for the genuineness of the Old Testament 
 88 we would have for Motley's Dutch Republic if 
 different authors should quote from each volume 
 and from nearly every separate chapter. 
 
 Josephus even gives the precise number of books 
 comprised in the whole — " only twenty two," he 
 Bays. But that contradicts the number at present 
 received, does it not ? We count thirty-nine. The 
 variation is easily explained. Originally there was 
 not the arbitrary division into First and Second 
 of Chronicles, First and Second of Kings, First and 
 Second of Samuel. These double books were each 
 considered one, as they properly are. In like 
 manner, the Lamentations of Jeremiah were joined 
 to h\< prophecy, Ruth was attached to Judges (of 
 which it is a continuation), Ezra and Nehemiah 
 were reckoned as one because they treated of the 
 same period, and the twelve Minor Prophets natu- 
 rally fell into one class. With a grouping of this 
 kind we can easily get the " only twenty-two books " 
 
THE CANON. 15 
 
 in the Old Testament, and Josephus was particular 
 about having it twenty-two, that it might conform 
 to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. 
 When, then, the text speaks of the Scriptures as 
 " these are they," it refers to exactly the same 
 books, according to these ancient witnesses, as are 
 now in our possession. 
 
 Again, all down the ages of the Christian era 
 our present books are frequently named, giving us 
 a continuous line of testimony. It should also be 
 remembered that the Old-Testament Scriptures for 
 nineteen centuries have been held in sacred trust 
 by two great religious parties of antagonistic beliefs, 
 the Jews and Christians. It is as though, to use 
 the illustration of another, they were guarding 
 "the same casket of jewels," and a single gem 
 could not have been removed without detection by 
 the other. It is the strongest kind of evidence, 
 when opposing parties thus agree, that each has 
 been honest in neither adding to nor subtracting 
 from the holy oracles, for the Hebrew Bible of the 
 Jew is the Old Testament of the Christian. 
 
 But how about the Apocrypha? The Roman 
 Catholics, you are aware, at the Council of Trent 
 in 1546 formally adopted it as a part of the Bible. 
 But Josephus expressly says that it was not " of 
 the like authority " with the Scriptures, and Philo 
 does not refer to it authoritatively as he does to the 
 Old Testament, and it is not endorsed by New- 
 Testament references, as the recognized Jewish 
 
1G THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Canon was, except that Jude endorses a sentiment 
 from the apocryphal book of Enoch, much as Paul 
 adopted a sentiment of a Greek poet in the sermon 
 to the Athenians. How, then, did the Apocrypha 
 ever become associated with the Old Testament? 
 The explanation is, that the Jews of Alexandria 
 had the Scriptures translated into Greek, which 
 they spoke in Egypt. To this Greek or Septuagint 
 version (which was begun about 280 B.C.) other 
 Jewish books, written after the prophetic age, were 
 added from time to time for convenient use eccle- 
 siastically or because of laxer views entertained in 
 Egypt than in Palestine. Now, since Greek came 
 into wider use than any other language, this Greek 
 translation, with its Apocrypha attached to the Old- 
 Testament Scriptures, became the Bible with which 
 most people were familiar, and by degrees the dis- 
 tinction between the Old Testament and Apocrypha 
 became effaced. Thus all down the centuries there 
 have been individuals who have reckoned the 
 Apocrypha as inspired, and the Council of Trent 
 finally committed the Papal Church to that position. 
 Even Protestants long had a lingering feeling of 
 reverence for the Apocrypha, and hence bound it in 
 with the Scriptures, where it should not be, because 
 it is not recognized as Scripture by Josephus, Philo, 
 or the New-Testament writers. When Christ said, 
 u These are they," he referred to the Old Testa- 
 ment alone as existing in the threefold division of 
 the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. 
 
THE CAS OX. 17 
 
 2. While we are thus clear as to the contents of 
 the Old Testament, we may not be so sure as to 
 what constitutes the New, for the great Teacher 
 never pointed out the Xew-Testament books, since 
 they were not written till after his death. So far 
 as the Old Testament was concerned, he only 
 endorsed what the general religious consciousness 
 had decided beforehand. The limits of the Old 
 Testament were fixed at least two or three centuries 
 before he was born, and that not by any miraculous 
 interposition, but by a providential agreement among 
 the most pious and enlightened as to what was 
 inspired. That is the way in which the proper 
 contents of the Xew Testament have been deter- 
 mined. It was a matter of growth through devout 
 criticism. Some thought such a book was inspired, 
 and some another; some that this one ought to be 
 rejected, and some that that one ought to be ; and 
 so arguments were balanced until there was a 
 general agreement among the vast majority of 
 Christians, the exceptions being rare. That is how 
 we got our Xew Testament. It was not let down 
 in a body from heaven, it was not compiled by the 
 apostles. No divine hand selected its different 
 books with the utterance, " These are they." The 
 inspired Gospels and Epistles did not come to us 
 as magical formularies, but as writings historically 
 belonging to the apostolic age. There is nothing 
 mysterious or mythical in their origin ; they come 
 to us as history. 
 2 
 
1 9 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Glancing at the first few centuries of the Chris- 
 tian era, we can see how the New Testament was 
 formed— not suddenly and miraculously, but gradu- 
 ally and naturally. We see it quoted again and 
 again by writers of the second and third centuries. 
 Bere is Clement of Rome, for instance, at the end of 
 the first century even (95 A. d.), using expressions 
 found in Hebrews, and in writing to the Corin- 
 thians he says : " Take up the Epistle of the blessed 
 Paul the apostle ; what was it that he first wrote to 
 you . . . V Clement quotes from or alludes to 
 sixteen of the New-Testament books. Ignatius, 
 who suffered martyrdom not far from 107 A. D., 
 in addressing the Ephesians speaks of a "letter" 
 to them by " St. Paul, the sanctified and martyred," 
 and he has repeated references to various New-Tes- 
 tament books. Polycarp, who was burned at the 
 stake 155 or 167 A. d., and who, says Irenaeus, a 
 disciple of his, had often talked "with the apostle 
 John and with the rest who had seen the Lord," — 
 Polycarp tells the Philippians to " look diligently " 
 into what had been written them by the " blessed 
 and glorious Paul ;" and he shows a knowledge of 
 three of the Gospels and at least of thirteen of the 
 Epistles. The three, Clement, Ignatius, and Poly- 
 carp, refer to all of the New-Testament books except 
 tnd and Third John and Jude. 
 
 Justin Martyr, who wrote about 150 A. D., speaks 
 of a " revelation which was made" to John, and he 
 refers either directly or indirectly to nearly every 
 
THE CANON. 19 
 
 New-Testament book. Irenseus, who flourished 
 from 130 to 200 A. D., uses this language: " Peter 
 says in his Epistle " ; also, " Paul, when writing to 
 the Romans " ; and he quotes from or alludes to 
 every book in the New Testament except Philemon 
 and Third John, and there are only fifty-four chap- 
 ters to which he has no reference. Tertullian (born 
 about 150 A. d.) quotes from all of the New-Testa- 
 ment books except four, and possibly two. Clem- 
 ent of Alexandria (160 to 220 A. d.) seems to al- 
 lude to all except two. Origen (born about 186 A. 
 D.) has citations embracing, it is asserted by Tre- 
 gelles, two-thirds of the entire New Testament. It 
 is even claimed that an English lord has found in the 
 writings of the first three centuries the whole New 
 Testament with the exception of eleven verses. To 
 such an extent have the apostolic writings been 
 woven into the earliest literature of our era that 
 their genuineness cannot be doubted. They are a 
 part of history. 
 
 While they can thus be clearly traced back to 
 the beginning, there was more or less confusion at 
 first as to their divine authority. The line was not 
 at once sharply drawn separating them from other 
 writings and making them pre-eminently sacred. 
 Irenaeus, for example, quoted as "Scripture" the 
 " Shepherd " of Hermas, who probably wrote it a 
 little before the middle of the second century. 
 Clement of Alexandria also considered it "divine" 
 or inspired, as he did the Epistle of the Roman 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ( ']« incut (95 A. d.), and as he did that of Barnabas, 
 whose date is not later than 125 A. D. These writ- 
 ings arc close to the apostolic age, and they were 
 n«»t infrequently read in the churches as Scripture. 
 They have come down to us, and are very inter- 
 esting, but are uninspired, as we think. Their 
 inspiration was also denied by many from the out- 
 An ancient catalogue (the Muratorian Frag- 
 ment, 150 to 170 A. D.), while including all of the 
 New Testament except First and Second of Peter, 
 James and Hebrews, rejects the "Shepherd," be- 
 cause of its having been composed "recently, in our 
 own times, by Hernias, while his brother Pius was 
 bishop of the see of Rome." In the course of time 
 it was universally rejected as uncanonical, as also were 
 the Epistles of Clement and Barnabas. The same 
 fate awaited a work called the " Apocalypse of 
 Peter," which at one time was received in some 
 quarters. 
 
 In other words, here were writings (and there 
 were still others) which many used to consider 
 Scripture, but which eventually were dropped out 
 of the list of sacred books. There was no formal 
 vote taken on their rejection, but they gradually 
 came to be regarded by the Church at large as 
 of inferior rank. There was a sifting process going 
 on. Here would be a letter claiming to be Paul's, 
 there another claiming to be Peter's. What was 
 the truth? Each case was discussed, not in an 
 ecclesiastical council, but by the general Church. 
 
THE CANON. 21 
 
 Some would take the affirmative, and some the neg- 
 ative, and thus one book after another was con- 
 sidered on its merits, and in this way the canon 
 was formed. It took several centuries to come 
 with anything like unanimity to the result which 
 is now almost universally accepted as correct. 
 This is what might have been expected. Away 
 in the East would be an apostolic letter which the 
 people of the West would know nothing about for 
 fifty or a hundred years, and therefore results were 
 reached slowly. It was a question as to whether 
 several of the present New-Testament books should 
 be admitted — a question raised not by infidels, but 
 by Christians. 
 
 The witnesses were perfectly frank and honest. 
 Origen testifies that Peter left one Epistle, "and 
 perhaps a second, for that is disputed." He also 
 says, " John wrote the Apocalypse (Revelation) and 
 an Epistle of very few lines ; and it may be a sec- 
 ond and a third, since all do not admit them to be 
 genuine." In quoting from James and Jude he 
 adds that their canonioity was doubted. Eusebius 
 (born about 270 A. D.) gives in his church history 
 a list of the New-Testament books. He classes the 
 great majority as among the " universally acknowl- 
 edged." As acknowledged " by the most " he 
 names Jude, James, Second Peter, Second and Third 
 John. Revelation, he says, "some reject, while 
 others reckon it among the books acknowledged," 
 although in his opinion it would be received by all 
 
22 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 in " due " time. The candid weighing of evidence 
 continued, until Athanasius (365 A. d.), in naming 
 the contents of the canon, gave the exact books 
 which we have, and only those. Eusebius and 
 Athanasius were as near to the apostles as we are 
 to the Landing of the Pilgrims. Jerome, who 
 died 420 A. D., adopted the same list that we now 
 have. 
 
 Councils about this time " sanctioned and rati- 
 fied," as another has said, " what had already taken 
 place spontaneously " and by a " steady growth." 
 Thus have the limits of our New Testament been 
 fixed by the general Christian consciousness guided 
 by historical data. No council decided the matter, 
 no heavenly voice did, but the result has been 
 reached by patient comparing of views. There is 
 not perfect unanimity yet on the part of the Chris- 
 tian world. Now and then a devout scholar at 
 present doubts the canonical authority of the Second 
 and Third of John or the Second of Peter ; but even 
 if these were rejected the system of Christianity 
 would not be affected, any more than would the 
 facts of our Civil War be disproved if it should turn 
 out that some historian did not write certain two or 
 three chapters of the work bearing his name. Still, 
 the almost universal sentiment accepts all the books 
 of the present New Testament, so that we can say of 
 them, as Christ said of the Old-Testament books, 
 "These are they," confident that they constitute the 
 true word of God. 
 
THE CANON. 23 
 
 Our Bible comes to us not by magic or witchery 
 of any kind, but through historical channels, and 
 if some new apostolic writing were discovered it 
 could properly be admitted into the canon, not 
 because of some miraculous endorsement from the 
 sky, but on historical grounds ; and it seems to be 
 historically probable that inspired Epistles have 
 been lost. Paul, for instance, in 1 Cor. 5 : 9 says : 
 " I wrote unto you in my Epistle," thus alluding 
 to a letter previously written to the Corinthians, 
 but this is not now extant. And in Col. 4 : 
 16 he says, " When this Epistle has been read 
 among you, cause that it be read also in the church 
 of the Laodiceans; and that ye also read the Epis- 
 tle from Laodicea ;" but we have no letter to the 
 Laodiceans, unless the Epistle to the Ephesians was, 
 as some think, a circular letter designed also for the 
 Laodiceans. Now, if these two lost Epistles of 
 the apostle to which he refers should ever be un- 
 earthed, they would go through the same course of 
 criticism as our present New-Testament books went 
 through, and if the wellnigh universal opinion 
 should in the end be favorable to their authenticity, 
 they could consistently be placed with Paul's other 
 letters. That is, our Bible has not a mythical, but 
 an historical, basis, and it stands all the stronger 
 before the world for that reason. 
 
 AVe do not worship ignorantly; ours is not 
 a blind superstition ; we believe on evidence. \Te 
 challenge attention to the origin of our sacred 
 
24 THE BIBLE VERIFIED, 
 
 books. They were not produced, to use a Pauline 
 expression, " in a corner." They have been open 
 to all from the beginning, so that whosoever would 
 might read. Let us be grateful to a kind Provi- 
 dence which has so worked them into the very 
 warp and woof of history that their credibility 
 cannot be attacked without taking issue with the 
 great fact of human development itself. Our faith 
 is founded on the clear word of God, and there we 
 rest as on a rock, upon which the tide of infidelity 
 has been beating in vain for all the centuries that 
 are past. The waves of skeptical assault have 
 broken upon it only to be dissipated into spray and 
 foam. The grand old Bible seems to lift itself in 
 triumph after each shock, exactly as the rock 
 appears to emerge from the breakers when the 
 ocean tide has spent its force. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT. 
 
 " The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when 
 thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments." — 
 2 Tim. 4 : 13. 
 
 rpHIS was a message sent by Paul from his prison 
 J- at Rome to Timothy, whom the apostle de- 
 sired to come and see him, and not to forget to 
 fetch the books, and especially the parchments, left 
 behind with a friend at Troas. We do not know 
 what important works these were. They may have 
 contained some of his own inspired Epistles, and 
 very likely portions at least of the Old-Testament 
 Scriptures, for he was a man who read his Bible. 
 The sacred writings were to him very precious. 
 Perhaps he had been hurried off to the Roman im- 
 prisonment without being permitted to take his 
 books, among which, we may be sure, would be 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 He could not send out and get a copy of the 
 Bible for a trifling amount, as we can now. When 
 a work is rare it is expensive. For instance, one 
 of the very first printed books was the Latin Bible 
 in 1546, and a copy of this edition not long ago 
 
 25 
 
26 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 sold in New York for eight thousand dollars, while 
 an English earl paid for a copy over sixteen thou- 
 sand dollars. The rarity of the work is what con- 
 stitutes its value, and in the apostolic age, before 
 the days of printing, books were rare, as they are 
 not now, when with stereotype plates they can be 
 produced with ease, rapidity and economy. There 
 was then no such thing as a press to run off large 
 editions. If a second copy was wanted, it had to 
 be laboriously written out by hand. 
 
 There were those who made this copying a 
 distinct business. Paul had an amanuensis, for 
 in Rom. 16 : 22 we read, ' I, Tertius, who wrote 
 the Epistle, salute you." The apostle only added 
 a postscript in his own familiar chirography, as we 
 learn from 1 Cor. 16 : 21 : " The salutation of me 
 Paul with mine own hand." 
 
 The writing was done upon two kinds of material. 
 From the reeds which grew along the Nile was 
 manufactured an article called papyrus, resembling, 
 yet different from, our paper. Then the skins of 
 young antelopes and other animals were dressed 
 into a fine sort of vellum, which was more durable, 
 and as a consequence more costly, than the former. 
 When Paul sent for "the books, especially the 
 parchments," it was literally for the papyrus rolls 
 and the vellum rolls, and the latter particularly he 
 w T anted because they were worth more. 
 
 But he did not wish either of them to be lost. 
 He perhaps was afraid they might be carelessly 
 
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT. 27 
 
 thrown aside and destroyed. If they contained any 
 of his Epistles, the fate of these he would naturally 
 fear. He might have heard the story of Aristotle's 
 priceless works long lying unknown in a cellar, 
 where, fortunately, after two centuries, they w T ere 
 discovered. The apostle's fears were justified, as 
 we of modern times can see better than he did. 
 How much of literature has been nearly lost, being 
 only providentially — or, as we say, accidentally — 
 recovered ! The great work of Quintilian was 
 brought to light in the fifteenth century from a 
 dark and filthy dungeon. There have been the 
 most romantic discoveries of this kind. A copy 
 of Propertius, the Latin poet, was found stained 
 and crumpled under the casks of a wine-cellar. 
 Three hundred lines of Homer's Odyssey were 
 taken from the hands of a mummy. The original 
 manuscript of Magna Charta, that great charter of 
 English liberty and constitutional freedom in gen- 
 eral, was saved at the critical moment when a tailor 
 was about to cut it into patterns. In 1626 a 
 German in excavating for a new house on the site 
 of an old one came upon a well- wrapped parcel, 
 which proved to be Luther's Table Talk, the only 
 copy in existence, and a most valuable work because 
 of the vivid picture which it gives of the Reform- 
 er's life and times. 
 
 These discoveries have been odd enough, but 
 there is a still stranger way in which literary treas- 
 ures once lost have been found. The vellum, the 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 parchment, mentioned in the text, which was pre- 
 pared from skins, was so very costly that it was 
 frequently cleansed and used again after the manner 
 ct' a -late The vegetable ink was as nearly obliter- 
 ated as possible, but in the course of time the old 
 characters have reappeared, very indistinct and yet 
 visible. Once in a while the vellum has been cleaned 
 a second time, and a third writing has been com- 
 mitted to its face. In either case great skill is 
 required to decipher the first characters. Still, it 
 has been done, and behold, a long-lost work of 
 Cicero and other classics have thus been given to 
 the world! Providence has in this way cared for 
 the Bible. 
 
 In the National Library at Paris there long lay 
 an ancient document containing sermons and other 
 compositions of Ephraem of Syria, a Church Father 
 of the fourth century. The preservation of his 
 writings was fortunate, but underneath these were at 
 last discovered traces of another text. This was in 
 the latter half of the seventeenth century. Vari- 
 ous attempts were made to decipher the old and 
 obscured characters, but without success till about 
 fifty years ago, when by chemical appliances the 
 hidden text was made out and published. It 
 proved to be a manuscript of the larger portion 
 of the New Testament, dating back to the fifth 
 century. In the twelfth century some copyist had 
 taken the leaves apart, erased the old text, and 
 written in its place the works of Ephraem, while the 
 
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT. 2S 
 
 whole was bound together anew. In the new vol- 
 ume formed the leaves were all disarranged, and 
 many of them were upside down, so far as the first 
 writing was concerned. This made the decipherment 
 all the more difficult to the scholar who undertook 
 the confusing task; who, however, succeeded, and 
 the result is one of the best manuscript authorities 
 we have in biblical criticism. Who could have ever 
 imagined that a writing of the fifth century would 
 thus be made to reveal its secrets to the nineteenth 
 century? Well may we exclaim, What hath God 
 wrought ! He has evidently had all the solicitude 
 that Paul had for valuable parchments. When we 
 realize that many precious manuscripts have been 
 lost, we can appreciate the apostle's anxiety for 
 those books and parchments at Troas. 
 
 Xone of the original manuscripts of the Bible 
 have been preserved. Shall we therefore reject this 
 book? As well might we throw away the works 
 of Homer, who flourished from eight to nine hun- 
 dred years before Christ, but of whose writings 
 we have no complete copy older than the thirteenth 
 century, and no fragments even older than the 
 sixth century — fifteen centuries after the blind poet 
 died. Of the history by Herodotus there is no 
 manuscript extant earlier than the ninth century, 
 but this historian lived in the fifth century before 
 the Christian era. There is no copy of Plato pre- 
 vious to the ninth century, and he wrote consider- 
 ably more than a thousand years before that. Less 
 
30 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 than three hundred years intervene between the 
 oldest Bible manuscripts and the apostolic age. 
 What if we do not have the original manuscripts 
 of the inspired volume? Must we read every 
 author in his own handwriting? Do we have 
 II nine and Gibbon and Bancroft and Motley in 
 manuscript in our libraries? No, but we have no 
 doubt of possessing their works. It is a matter of 
 history that they have lived and that they wrote 
 the books going under their respective names. So 
 arc \\ e Bure of the genuineness of the sacred books. 
 We have none of the original manuscripts, but all 
 through the second and third and successive cen- 
 turies the New and Old Testaments are quoted, and 
 therefore must have been in existence. And so far 
 as manuscripts are concerned, we have older ones 
 of the Scriptures than of any uninspired writings. 
 The method of determining their age might here 
 be briefly indicated. The Bible has at different 
 times been differently divided, not always into our 
 present chapters and verses. About 340 a. d. 
 divisions of a certain order were introduced (a sys- 
 tem perfected by Eusebius), and about 460 A. D. 
 divisions of another order (the stichometrical) be- 
 came prevalent. Now, of course, if a manuscript 
 contains the Eusebian divisions the date must be 
 after 3 10 a. d. ; if the stichometrical, after 460 A. D. 
 If an old Bible should come into your hands with- 
 out any date, the question would be, When was it 
 printed ? A friend suggests that it must have been 
 
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT, 31 
 
 issued from the press as early as 1500 A. D., but 
 you say no, and you call attention to the present 
 verse division. Well, what of it? Nothing, only 
 that that fact shows the printing to have been after 
 the year 1551, when this verse arrangement was 
 first made. In ways like this the age of manu- 
 scripts is learned with great precision, and thus has 
 it been proved that, though we do not have the 
 original manuscripts of the Bible, we do have 
 parchments of very great antiquity. How grateful 
 we should be to God who has so wonderfully 
 guarded them through the ages, thus giving us 
 stronger testimony for the authenticity of the Script- 
 ures than for that of the ancient classics ! Our 
 faith should be strengthened by evidence so conclu- 
 sive, and our affections ought to cluster around the 
 parchments as tenaciously as did PauPs. Three of 
 these manuscripts, because of their great age, de- 
 serve special notice. 
 
 1. The Alexandrian Manuscript is assigned to the 
 fifth century. The translators who gave us the 
 King James version of the Scriptures did not have 
 access to it, for they finished their work in 1611, 
 whereas 1628 was the year when this manuscript 
 was donated to Charles the First of England by 
 the patriarch of Constantinople, who got it in 
 Egypt at Alexandria, and hence the name, Alexan- 
 drian Manuscript. It is now in the British Mu- 
 seum, so fragile that it is kept under glass and the 
 use of it is confined to scholars, who have access to 
 
32 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 it for textual purposes. The vellum is somewhat 
 decayed, there beiug holes in it, and some of the 
 letters are worn aw T ay along the margin. Whole 
 leaves are missing. More than twenty-four chap- 
 ters of Matthew have at some time dropped out, 
 and there are other omissions. It, however, con- 
 tains most of the Old and New Testaments, besides 
 other writings, including the only genuine Epistle 
 of Clement to the Corinthians — that Clement who 
 died about the year 100, and who is supposed to be 
 the one mentioned by Paul in Philippians (4 : 3) as 
 a fellow-worker. 
 
 2. Of still higher value is the Vatican Manu- 
 script, in the Papal Library at Rome. The first 
 trace we get of it is in the year 1475, when it 
 appears in a catalogue, the earliest made of the 
 library. When Napoleon was at the zenith of his 
 power it was transferred to Paris, but in 1815 came 
 Waterloo, and the manuscript was returned to 
 Rome, where ever since it has been jealously 
 guarded, especially from Protestant inspection. 
 The great English critic Tregelles, with a com- 
 mendatory letter from a cardinal, went in 1845 
 to examine it, but he was closely watched by 
 two prelates, who took the precaution to search 
 his pockets and to remove therefrom pen, paper 
 and ink, and if he was noticed giving particular 
 attention to any passage, the volume was snatched 
 from his hands. He only succeeded in making, 
 unobserved, some uotes upon his cuffs and finger- 
 
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT. 33 
 
 nails. In 1866, Tisehendorf, the eminent German 
 scholar, was more successful, giving the world 
 a complete copy. While it lacks a large part 
 of Genesis, thirty of the Psalms, Titus, Timothy, 
 Revelation and still other parts, it comprises the 
 bulk of the Old and New Testaments. It belongs 
 to the fourth century, and is thus a hundred years 
 earlier than the Alexandrian. It may be one of 
 the fifty copies of the Greek Scriptures which the 
 emperor Constantine ordered to be prepared about 
 331 A. D., and which, when finished, were conveyed 
 to him, says our authority, " in one of the govern- 
 ment wagons " for the imperial inspection. Whether 
 it be one of those copies or not, it, at any rate, 
 according to the best critics, dates back to 300 or 
 325 a. d. 
 
 3. To the same century, the fourth, belongs 
 another manuscript, the narrative of whose dis- 
 covery a few years ago, not at Troas, but at Sinai, 
 reads like a romance. The hero is Tischendorf, 
 whose first name (Lobegott) means in German 
 " Praise God v — a name given him out of gratitude, 
 we are told, because " a strange fear of the mother 
 that her babe would be born blind had not come 
 true." And he was by no means born blind. No 
 man ever had keener sight, and he spent his life in 
 deciphering old manuscripts which other eyes could 
 not read. He believed there were many of these 
 " hidden in dust and darkness." 
 
 He started on a tour of investigation, and in 
 
 3 
 
3 I THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Maw 1844, he was in the vicinity of Sinai, where 
 the Law was given through Moses, and where at 
 this time was a group of anti ue buildings called 
 the Convent of St. Catharine. For many centuries 
 it had been the home of a brotherhood of monks. 
 A rich library had grown up in the distant past, but 
 the spirit of learning had long since died out. The 
 convent was now occupied by twenty or thirty ig- 
 norant hermits, who practiced their monastic rites 
 and entertained travelers as occasion offered. It 
 was a peculiar haunt or retreat, being enclosed by a 
 wall forty feet in height. The place of entrance was 
 thirty feet high, and to this aperture or door in the 
 wall the visitor had to be elevated " by a rope." Up 
 this rope Tischendorf first sent his credentials, and, 
 these being satisfactory, he himself was hauled up. 
 
 He had access to the library, and while examin- 
 ing the volumes on the shelves he noticed a basket 
 of waste material on the floor awaiting use as kin- 
 dling, two basketfuls of similar fragments having 
 already served that purpose. Picking over the 
 musty pieces, he came upon several leaves of the 
 Old Testament in Greek, evidently very ancient. 
 He was allowed to take forty-three of these leaves, 
 but the rest of the manuscript had assumed a new 
 value now that the learned stranger seemed anxious 
 ft>r it- possession. He departed, telling the monks 
 to take good care of what remained, and he returned 
 home, depositing the forty-three leaves in the Uni- 
 versity Library at Leipzig. 
 
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT. . 35 
 
 Some years passed away, but he did not forget 
 the treasure left behind at Sinai. He tried twice — 
 once through a friend and again in person — to se- 
 cure the parchment or at least a copy of the manu- 
 script, but he failed. With credentials from the 
 Czar of Russia, the head of the Greek Church, he 
 was once more in the Sinaitic convent in the year 
 1859, but the long-desired treasure was nowhere to 
 be seen, and he was about to leave disappointed 
 when one afternoon he and the steward of the con- 
 vent walked out together, coming back about sun- 
 down. The conversation had been about books, and 
 the steward, inviting him into his cell for supper, 
 brought from a corner a bulky volume wrapped 
 in red cloth. The scholarly German immediately 
 recognized the book ; there were some of the very 
 leaves he had rescued from the waste-basket fifteen 
 years before. 
 
 This Sinaitic Manuscript contained most of the 
 Old Testament, the whole of the Xew, besides the 
 Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hernias, 
 the authors of which both flourished before 140 A. d. 
 Tischendorf, concealing his emotions to the best of 
 his ability, asked carelessly if he could take the vol- 
 ume to his room and look it over more leisurely. 
 Once out of sight with it, he " fairly danced for 
 joy." All night long by the dim light of a candle 
 he was engaged in copying. He managed to keep 
 control of it long enough to get a complete copy, and 
 the original itself was finally gotten to St. Petersburg 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 "under the form of a loan," and the loan seems 
 likely to be made perpetual, though not without 
 bitter protest from theowners. Fac-simile copies 
 have been made of it and donated to various great 
 libraries. 
 
 Bach arc the most ancient manuscripts which 
 have appeared in modern times to assist in estab- 
 lishing the word of God. Their preservation has 
 been marvelous, providential and almost mirac- 
 ulous. The last two of them are so old they may- 
 have been read by Eusebius when our ancestors 
 were barbarians who could neither read nor write. 
 They put the Scriptures on a surer basis than exists 
 for Homer, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero or 
 any other ancient author. 
 
 Still stronger manuscript evidence for the genu- 
 ineness of the Bible may in the years to come be pro- 
 duced. This is an age of discovery, and valuable 
 works may yet be unearthed, when we recollect 
 that a century and a third ago (1750-60), in the 
 a vat ions at Pompeii, books buried there in 79 
 a. D. came forth to startle the world, and when we 
 remember that the Sinaitic Manuscript, a parchment 
 of the fourth century, was found less than thirty 
 yean ago. Perhaps some of Paul's Epistles in the 
 handwriting of Tertius, with a postscript by him- 
 ;", will yet appear. The apostle sent for his 
 "books, especially the parchments/' but he may 
 have never received them from Troas ; they may 
 be lying buried now somewhere about that city, 
 
THE BIBLE IN MANUSCRIPT. 37 
 
 where he left them with his friend Carpus. What 
 if Schliemann, in his excavations at Troy or Troas, 
 should find not Homeric relics, but PauPs books 
 and parchments ? The future alone can disclose 
 what Troas and other old cities may possess in the 
 way of biblical manuscripts. Meanwhile let us be 
 grateful for the parchments which a kind Providence 
 has already brought down to us from antiquity. We 
 have of the New Testament more than a thousand 
 manuscripts, which prove it beyond a shadow of 
 doubt to be genuine. We should cherish what has 
 thus been divinely kept for our benefit through the 
 ages. 
 
 Perhaps we do not have for the Scriptures that 
 intense love which the apostle had. How he longed 
 to have by him his books and parchments ! Among 
 these may have been some sacred volume given 
 him, it may be, by an affectionate mother while a 
 boy at Tarsus, or a gift from that married sister at 
 Jerusalem whose son once saved his life from a 
 Jewish mob. He may have carried it all through 
 his eventful career, amid the perils on the sea, amid 
 the perils among the robbers, in hunger and thirst, 
 in cold and nakedness. Everywhere it had been 
 his comfort, fortifying him for every emergency, 
 and now that he was in a Roman dungeon, with 
 the long nights of a dreary winter coming on, and 
 with sure death from the monster Nero in the 
 spring, he seems to have wanted again the old 
 Bible, left with his other books and parchments 
 
38 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 at Troaa The volume would be doubly inter- 
 esting from its associations if given hirn in the long 
 ago, when, as Farrar has beautifully pictured him, 
 u little dreaming of all that would befall him, he 
 played, a happy boy, in the dear old Tarsian home." 
 Have any of us such a treasure, a present to us in 
 childhood, with a loved name written below ours on 
 the fly-leaf? If we have, let us hunt it up, brush 
 away the dust on its covers, and, as we recall the 
 golden past, and as the tears start to our eyes be- 
 cause of tender memories, let us open it and once 
 more read prayerfully its warnings and encourage- 
 ments. One thing is certain : when we come to 
 face death as Paul did, we shall ask for the old 
 book, and somehow it will be very dear then, not 
 only because it was perhaps a gift of a mother or a 
 sister gone to heaven, but because it will be a mes- 
 sage of life from the glorified Saviour himself. 
 
 " How precious is the book divine 
 By inspiration given ! 
 Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, 
 To guide our souls to heaven." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 "Every man heard them speaking in his own language." — 
 Acts 2: 6. 
 
 THE Old Testament, as all are aware, was 
 written in Hebrew, and the New in Greek. 
 But the divine plan has been to communicate the 
 truth to each nationality in its own tongue. At 
 Pentecost there were representatives from " every 
 nation under heaven," and yet they heard the 
 gospel, says the text, each " in his own language." 
 What occurred then by miraculous power has been 
 taking place ever since by the slower process of 
 providential movements. The word of life is being 
 given to every people in the vernacular. 
 
 The Bible has been more generally translated 
 than any other book, having been rendered, in part 
 or as a whole, by the British Society into two hun- 
 dred and seventy-nine tongues and dialects, and 
 into more than eighty languages by the American 
 Society. Away back to 280 b. c, when the Script- 
 ures (confined then to the Old Testament) existed 
 only in Hebrew, and when in consequence of Alex- 
 ander's spread of Grecian civilization the Greek 
 
 39 
 
40 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 language was largely used, it was felt that a trans- 
 lation of the Bible into this tongue was necessary, 
 and the result was the famous Septuagint Version, 
 called Septuagint (meaning seventy) because that 
 number of scholars was supposed, though improb- 
 ably, to have wrought upon the work. 
 
 When Grecian supremacy was succeeded by 
 Soman, the Scriptures were needed in Latin, and 
 accordingly as early as the second century of the 
 Christian era there was a version in this tongue, 
 which Jerome in the fourth century made the basis 
 of what is termed the Vulgate (that is, common), 
 because it was for common use, for ordinary readers 
 who did not understand the original Hebrew and 
 Greek. This translation was violently opposed at 
 first (as all translations have been) on the ground 
 of its being a kind of tampering with God's word, 
 and on the ground of its tending to unsettle the 
 faith of people. But in the course of years it won 
 its way into popular favor. 
 
 Then there were versions in Syriac, Ethiopic and 
 in still other ancient languages, and these, being 
 very old, are of great importance in proving the 
 genuineness of the Bible. They show that the sa- 
 cred writings have entered into the literature of all 
 nations, and our religion is thereby given an historic 
 foundation. 
 
 The Bible in English is what we are at present 
 specially to consider. Seligiously, our Saxon an- 
 cestors were not very highly favored. They had to 
 
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 41 
 
 depend upon the clergy for most of their knowledge 
 of the Bible, for there were only fragmentary trans- 
 lations and paraphrases. Their language does not 
 seem much like the present English. When they 
 prayed, u Thy kingdom come," they said, "To 
 cymeth ric thin." Their version of " and his food 
 was locusts and wild honey " ran as follows : " and 
 hys mete waes gaerstapan and wudu-hunig." 
 
 1. Not till the time of Wycliffe was the whole 
 Bible translated into English. His rendering of 
 " Thy kingdom come " was " Thi kyngdom cumme 
 to." He was strongly opposed by the ecclesiastics 
 for presuming to give the Holy Book to the laity. 
 They compared it to casting a pearl before swine, 
 but he persevered till, with some assistance, he com- 
 pleted his work in 1380, having made his trans- 
 lation not from the original Hebrew and Greek, but 
 from the Latin Vulgate. Copies of the volume 
 were eagerly sought, although, it being before the 
 invention of printing, a single manuscript copy sold 
 for two hundred dollars of our money. For the 
 merest fragment of a Gospel or an Epistle a whole 
 load of hay would be exchanged. 
 
 Wycliffe was sincerely hated by that priestly age, 
 but he died a natural death in 1384. Not till 1415 
 did the papal authorities see what an opportunity 
 had been missed in not making him a martyr. In 
 that year they did the next best thing. They dis- 
 interred his bones, burnt them and committed the 
 ashes to the river Swift to be borne out into the 
 
42 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ocean. But, as has been said, those scattered ashes 
 are emblematic of the wide diffusion of the Script- 
 ures which Wycliffe translated. 
 
 2. More than a hundred years later Tyndale 
 proposed to have every plough-boy able to read 
 the sacred word. He had to cross to the Continent 
 to make his translation, because, to use his own 
 expression, there was " no place to do it in all Eng- 
 land." Even then his steps were dogged by the 
 persecutor. He had to fly from city to city, go 
 under an assumed name and labor in secret. By 
 1526 he had the satisfaction of seeing the entire 
 New Testament put through the press, for the art 
 of printing was now known. English had by this 
 time become nearly what it is at present, and we 
 readily recognize this sentence, " Geve vs this daye 
 oure dayly breade." The difference is mainly in 
 the spelling. And, so far as that is concerned, our 
 Authorized Version has been changed since 1611, 
 when we find sin spelt s-i-nn-e, and truth, t-r-u-e-t-h. 
 Aside from the spelling, Tyndale has largely given 
 us our scriptural vocabulary, although some of his 
 words have been changed, and so we say, for in- 
 stance, dogs where he translated "whelppes." 
 The meaning, of course, is the same with either 
 rendering, and taste determines which is the pref- 
 erable word. When the Bible is revised it is not 
 changed as to its real substance, but only in the 
 outer dress. The wording of Tyndale, however, 
 has not been greatly altered. He was a fine lin- 
 
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 43 
 
 guist, and translating, as he did, from the original 
 Hebrew and Greek, his work surpassed Wycliffe's 
 in value. 
 
 Copies were shipped to England, where every- 
 thing was done to prevent their sale. Spies were 
 on the watch and whole editions were bought up 
 and committed to the flames by the authorities. 
 But an extensive circulation could not be prevented, 
 and there seemed to be no alternative except to cut 
 off the source of supplies. Tyndale himself must 
 be put out of the way, and accordingly he was 
 arrested, having been betrayed by an Englishman 
 who pretended to be his friend, and who had bor- 
 rowed some money from him on the very morning 
 of the betrayal. He was thrown into prison, 
 whence he wrote a" letter beseeching the officer in 
 charge to make him a little more comfortable. He 
 pleaded, to quote his own words, for " a warmer 
 cap, for I suffer extremely from a cold in the head ;" 
 for a " warmer coat also, for that which I have is 
 very thin ;" and for " a candle in the evening, for 
 it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark." Thus did 
 the noble Tyndale suffer that he might give even 
 the plough-boys of England the word of God. 
 Finally, in 1536 he was strangled, and his body 
 was subsequently given to the flames. 
 
 3. After Wycliffe and Tyndale, on the roll of 
 honor and of biblical fame, comes Coverdale, who 
 translated (mostly from Luther's German version 
 and from the Latin Vulgate) the entire Scriptures 
 
44 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 in a single year (1535). Thus another version was 
 put into circulation, with a different phraseology, 
 which, for instance, made the dove of Noah's ark to 
 carry the olive-branch, not in the mouth, but u in 
 hir nebb." Public opinion had now begun to 
 change, and Coverdale went so far as to dedicate 
 his Bible to the king, the corrupt Henry the Eighth, 
 who, in the excessive flattery to which that age was 
 given, was likened to Moses, Hezekiah and other 
 Old-Testament worthies. 
 
 4. John Rogers (with the pseudonym of Matthew), 
 the famous martyr, who had labored with Tyndale 
 on the Continent in the work of translating the 
 Bible, next prepared a version, which was about 
 two-thirds that of Tyndale and one-third that of 
 Coverdale. This was called Matthew's Bible, and 
 was issued in 1537. So far had the authorities 
 grown favorable that this received the king's " most 
 gracious license." But Henry the Eighth was about 
 as variable with regard to versions as he was with 
 regard to his wives. 
 
 5. Accordingly, in 1538 another version was be- 
 gun under the superintendence of Coverdale at 
 Paris, where the facilities for publishing were bet- 
 ter than in London. No sooner was the new work 
 under way at the French capital than the papal 
 power interfered, and it had to be finished in Eng- 
 land. Thus in 1539 the Great Bible (prepared 
 chiefly from Matthew's) appeared — sometimes called 
 Cranmer's, on account of a preface which he had in 
 
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 45 
 
 some editions, but more generally known as the 
 Great Bible, because it was so very large. This 
 was the royal favorite, although Henry before he 
 died seems to have become prejudiced against hav- 
 ing the Bible translated at all. He complained 
 that it was becoming too common ; or, to use his 
 own expression, he disliked to have it " disputed, 
 rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and 
 tavern." It had become as popular as the Gospel 
 Hymns of to-day. Before any positively backward 
 movement was taken Henry died (1547), and under 
 his successor, Edward the Sixth, during his six and 
 a half years' reign, Bibles were multiplied. All 
 the versions were sold, although Tyndale's seemed to 
 take the lead. "So mightily grew the word of the 
 Lord and prevailed." 
 
 6. Then came a change. In 1553 "Bloody 
 Mary" ascended the throne. During her reign 
 of five years there were nearly four hundred mar- 
 tyrs in England. Coverdale narrowly escaped ; 
 Rogers (alias Matthew) was burned at the stake, 
 where, says a contemporary (Foxe), he " waved his 
 hand in the flame as though it had been cold water." 
 Multitudes found safety in exile, and to Geneva 
 many of these refugees repaired, and here sprung 
 up another version, perhaps the most important of 
 any yet, unless Tyndale's be an exception. Several 
 distinguished scholars were engaged upon it, bring- 
 ing it out in full in 1560. This Genevan Bible is 
 sometimes called the " Breeches Bible," because it 
 
46 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Bays our first parents made themselves not " aprons," 
 but " breeches." This rendering, however, really 
 originated with an earlier fragmentary translation, 
 Caxtou's. 
 
 The Genevan Version was dedicated to Queen 
 Elizabeth, who had recently succeeded to the Eng- 
 lish throne, and who was reminded in the preface 
 that it was her duty to crush out the papacy, just as 
 Josiah "burned" — such is the dedicatory language 
 — " the idolatrous priests' bones upon their altars 
 and put to death the false prophets." Those were 
 times when it was worth while to be in the ascend- 
 ancy, for the principle of toleration was unknown. 
 
 The Genevan Version was the first to introduce 
 the present verse arrangement, having borrowed the 
 idea from the Greek text of Stephens, who made 
 the minute divisions in 1551 during a horseback 
 ride from Paris to Lyons. This version at once 
 took high rank, and it really had superior merit. 
 It seemed likely to crowd out even the Great Bible, 
 which had been considered on the whole the best, 
 especially in the higher circles of life. The Great 
 Bible was the one used in the churches, but it was 
 so very great, so large and unwieldy, it did not find 
 its way into the home. Now, the Genevan, with 
 its brief explanatory notes (very essential in those 
 (lavs), seemed just adapted to family use. Its cir- 
 culation accordingly increased more and more. The 
 churchmen became alarmed, not liking the obvious 
 opposition of its notes to episcopacy. 
 
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 47 
 
 7. Recognizing that they could never make the 
 bulky Great Bible popular, they took steps to pre- 
 pare another version, which was a revision of the 
 Great, and which was published in 1568. This is 
 sometimes called the "Treacle Bible," because of 
 the translation (Jer. 8 : 22), " Is there no tryacle in 
 Gilead?" where we have "balm;" but "triacle" 
 also occurs in Coverdale (1535). The more common 
 name is the " Bishops' Bible," because it was the 
 work of several bishops, among whom parts were 
 distributed. It gave us the word church, which 
 before had generally been translated "congrega- 
 tion." This was the version which had the eccle- 
 siastical sanction, but Queen Elizabeth herself did 
 not cast the royal influence decidedly in favor of 
 any version, all the versions being allowed. It 
 was enough that she took sides against the papists 
 without antagonizing any wing of the Protestants. 
 
 8. Elizabeth's persecution of the Roman Catho- 
 lics resulted in their leaving the country in large 
 numbers. Many of them took refuge at Rheims 
 and Douay, and from these places came the Romish 
 Bible — the New Testament in 1582 from Rheims, 
 and the Old Testament in 1609 from Douay. The 
 translators acknowledged that they did not approve 
 of the Scriptures being rendered "in our mother 
 tongue," but that they were forced into the ungrate- 
 ful task because of what they termed the " impure 
 versions " and " profane translations " of the Prot- 
 estants. They translated from the Latin Vulgate, 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 which they rather singularly pronounced "better 
 than the Greek text itself/ 1 although Greek was the 
 original language of part of the Bible. This 
 don renders "penance" for " repentance," and 
 according to it "the hands of priesthood," and not 
 • presbytery/ 1 were laid upon young Timothy 
 in ordination. While there are these grave defects, 
 the Catholic or Douay Bible has some more accurate 
 renderings than the other versions, as where it is 
 said that the lamps of the foolish virgins were going 
 out, not gone out, as in our Authorized Version; 
 and the New Revision has adopted this improve- 
 ment. 
 
 9. The next version was that of 1611, under 
 King James. This was made to secure uniformity. 
 Even under the preceding sovereign, Elizabeth, a 
 bill was introduced " for reducing diversities of 
 Bibles." It, however, was not carried through. 
 Under James the feeling grew in favor of an 
 "authorized" version. The king disliked all ex- 
 isting translations, and particularly the Genevan 
 (which was the most used), because of its indepen- 
 dent notes, which savored, he said, a too much of 
 traitorous conceits." One bishop objected to and 
 more versions, on the ground that "if every man's 
 humor should be followed, there would be no end 
 of translating/' But he was overruled in his 
 opinion, and soon forty-seven (fifty-four were at 
 first named) of the ripest scholars of England were 
 at work. Both the great universities, Oxford and 
 
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 49 
 
 Cambridge, were represented, as well as as both Pu- 
 ritans and Churchmen, to whom respectively the 
 Genevan and the Bishops' versions were very dear. 
 
 The movement was begun in 1604, and the final 
 result was reached in 1611, although the actual 
 time spent was a little more than three years. 
 Thus there came into being our so-called " Author- 
 ized Version," combining the excellences of all the 
 previous versions which the translators declared 
 to be " sound for substance." Theirs was un- 
 doubtedly an improvement upon any of the pre- 
 ceding. It of course encountered opposition, and 
 for some forty years the Genevan especially disputed 
 the field with it, but it gradually gained ground 
 till it displaced all others. 
 
 But it was not perfect, and was not so considered 
 from the outset. Under Cromwell another revision 
 was seriously proposed, but the proposition came to 
 nothing on account of the sudden dissolution of 
 Parliament. 
 
 10. After a lapse of two hundred and fifty years, 
 however, it is not strange that modern scholarship 
 entered upon the new revision in 1870, the best 
 scholars of both England and America, without 
 distinction of sect, co-operating. The result of 
 their most careful labors through many more years 
 than have ever been given to a similar work before 
 is in our hands in the Revised Version, the New 
 Testament appearing in 1881, and the Old in 1885. 
 There are certainly many improvements. The same 
 
60 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 word when evidently used in the same sense is no 
 longer translated by a dozen different, and some- 
 times confusing, terms. Old manuscripts which 
 have come to light since 1611 have enabled us to 
 get what is more nearly the actual word of God. 
 We have also secured more accurate, if not more 
 euphonious, renderings. Poetical quotations are 
 more impressive; the Psalms appear more what 
 thev are — " songs of Zion" — when they are given, 
 as they are, in their metrical form. For such and 
 other reasons the Revised Version has been given a 
 wide welcome. It is being largely introduced into 
 our institutions of learning, and it is being used 
 more and more in churches. Time alone can deter- 
 mine whether, like other improved versions, it will 
 eventually come into general favor, or whether it will 
 be still further improved before it displaces the version 
 which has been used for two centuries and a half. 
 
 The fear, at first entertained, of the unsettling 
 influence of a revision of the Bible has been 
 dissipated by a growing intelligence. Faith is 
 strengthened by the grand unity underlying the 
 minor diversities of the various versions, and by 
 the scholarly and painstaking endeavors in successive 
 eenturies to get at the exact meaning of the words 
 spoken of old in Hebrew and Greek by prophets 
 and apostles. 
 
 The Bible in English has a bright prospect when 
 we consider with Gladstone " the future of English- 
 speaking races." This statesman has recently es- 
 
THE BIBLE IN ENGLISH. 51 
 
 timated those who will speak English in the year 
 2000 at eight hundred and forty millions. He 
 calculates that the United States alone by 1987 will 
 have five hundred and fifty to five hundred and 
 eighty milllions who will speak the language of 
 Shakespeare. He thinks that a century hence those 
 who speak English may outnumber those using all 
 the other European tongues. This signifies a great 
 deal as to the future of our English Bible. Already, 
 says Dr. N. G. Clark, "the English language, 
 saturated with Christian ideas, gathering up into 
 itself the best thought of all the ages, is the great 
 agent of Christian civilization throughout the 
 world, at this moment affecting the destinies and 
 moulding the character of half the human race." 
 If an Anglo-Saxon minority is having such a 
 mighty influence, what will not its coming majority 
 accomplish ? The Bible in English is destined to 
 dominate the world, to be largely instrumental in 
 its conversion. Let us therefore treasure this book 
 which has come down through the ages by being 
 translated into new languages when the old have 
 died ; which has sought and found the latest and 
 very best expression when languages have been 
 modified by time ; which has increasingly appeared 
 in all the tongues of earth, elevating every nation 
 where it has been read in the vernacular; and 
 which has with special care been wrought into 
 English, the tongue that most of all is to be used 
 round the globe. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 u Kvery scripture inspired of God is also profitable for 
 tea* thing, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in 
 righteou8nea&"— 2 Tnr. 3: 16. 
 
 THIS text gives us for a theme the Inspiration 
 of the Bible. 
 1. In the first place, what are some of the scrip- 
 tural representations of this subject? The writers 
 of the Old Testament are constantly saying, "Thus 
 saith the Lord." David's words in one of the 
 Psalms are quoted in Hebrews as the language of 
 the Holy Ghost. Paul refers to the Spirit of God 
 speaking by different prophets. Peter says that the 
 prophets were "moved by the Holy Ghost." Nor 
 did the apostles consider their own words as less 
 authoritative. Paul tells the Corinthians that what 
 he writes them is "the commandment of the Lord." 
 He professes to speak "not in words which man's 
 wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth." 
 In fact, all the apostles make the salvation of men 
 dependent on faith in the doctrines which they 
 preached. Still higher authority we find in the 
 Saviour himself. As regards the Old Testament, 
 
 52 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 53 
 
 he again and again refers to it to confirm even what 
 he says; and as regards the New, when he com- 
 missioned the disciples to teach he said, " It is not 
 ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that 
 speaketh in you." All Christians, then, can feel 
 that in the Bible they have the word of God. 
 
 2. To take a step in advance, Does the super- 
 natural enter into the idea of inspiration ? It 
 would seem that the writers of the Bible had more 
 than ordinary spiritual illumination. They spoke 
 with an authority more than human. No preacher 
 at the present time can reasonably claim to be 
 taught by direct revelation, nor can he call what he 
 urges a " commandment of the Lord ;" and yet an 
 apostle could and did do this. We never preface a 
 remark with a genuine "Thus saith the Lord." 
 We may possibly venture it with the sanction of 
 Scripture, but never as intending to imply that we 
 received the communication direct from Heaven. 
 Our preaching has power only so far as we can say, 
 Thus saith Scripture. The apostles and prophets 
 could go back of the written word, and say with 
 all the force that comes from a personal, face-to-face 
 knowledge, " Thus saith the Lord." Here, there- 
 fore, is a distinctive characteristic of a true inspira- 
 tion. All God's people are inspired in a certain 
 way, but divine authority is connected only with 
 those who can utter words breathed from an inspira- 
 tion which is supernatural. This test separates the 
 Scriptures from all other writings. The authors of 
 
5 1 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 the Old Testament are either professedly God's 
 spokesmen (and they sustain their claim by their life 
 and work) or they are recognized as such by those 
 whose divine inspiration is undoubted. The Old 
 Testament as a whole is repeatedly appealed to by 
 the Saviour even to give weight to his own God- 
 spoken words. As to the New Testament, it was 
 composed by those who had the promise of being 
 led by the Spirit "into all the truth." Inspiration 
 La thus more than the enlightenment common to be- 
 lievers. For this reason the Epistles just after the 
 apostolic age are excluded from the canon. One is 
 impressed with the descent he has made when he 
 compares Paul with Ignatius, and the apostolic 
 writings in general with the earliest patristic liter- 
 ature. It has well been said that the New Testa- 
 ment " is not like a city of modern Europe, which 
 subsides through suburban gardens and groves and 
 mansions into the open country around, but like an 
 Eastern city in the desert, from which the traveler 
 passes by a single step into a barren waste." In the 
 Bible alone we find the truth at first hand. Ordi- 
 nary Christians get their knowledge at second hand. 
 They have to search the Scriptures, they must use 
 instrumentalities — instrumentalities furnished by 
 holy men of old who talked with Jehovah himself, 
 and so received the truth from God's own lips. 
 Such is inspiration — not when the soul through 
 provided avenues goes after God, but when the 
 human spirit touches the great Spirit, feeling the 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 55 
 
 thrill of personal contact, inbreathing the pure truth 
 till it is not Paul-inspired, but God-inspired. 
 
 And while the faculties of the sacred writers 
 seem sometimes to have been merely quickened and 
 elevated as they related what they saw or what they 
 learned through human testimony, they certainly 
 had also an illumination of a higher kind than 
 this; as Paul had when he received " revelations 
 of the Lord," and when he solemnly declared of 
 the gospel, " Neither did I receive it from man, nor 
 was I taught it, but it came to me through revela- 
 tion of Jesus Christ." God might grant this super- 
 natural inspiration to men now as of old, so that the 
 same weight should be attached to their words. 
 This is possible, and yet as a matter of fact it seems 
 not to be done. If one speaks with the authority 
 of a Paul, we can pay him the same deference, 
 provided that he shows the signs of an apostle. 
 Let him work miracles, and then we may consider 
 the propriety of enlarging the canon. We can 
 test his apostolic claims, as we say with Luther, 
 " Send him into the graveyard, and let him raise 
 the dead." 
 
 3. While inspiration is supernatural, it is not al- 
 ways or mainly a process of dictation. Holy men 
 spake as moved by the Spirit ; they were men, and 
 not machines. Their faculties were not generally 
 overpowered with the divine, so much as they 
 were stimulated and exalted. Sometimes, indeed, 
 one was so filled with the Spirit that he wrote in a 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 strain more or less mysterious to himself even, for 
 we learn from the first chapter of the first letter of 
 Petri- thai prophets searched into the meaning of 
 their own utterances. Probably the orator in the 
 fervor of address sweeps along with a grandeur and 
 an eloquence surprising to himself in his cooler 
 moments. This may partially account for Peter's 
 statement that the prophets studied their own pre- 
 dictions, but this explanation does not give the 
 whole truth. We must distinguish between the 
 inspiration of revelation and of elevation. The 
 former is that of a man who did not know whether 
 he was "in the body" or "out of the body" — a 
 condition of things making somew T hat pertinent the 
 familiar illustration of a musical instrument played 
 upon and giving out unconsciously the harmonies 
 of its masterful manipulator. But even the chief 
 of the apostles intimated that this was an excep- 
 tional experience, and he seemed desirous of being 
 regarded as a man among men, with the common 
 passions of humanity, yet so dominated by the 
 Spirit as to be one of the Lord's authoritative 
 teachers. "There are diversities of gifts," he said, 
 " but the same Spirit," He recognized that indi- 
 vidual peculiarities are preserved. Inspiration did 
 not become merely mechanical, so as to destroy 
 personality, but it used different persons in the way 
 in which they were variously constituted mentally. 
 We see this to be an actual fact with regard to 
 biblical authors. The logical Paul shows his power 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 57 
 
 of reasoning in every sentence. The devotional 
 John is more emotional and meditative in what he 
 says. The matter-of-fact James writes plainly and 
 practically. The Bible is a very natural as well 
 as supernatural book. It is not a collection of 
 rhythmical, stilted verses from the frenzied head 
 of a Delphic priestess. It is the product of men 
 speaking out from the fullness of sanctified per- 
 sonalities. Individuality is not suppressed; it is 
 stimulated, developed and glorified. The apostles 
 were not mere pens in the hands of an overruling 
 Spirit. They wrote according to their own natures, 
 being, as the chief of them said, " men of like pas- 
 sions" with the rest of mankind. Their inspira- 
 tion was not automatic, but pervasive and en- 
 ergizing. 
 
 4. We are next led to inquire the extent of in- 
 spiration. Is it plenary, extending to the words ? 
 The fact seems to be that all the sacred writers were 
 inspired, but in different degrees. The strictest 
 inspirationist must admit that the eighth chapter 
 of Romans has more of the spiritual element than 
 the first chapter of Chronicles. The difference be- 
 tween the Psalms and genealogical tables is appar- 
 ent. Baxter considered portions of the Bible to be 
 like the nails and hair as related to the human 
 body. Nevertheless, we must regard even the com- 
 monplace parts of the Scriptures as inspired, unless 
 we consider inspiration a kind of fit. We can 
 hardly suppose the apostle Paul to have been an 
 
58 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ordinary mortal when he wrote his friendly saluta- 
 tions to various persons named, and then suddenly 
 to have become an entirely different being when he 
 poured forth his living thoughts. Inspiration is 
 nut a momentary assistance, when the Spirit wishes 
 to be eloquent; it is a controlling force in all 
 the life. The inspired penmen had within them 
 a vital principle. They were not spasmodically 
 seized by the Spirit to communicate some truth, 
 and then released to follow their own pleasure. 
 They were so possessed and penetrated by the spir- 
 itual that everything they wrote had weight. If a 
 great and good man should write us a letter, we 
 would not reject as useless the superscription be- 
 cause it might not have in it the fire of genius. The 
 whole letter would be a treasure, though some parts 
 might be better than others. We would not be 
 disposed to run a pruning-knife through it and to 
 throw aside the less important portions. We would 
 not be so finical as that. Even so the whole Bible 
 is inspired, though it may not be all equally 
 precious, and we are not going to choose and reject 
 its contents in accordance with any superfine critical 
 spirit. The beauty of the Bible is that it treats of 
 the historical. It shows the working of God in 
 history. It is not a body of doctrine claiming to 
 have been let down from heaven all cut and dried 
 at a definite past period. It grew out of circum- 
 stances fn.m time to time. It has to do with facts, 
 with actual events, and with God manifest therein, 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 59 
 
 and hence it takes hold of us with all the force of 
 tremendous reality. The oak, grand and strong, 
 has insignificant outgrowths, but it is the same sap 
 which courses through the trunk and through its 
 smallest branches. The glorious old Bible may 
 have comparatively unimportant parts, but it is the 
 same spirit which gives life to the whole. 
 
 In saying that inspiration extends to all the con- 
 tents of Scripture are we committed to verbal in- 
 spiration ? In a certain sense, yes. Words express 
 thought, and it would be of little avail to maintain 
 spiritual help in getting the truth, if the truth must, 
 after all, be communicated in words bungling and 
 inaccurate. As Van Oosterzee says : " If the true 
 poetic spirit enables one to seize at once, and as by 
 intuition, the exact and only suitable word for that 
 which one desires to express, how much more shall 
 the power of the Holy Spirit !" That is, if poetic 
 inspiration is so felicitous in catching the precise 
 word, divine inspiration cannot surely have less 
 power of expression. 
 
 5. One more question arises : Does the doctrine 
 of inspiration, as has been set forth, exclude ab- 
 solutely all errors from the Bible? Matthew, for 
 instance, in citing an Old-Testament prophecy gives 
 it from Jeremiah, whereas it is found in Zechariah. 
 Apparently this, unless it is an error of transcribers, 
 is a slip of memory. There are other alleged in- 
 accuracies of a trifling nature, and, granting that 
 the explanations offered are not altogether satis- 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 factory, oar faith need not be disturbed. The 
 disciples were promised the Spirit to lead them 
 into "all the truth/' and the truth indicated is 
 spiritual truth, the truth of the gospel. The 
 authority of a New-Testament writer in morals 
 and religion can hardly be thought to be impaired 
 by a possible failure to name the right author of a 
 certain sentiment. An argument in favor of the 
 equal rights of blacks and whites would not be 
 invalidated by an illustration drawn from some 
 slave's condition in Georgia, even though it might 
 be discovered afterward that said slave had lived 
 not in Georgia, but in Alabama. Any trivial in- 
 accuracy (if such there be) on the part of the bibli- 
 cal authors does not affect their reliability as regards 
 the plan of salvation taught them by the Lord him- 
 self or by direct revelation. 
 
 So if it should be established that Old-Testament 
 writers shared the false astronomical notions of their 
 contemporaries, and that they even gave expression 
 incidentally to a mistaken astronomy, they could still 
 be infallible religious guides. Baronius long ago 
 said with fine force, "Scripture is not given to 
 make us acquainted with the course of heavenly 
 ladies but with the way to heaven itself." In- 
 spired Scripture is profitable, according to the text, 
 for what ? To inform us upon Huxley's molecular 
 changes? No. To give scientific explanation of 
 the Oopernican system of the universe? No. To 
 give a description of trilobites and brachiopods? 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 61 
 
 No. But " profitable for teaching, for reproof, for 
 correction, for instruction which is in righteous- 
 ness." It gives us a development theory, to be 
 sure, but it is Christian development — how to grow 
 in grace till the stature of perfect manhood in 
 Christ Jesus is reached. The first chapter in Gen- 
 esis is not meant to teach geology. The great 
 thought there is not, In the beginning — proto- 
 plasm, or " frog-spawn " as Carlyle said ; not, In 
 the beginning — a fire-mist ; but back of all this, 
 " In the beginning — God created the heaven and 
 the earth." A geological error, if proved, need 
 not unsettle our faith in the reliability of the Bible 
 within the sphere of religion. A first-class doctor 
 to whom we should be willing to entrust our lives 
 might within the domain of the law make mistakes 
 without any discredit to him as a physician. A 
 pilot might be entirely safe in conducting us past 
 danger in a rushing stream, even if he called the 
 obstruction in the river-bed trap- rock when he 
 should have said sand-stone. The Bible can be an 
 unerring religious guide even though it might say 
 Jeremiah when it should have said Zechariah, and 
 though it might make some astronomical or geolog- 
 ical or historical error. Yet alleged errors do not 
 always turn out to be such. Nearly all, if not 
 quite all, difficulties in the Bible have been satis- 
 factorily explained or harmonized without admitting 
 that there have been mistakes of any kind. And 
 if there is still an occasional obstacle to entire faith, 
 
59 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 we may well wait for further light before positively 
 pronouncing against the infallibility of the Bible 
 along all lines. 
 
 Take the case of the proper title of Sergius 
 Paulus, the governor of the island of Cyprus. 
 Luke, in the Acts, called him " proconsul," whereas, 
 it used to be averred, he should have said "pro- 
 protor," for Cyprus was an imperial and not a 
 senatorial province. Both Strabo and Dion Cas- 
 sius name Cyprus an imperial district, and its gov- 
 ernor should therefore have been called proprietor, 
 so formerly said those who would discredit Luke. 
 Christians used to be troubled by the apparent in- 
 accuracy of Luke in saying " proconsul," and the 
 eminent Grotius reluctantly admitted, on the author- 
 ity of the two pagan writers quoted, that the author 
 of the Acts had fallen into an error. It was as if 
 one should pretend to write the history of the pres- 
 ent, and should speak of Mr. Cleveland as Senator 
 instead of President. Of course, Christians were 
 distressed, and they resorted to all sorts of ingenious 
 explanations. But by and by in the same secular 
 historian, Dion Cassius, it was discovered that while 
 Augustus did hold Cyprus as an imperial province 
 tor a while, he exchanged it for another district, 
 and it thus became a senatorial province, and pro- 
 con, a] became the proper title for its governor, and 
 Luke, after all, was shown to be correct. To make 
 the matter still surer, coins of the time have been 
 found, and these call the rulers of Cyprus procon- 
 
THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE. 63 
 
 suls. Still further, General Cesnola in his recent 
 excavations at Cyprus came upon a coin bearing 
 the inscription, " in the proconsulship of Paulus," 
 who may have been the very one named by Luke. 
 So completely has been established even the histor- 
 ical accuracy of the author of the Ads in speaking 
 of the proconsul Sergius Paulus. More light may 
 clear up other difficulties, and we should be slow to 
 admit errors of any kind in God's word. We can 
 afford to hang up present perplexities and to wait, 
 while yet there is always that impregnable position, 
 to which we can if necessary fall back, of the infal- 
 libility of the Bible in all spiritual matters at 
 least. 
 
 We thus have in the Scriptures the word of God, 
 supernaturally though not mechanically inspired, 
 pervaded throughout by the Spirit, even to the 
 words so far as these are essential to main ideas, 
 while at the same time any possible minor mistakes 
 on side issues need not weaken our faith in the 
 trustworthiness of those whose grand theme is the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 There is a human and a divine element in 
 inspiration. The exact relations of the two seem 
 incapable of precise statement The question is one 
 which is trying the minds of the present generation, 
 and in the end the efforts may be no more satisfactory 
 than have been the attempts to define the exact 
 relations between the human and the divine in the 
 God-man. We can be thankful for the human 
 
CI THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 elemenl in the Bible, as we are for the human 
 nature united with the divine nature in Christ. It 
 S point of contact. " In all points tempted like 
 we arc, 1 ' "touched with the feeling of our 
 infirmities." There we have the human in the 
 Lord Jesus* It is similar with the inspired writers, 
 who were men of like passions with us. They 
 were not spiritual automatons, different from us in 
 every particular. They had more of the divine 
 rather than less of the human. They were men, 
 hut men inspired, and, reading them, spirit touches 
 spirit till we are all aglow, even as burned the 
 hearts of the two disciples when to them were 
 opened the Scriptures. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 " Believe me for the very works' sake." — John 14 : 11. 
 
 CHRIST here appeals to the evidence of his 
 miracles. Anciently, the fact of miracles seems 
 not to have been questioned. Even the Pharisees 
 did not dispute their occurrence. They only claimed 
 that Christ performed them by being in league with 
 Satan. But in modern times the miraculous is 
 denied altogether. Nor is the disbelief confined to 
 revilers — to such men as Paine and Voltaire, who 
 attacked the Bible bitterly, who did not want it to 
 be true because of their immoral lives. The un- 
 belief has extended to persons of good character, to 
 those who admire Christianity when stripped of 
 the supernatural, to those who are honest in their 
 investigations, who have fine ability, and whose 
 scientific attainments, it may be, are of a high 
 order. They say, as did Nicodemus in a different 
 connection, "How can these things be?" They 
 consider the miraculous as neither probable nor 
 possible. 
 
 1. First, as to the possibility of miracles. Renan 
 gays, " The supernatural is impossible." Without 
 
 5 65 
 
66 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 considering any miracles in detail, let us see in 
 pal if they are incredible, for if they are the 
 Bible, which deals so largely in them, must go to 
 the wall. 
 
 The rationalist explains them away. He says 
 that ( hrist gave sight to the blind, not by a miracle, 
 hut by his skill as an oculist. He did not really 
 raise Lazarus from the dead, but he recovered him 
 from a swoon. The trouble with this rationalizing 
 is that sometimes the miracles are not so wonderful 
 m the explanations. It taxes us more to believe 
 the latter than the former. Paulus, for instance, at 
 the beginning of this century said that Peter did 
 not catch the fish with the piece of money in its 
 mouth, but he caught a fish and sold it for the 
 amount named. He read the record very carefully, 
 " Go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up 
 the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast 
 opened his mouth — " There! said this rationalist, 
 it is more natural to suppose not that Peter opened 
 the fish's mouth and took out the money, but that 
 In opened his own mouth, crying the fish for sale. 
 The picture is more vivid than dignified as we 
 imagine the apostle, in accordance with this concep- 
 tion, walking the streets of Capernaum and calling, 
 kk \ ice fresh fish ! just caught from the lake !" The 
 Story, taken literally, is a great deal more credible 
 than any such fantastic explanation. Miracles are 
 not so difficult that we have to resort to any such 
 make-hilts of interpretation. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE MIRACULOUS. 67 
 
 The possibility of miracles has sometimes been 
 illustrated in this way — that they are the result of 
 natural laws unknown to all but the miracle- worker. 
 This is the theory : God so formed the universe in 
 the very beginning that it should at intervals pro- 
 duce miracles. The common illustration is that of a 
 machine made to turn out square numbers millions 
 of times, while after that it gives forth a cube, and 
 then only squares till the machine wears out. There 
 are two ways of accounting for the solitary cube 
 number : the maker of the machine may have 
 directly interfered at the moment, or he may have 
 provided for the change in the original construction 
 of his fine piece of mechanism. Thus it is with 
 God's machine, the universe, which generally pro- 
 duces ordinary events, but which once in a while 
 gives forth the miraculous. How is it done ? Why, 
 by no immediate interference of God ; the whole 
 thing was planned by him from the very outset. A 
 hidden spring was made to act at long intervals, 
 and if we could see this spring miracles would 
 seem perfectly natural. 
 
 We may illustrate in another way: We may 
 suppose little creatures which live for only two or 
 three hours standing before a clock. There is a 
 tradition among them that the clock once rang out 
 a terrible alarm, startling all that heard. But all 
 of them now alive never heard anything except a 
 tick ! tick ! tick ! or perhaps the striking of the 
 hour. Some of them do not believe that there 
 
68 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ever was an alarm. Fellow-insects have come and 
 and have heard nothing of the sort. Mean- 
 while the dock runs on until it comes to the point 
 for which the alarm was set, and all at once there 
 is a whir and a clatter and a racket, such as has 
 not been heard for several generations, and little 
 unbelievers are convinced of what through their 
 ignorance they had doubted. So we stand before 
 God's greal clock denying that there ever was the 
 miraculous. And yet it is not incredible that there 
 was a secret spring made to ring out an alarm at 
 certain periods — that there came after a long lapse 
 of time the miraculous to arrest the attention of 
 mankind and to wake them up to the higher ends 
 of human existence. 
 
 A more poetic illustration is furnished by the 
 century-plant. The first year it has no blossom, 
 nor has it the second year, nor the third, nor the 
 twentieth, nor the seventieth; and then the owner 
 dies. His son keeps the plant. He is asked if it 
 ever blooms. " Oh no !" he replies, " that is not its 
 nature." The eightieth year comes, the ninetieth, 
 the hundredth, and lo, it blossoms ! The credulous 
 mind might consider it a miracle in the strictest 
 hat is, something supernaturally produced 
 mi the Bpot But the botanist knows that the plant 
 blooms once a century from natural causes. In like 
 manner, the course of history runs for a hundred 
 re, two hundred, five hundred, and at the end of 
 a millennium there is an age of miracles. But 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE MIRACULOUS. 69 
 
 there is nothing incredibly miraculous ; in the nat- 
 ural order of events the time has come for the blos- 
 som — that is all. The world is made to bloom for 
 a while in accordance with the eternal purpose of 
 God. 
 
 The hidden-law theory, thus variously illus- 
 trated, at least serves to show that miracles are not 
 absolutely impossible on account of the apparent 
 fixity of natural laws ; for we do not know what 
 all these laws are or what provision may have been 
 made for rising emergencies. But the Church in 
 general does not hold to so mechanical a view of 
 the world as has just been indicated. It is not 
 necessary to maintain that the universe was so con- 
 stituted as to produce the miraculous at certain 
 prearranged epochs. 
 
 It is easier for most men to believe that God pro- 
 duces the miracles at the time by a direct act of power. 
 Why should he not be able to do this ? Why should 
 he not be able to counteract natural law ? It is being 
 done constantly — not in a way to be termed miracu- 
 lous, because it is an every-day occurrence, but in a 
 way which illustrates the miraculous. The chemi- 
 cal law of decay is suspended by the preservative 
 law of salt. The law of gravity draws the stone 
 to the earth, but you counteract that law when you 
 lift it from the ground and hurl it into the air. 
 There is no violation of law in such instances, but 
 only a suspension. The watchmaker can prevent 
 the wheels of a watch from running, but let him 
 
70 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 n hifl hold upon the delicate machinery and it 
 runs again all right Why cannot God similarly 
 
 interfere in his works, suspending or counteracting 
 natural laws at will? He can, and when he does 
 a miracle is the result. Dr. A. T. Pierson uses 
 this figure: " I have a watch here; when wound 
 up it runs straight forward until it needs rewind- 
 in- '. . . . Yet when I find it is too fast I move the 
 hands backward — I interrupt the usual movement, 
 hut I violate no law. The watch could not have 
 turned hack its own hands and corrected itself, but 
 a superior intelligence interferes for a proper end. 
 ... As I examine more minutely into the structure 
 of this delicate piece of mechanism, I observe a 
 remarkable fact: the maker of this watch has 
 made provision for just such a reversal of that law 
 by which both minute- and hour-hands move only 
 forward. He has provided for a backward move- 
 ment when the intelligent owner chooses." 
 
 So that miracles are possible to Omnipotence, 
 either through the operation of a higher law of 
 which we at present are ignorant, or, more likely, 
 through the suspension and balancing and manip- 
 ulation of laws already known, but not known in 
 all their wonderful power of combination to pro- 
 duce results. Twenty years ago it would have 
 Beemed a miracle for the human voice to be heard 
 at a distance of fifty or a hundred miles. But 
 there has oome such a knowledge of the laws of 
 electricity and sound that by the telephone there can 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE MIRACULOUS. 71 
 
 be vocal communication at ranges of distance once 
 deemed impossible. Who, then, will limit the 
 Omnipotent and Omniscient, and say that God can- 
 not by his perfect understanding of natural laws and 
 by his almighty power work miracles ?" " Since, 
 says the geologist Dawson, " science itself enables 
 men to work miracles absolutely impossible and 
 unintelligible to the ignorant, we may readily be- 
 lieve that the Almighty can still more profoundly 
 modify and rearrange his own laws and forces. 
 Viewed in this way," adds this eminent scientist, 
 " a miracle is a most natural thing, and to be ex- 
 pected in any case where events great and moment- 
 ous in a spiritual sense are transpiring." Gladstone 
 in his review of Robert Elsmere has given expres- 
 sion to a similar thought. " There is," he says, 
 "an extraneous force of will which acts upon mat- 
 ter in derogation of laws purely physical, or alters 
 the balance of those law's among themselves. It 
 can be neither philosophical nor scientific to pro- 
 claim the impossibility of a miracle until philoso- 
 phy or science shall have determined a limit beyond 
 which this extraneous force of will, so familiar to 
 our experience, cannot act upon or deflect the nat- 
 ural order." Even Huxley, though declaring that 
 supernatural Christianity is " doomed to fall," says, 
 " Xo one is entitled to say a priori that any given 
 so-called miraculous event is impossible." That is 
 a recent admission of his ; so that the possibility of 
 miracles would seem to be beyond controversy. 
 
7 2 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 2, We come thus, in the second place, to the 
 probability of miracles. This Huxley denies on 
 the g round of insufficient evidence. We have all 
 read Hume's famous argument, which may be stated 
 as follows : On the one side there is the evidence of 
 certain witnesses; on the other is the testimony of 
 universal experience which declares the laws of na- 
 ture to be unalterable. Those who witness to the 
 miraculous having taken place are few as compared 
 with the multitudes who testify to the unbroken 
 succession of natural laws. So that it is a question 
 of probabilities — it is a hundred or a thousand or 
 ral thousand saying they have seen supernatural 
 events, while millions upon millions have seen, and 
 so will admit, only natural events. It is more 
 probable that the few should be wrong than the 
 many. Such is the position taken, but it cannot 
 be sustained. If ten worthy persons passing along 
 the street should say that they saw a certain picture 
 in a store- window, and a hundred others should 
 unite in saying that they did not notice it, and 
 therefore that it could not be there, we would be- 
 lieve the ten rather than the hundred. 
 
 To use a familiar illustration: Suppose a people 
 living in the tropics never to have heard of ice, but 
 a half dozen of them, good, reliable men, take pas- 
 northward. Returning, they tell their fellow- 
 countrymen that water sometimes becomes solid, so 
 that it can be walked upon. Improbable enough, 
 those tropical people might say ; it is against nature. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE MIRACULOUS. 73 
 
 Thus the ignorant natives would all be arrayed 
 against the six travelers, and could claim a prepon- 
 derance of witnesses, but they would be wrong just 
 the same. What if for eighteen centuries no mira- 
 cle has been seen by any who have inhabited this 
 earth ? That weighs as nothing against five hun- 
 dred who did witness miracles in the first century 
 of the Christian era. 
 
 The miraculous would seem to be probable, in- 
 stead of improbable, when we think of the ends to 
 be gained. There have been in the course of human 
 history occasions apparently at least requiring divine 
 intervention. Horace, the old Roman poet, had the 
 correct idea when he said, " Let not a god intervene 
 unless there be a knot worth his untying." Well, 
 there have been just such emergencies. 
 
 In Old-Testament times the great endeavor was 
 to establish the true doctrine of one personal God. 
 The tendency was to deify the forces of nature, giv- 
 ing gods innumerable. How could this polytheism 
 be overcome by monotheism? How could people 
 be made to believe in a God over and above nature, 
 rather than in numerous deities identical with na- 
 ture in its various aspects ? We have no apprecia- 
 tion of the great issue involved. The prevailing 
 religions were polytheistic. The whole atmosphere 
 was unfavorable to the truth of one personal God. 
 The divine One had, so to speak, to manifest him- 
 self : he could not have gotten the attention without 
 miracles. Not that he performed them every day. 
 
7 1 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 There are hundreds of years at a time devoid of the 
 miraculous. We forget that Bible history is frag- 
 nentary, oontaining only the striking epochs. Even 
 in the scriptural history which we have, while there 
 are miracles scattered along here and there, they 
 
 mded only at two critical periods under the old 
 dispensation : in the time of Moses, when the new 
 religion was to be established, and in the time of 
 Elijah, when it seemed likely to go down before 
 idolatry. God came in with the miraculous at 
 both these periods, because they were great crises 
 when the true religion needed special nourishing. 
 When we reflect upon what was at stake, when we 
 remember it was then being determined whether 
 we to-day should be worshiping the God of heaven 
 or bowing down to stocks and stones, we can see 
 the reasonableness of the divine intervention. 
 
 The advent of Christ in the new dispensation 
 was another great epoch. When we learn of the 
 almost universal skepticism that existed nineteen 
 centuries ago, the old faiths everywhere crumbling, 
 and when we read of the shocking immoralities that 
 were practiced, not secretly, but openly, not in the 
 dams of society, but in the very temples of worship, 
 — when we have knowledge of all this, and then re- 
 member that a single individual who was cradled in 
 a manger, and who as he grew up worked at the car- 
 penter^ trade,— when we recollect that this one Per- 
 
 i >f humble birth and training was to revolutionize 
 the world, we can understand why the miraculous 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE MIRACULOUS. 75 
 
 should be used. It is what we should expect, and 
 never could Christianity have become the mighty 
 power that it is had there not been the supernatural 
 to give it impetus in the beginning. If there were 
 not miracles to aid in its establishment, a miracle is 
 required to explain its widening influence down 
 the ages, until now nothing else can be compared 
 with it in grandeur of onward movement as it 
 sweeps in triumph round the globe. The gifted 
 author of Christianity and Science, Dr. A. P. Pea- 
 body, writes eloquently of this advance without 
 retrogression since the first century. " What do we 
 see since that age ?" he asks ; and then answers, 
 " Progress, but no decline. Dawn, sunrise, high 
 morning, but no receding of the shadow on the sun- 
 dial. Barbaric irruptions that fertilize when they 
 threaten to destroy. Dark ages, like those dreary 
 spring-days whose drenching rains are the harbinger 
 of all that is gladdening in garden, field and orchard 
 — ages during which humane principles are taking 
 root, institutions and habits of charity and mercy 
 springing into being, slavery melting away and 
 vanishing. There has not been since the Christian 
 era a century than which we can say that the pre- 
 ceding century was better. . . . When we see that 
 belief in such a religion, in such a Saviour, though 
 mingled with puerilities, superstitions and absurdi- 
 ties, has proved the mightiest force in the moral 
 universe, alone not yielding to the law of decline 
 and exhaustion to which all other forces have sue- 
 
7,; TEE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 combed, it becomes in the highest degree probable 
 that mankind Deeded such a religion, such a Sav- 
 iour; and if BO the miracles that attended its pro- 
 mulgation and his mission were in themselves aute- 
 
 ntly probable/' 
 
 The miraculous, then, is even probable, both in 
 the old and in the new dispensation, when we recol- 
 lect that it was a life-and-death struggle between 
 monotheism and polytheism — between a personal 
 God and deified nature, and when we recollect that 
 it was a contest between a pure Christianity and an 
 immoral skepticism, and when we see the victory 
 attained in both these great conflicts. 
 
 Bat when the truth was thoroughly established 
 in each case, it was left to a natural development 
 and the miraculous was withdrawn. Chrysostom 
 of the fourth century (the "golden-mouthed," as 
 he was called) expresses this beautifully when he 
 says: " As ... a husbandman, having lately com- 
 mitted a young tree to the bosom of the earth, 
 counts it worthy, being yet tender, of much atten- 
 tion, on every side fencing it round, protecting it 
 with stones and thorns, so that it neither maybe 
 tom up by the winds, nor harmed by the cattle, nor 
 injured by any other injury; but when he sees that 
 it is fast-rooted and has sprung up on high, he 
 take- away the defences, since now the tree can 
 defend itself from any such wrong; thus has it 
 ti in the matter of our faith. When it was 
 dewly planted, while it was yet tender, great atten- 
 
THE BIBLE AND TEE MIRACULOUS. 77 
 
 tion was bestowed on it on every side. But after 
 it was fixed and rooted and sprung up on high, 
 after it had filled all the world, Christ . . . took 
 away the defences." In other words, the miracu- 
 lous no longer hedged it round. Let us be grateful 
 that the precious gospel was thus nurtured. It was 
 planted, the Saviour said, the least of all seeds, but, 
 to paraphrase from one of the Psalms, it has taken 
 deep root and filled all lands. The hills are cov- 
 ered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof 
 are like goodly cedars, stretching from sea to sea. 
 Verily, this cannot be the product of natural devel- 
 opment alone. The miraculous is needed to explain 
 the marvelous growth. 
 
 In conclusion, He who said, " Believe me for 
 the very works' sake," is the One to whom are to 
 be ascribed the works of creation, and these surely 
 witness to miraculous power. "All things were 
 made by him," says John. He therefore spoke into 
 being our solar system, with its central sun and 
 circling planets and revolving moons. He called 
 into existence each of those more than one hundred 
 thousand suns, like ours centres around which 
 wheel other planetary bodies with their bright 
 satellites. He created Alcyone, which equals twelve 
 thousand luminaries like our orb of day, and from 
 which, in the immensity of nature, it takes light, 
 flying nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, 
 seven hundred years to reach this earth. He flung 
 forth into boundless space that whole " sphere of 
 
78 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 stars whose diameter/ 1 we read, "is seven millions 
 (»{" yean ftfl light travels." He swung into their 
 orbits tht' colored suns, those blazing constel- 
 lations with all the beautiful tints of the rain- 
 how. Notwithstanding this marvelous manifesta- 
 tion through the visible of "his everlasting power 
 and divinity," we, creatures of the dust and of a 
 day, stand up and debate whether he can work a 
 miracle, whether he can control what he has made 
 with his own hands. May the wonderful works of 
 creation lead us to believe in the miraculous works 
 of the Lord of glory ! and may the latter make us 
 believe in Him himself who built the skies ! Then 
 when we come to die there will be no volume like 
 that which has taught us these things, and there 
 will be no chapter like that which contains our 
 text and which contains the revelation of the heav- 
 enly mansions. Our feeling at the dying hour will 
 be that of Sir Walter Scott, who, as he neared his 
 end, asked Lockhart to read to him, and when the 
 latter inquired, "Out of what book?" the reply 
 was, kt Need you ask? there is but one;" and there- 
 upon the Bible was brought, and the chapter read 
 and listened to with delight was this fourteenth of 
 John, which says, "In my Father's house are many 
 mansions," and which says, "Believe me for the 
 very works' sake." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS TO THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
 Declare, if thou hast understanding. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born, 
 And the number of thy days is great!" — Job 38 : 4, 21. 
 
 "l^TOT infrequently there is a person who chal- 
 ■*-* lenges *the truthfulness of God's word, who 
 questions some of the more marvelous things rela- 
 ted in the Scriptures. We will frankly consider cer- 
 tain of the more formidable objections to the Bible, 
 and by seeing the light which can be thrown even 
 upon these, perhaps we will have our faith sufficient- 
 ly strengthened not to stumble at every apparent 
 obstacle, or at least we will have learned not to 
 accept the dictum of the infidel who thinks he 
 knows more of the history of the past than the men 
 who lived therein. He has not the least hesitation 
 in denying the occurrence of events which the Bible 
 vouches for through living witnesses of the time. 
 He is perfectly sure the scriptural narrative does 
 not correspond to the actual facts. Every once 
 in a while he gets tripped up ; still, he keeps on 
 
 79 
 
80 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 impugning the statements of the sacred historians. 
 A little of the modesty inculcated by our text 
 would be to the advantage of the supercilious 
 unbeliever: 
 
 " Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
 I declare, if thou hast understanding. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born, 
 And the number of thy days is great!" 
 
 1. The most brilliant infidel of the day describes 
 the Holy Land as " one-fifth the size of Illinois — 
 a frightful country, covered with rocks and desola- 
 tion. There never was an agent in Chicago that 
 would not have blushed with shame to have de- 
 scribed that land as flowing with milk and honey." 
 Was, then, the description thus given in Exodus 
 of Palestine overdrawn ? The expression, of course, 
 was a poetic one to indicate great fruitfulness. The 
 Roman poet Ovid, who died during the lifetime of 
 Christ, has a similar idea when he writes thus of 
 the Golden Age: 
 
 u Here rivers of milk, there rivers of nectar, were flowing, 
 And from the green of the oaks the yellow honey was 
 dropping." 
 
 Bat the trouble is, that the Holy Land is singularly 
 barren, stony and unproductive. That is, however, 
 no evidence that it has always been so. For one 
 thing, the timber has been all cut down, and the 
 bad results of that we of modern times know. 
 
FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS. 81 
 
 Indeed, governments are now offering premiums for 
 the planting of trees, and New York is discussing 
 the necessity of preserving the vast forests of the 
 Adirondacks if the Empire State is not to lose its 
 fertility. Thus the present sterility of Palestine 
 can be accounted for; the trees are largely gone. 
 Besides, there are on the hillsides ruins showing 
 that anciently terraces were made use of for the 
 better cultivation of the land. That theory, says 
 the objector, may be plausible enough, and may be 
 correct, but is there any absolute proof that the 
 soil was once productive? Yes, the Bible. But 
 its statements are denied, although why this should 
 be is not exactly clear. Why will some admit at 
 once the truth of what pagans write ? Are they so 
 much more trustworthy than holy men of old ? 
 
 But since our infidels prefer other than scriptural 
 authorities, they shall be satisfied. Tacitus, of the 
 end of the first and of the beginning of the second 
 century, says expressly of Palestine : " The soil is 
 rich." Josephus, a contemporary of the apostles 
 says of Galilee that the "soil is universally rich 
 and fruitful. . . . Moreover, the cities lie here very 
 thick, and the very many villages there are here 
 are everywhere so full of people, by the richness of 
 their soil, that the very least of them contain above 
 fifteen thousand inhabitants. ... It supplies men 
 with the principal fruits, with grapes and figs con- 
 tinually, during ten months of the year." A 
 Chicago land-agent would not need to blush much 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 over such a possession. Nay, he could put up his 
 posters that it does actually flow with milk and 
 honey, for Josephus goes on to observe of Judaea 
 and Samaria: "By reason also of the excellent 
 a they have, their cattle yield more milk than 
 do those in other places." Then if that agent could 
 have only controlled the land in the vicinity of 
 Jericho, he could have advertised, on the authority 
 of Josephos, that "it will not be easy to light on 
 any climate in the habitable earth that can well be 
 compared to it ;" while he could have also quoted 
 from the Jewish writer : " This country withal 
 produces honey from bees." Milk and honey! 
 Yet our smooth-tongued infidel, who knows more 
 of the past than the people who lived then, 
 says, " There never was an agent in Chicago that 
 would not have blushed with shame to have de- 
 scribed that land as flowing with milk and honey." 
 This is only a sample of the way in which historical 
 facts are set aside by the superficial and unscholarly 
 infidelity which is making so much noise through 
 the press and from the platform. Even if the 
 Bible cannot always be immediately verified by 
 secular authorities, that is no reason why we should 
 pronounce it false. We do not know everything ; 
 our age is not so great that we have personal 
 knowledge of centuries ago; we were not then 
 born. 
 
 2. There is in Old-Testament history a second 
 more serious difficulty, and that is the standing still 
 
FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS. 83 
 
 of the sun and moon at the command of Joshua to 
 give him time to complete his victory. With our 
 lack of knowledge we cannot declare this to be im- 
 possible. We were not there and cannot speak with 
 authority. It may be that the language is figura- 
 tive. We speak of the sun rising and setting, 
 though it does neither. Or perhaps the words in 
 Joshua are a poetic way of saying that it was a 
 good day's work ; what ordinarily would have re- 
 quired two days was accomplished in one by the 
 help of Jehovah, who lengthened the day in results 
 if not literally. This interpretation receives some 
 sanction when we come to read the sacred record, 
 and find that the words which give us trouble are 
 a poetical quotation from what is termed " the book 
 of Jasher." Joshua prayed for time thoroughly 
 to conquer the enemy, and so favorable were the 
 accompanying circumstances that the victory was 
 complete before the sun went down. If now a 
 poet, Jasher, chose to represent the sun as stand- 
 ing still, it was a beautiful thought, and naturally 
 would be incorporated into the historical account 
 of the battle. Homer makes Agamemnon to pray 
 to Jove : 
 
 " Let not the sun go down and night come on 
 Ere I shall lay the halls of Priam waste." 
 
 That was poetry, which meant that he wanted 
 victory that day. This is one explanation which 
 really does away with the miracle, but most hold 
 
84 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 that there was a miraculous lengthening of the day 
 tor Joshua. It is not, however, very generally 
 thought that the earth stopped in its revolution. 
 It* it did, the way in which the phenomenon would 
 be described would be that the sun stood still, and 
 not that the earth halted in its revolving, for we 
 Bay the sun rises and sets, although strictly we 
 ought to say the earth rolls round into the light 
 and out of it again, making day and night. There 
 is no difficulty, therefore, in the fact that the sun 
 was said to stand still (it was using language 
 popularly, just as we do), but the difficulty is, How 
 could the earth have been arrested in its diurnal 
 motion without throwing us all off its surface, and 
 without a shock to the whole solar system? Of 
 course infinite Power could hold everything in its 
 place, and could prevent any catastrophe, but it is 
 more natural to suppose that the desired end was 
 accomplished by less violent means. We are all 
 acquainted with the laws of refraction. In the 
 mirage, for instance, distant scenes ordinarily out 
 of sight are lifted into view. How ? There is a 
 modification of the atmosphere, and the rays of 
 light are so bent as to fall upon our vision even 
 over an intervening obstacle. This is not theory, 
 but an atmospherical fact which has been repeatedly 
 observed. Now, what if the sun did actually set 
 wheu Joshua was fighting his battle? The air may 
 have been so changed that the rays were refracted 
 over the hills between, so that the sun would seem 
 
FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS. 85 
 
 to be in the open sky. In that way could the day 
 be lengthened. That there was such a day seems 
 the more probable when we are told that there is a 
 Chinese tradition of a day double the usual length. 
 Then there is the familiar Greek fable, that the 
 sun was once persuaded by a rash boy of his to let 
 him drive the flaming chariot across the heavens, 
 and the result was that the youth was run away 
 with, and the fiery steeds rushed up and down the 
 skies, not reaching the western gates till long after 
 the usual time. That seems to be the mythological 
 way of stating that there has been one day when 
 the sun was later than usual in setting. Who, 
 therefore, shall assert that the sun did not to all 
 intents and purposes stand still for Joshua? We 
 were not there, we were not born over three millen- 
 niums ago, and in our ignorance we will show some 
 wisdom by not denying what both tradition and 
 Scripture declare. At any rate, the strange phenom- 
 enon is capable of a poetical and even scientific 
 explanation. 
 
 3. In passing let me merely allude to the much- 
 discredited story of Jonah. Possibly, the narrative, 
 if fictitious, could be used for the moral instruction 
 conveyed by it in the Bible, for the Lord himself 
 taught by parables, by stories ; but we can scarcely 
 resist the conviction that Christ refers to the ex- 
 perience of the prophet of Nineveh as historical, 
 for Jonah and Solomon and the queen of the south 
 are spoken of together. Besides, the great Teacher 
 
86 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 makes Qie entombment in the sea-monster typical 
 erf his own three days spent in the grave; and the 
 parallel is not very exact or impressive if both are 
 not facts. We believe in the Lord's burial and res- 
 urrection, and this is the greater miracle of the 
 two. Nor is the lesser miracle, to my mind, so very 
 incredible. There are marine animals large enough 
 to -wallow a man. In the capacious stomach of a 
 dog-fish a horse has been found whole, and likewise 
 a warrior in full armor. These are not fictions. 
 It is an authenticated case, that of the sailor who 
 in 1758 was swallowed without mutilation by a 
 leviathan of the deep. The only thing miraculous 
 about the scriptural story is the preservation of the 
 prophet alive under the circumstances. And why 
 should this be regarded a thing incredible with 
 God, who in the works of creation and in other 
 recorded miracles that are generally accepted per- 
 forms still greater wonders ? If you impeach the 
 testimony of God's word as to the sign of the 
 prophet Jonah, there must at least be admitted the 
 ironical truthfulness of the scriptural representation 
 of such as you : 
 
 " Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born, 
 And the number of thy days is great I" 
 
 4. One more difficulty, and that is in relation to 
 the Flood. There is the witticism about the venti- 
 lation of the ark with its one little window ; but a 
 scholar would never have made the egregious 
 
FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS. 87 
 
 blunder of supposing that there was only one small 
 aperture for the admission of light and air. The 
 Hebrew word implies that there was a system of 
 windows, running, it would seem, just beneath the 
 roof, the whole length of the ark, and when Noah 
 opened the window for the raven and dove, a dif- 
 ferent word is used (as the Revised Version, though 
 not the old, indicates), showing that this was a sin- 
 gle compartment in the larger window or " light." 
 Nor is the objection that the ark was not large enough 
 for all the different animals of any force, when we 
 understand that it is not necessary to suppose there 
 was a universal deluge. To be sure, we read of 
 "all flesh" being destroyed, of the waters covering 
 " all the high mountains that were under the whole 
 heaven," but we also read of a decree going out 
 from Csesar Augustus " that all the world should 
 be enrolled" in the census of the first century. 
 As the latter means simply the Roman empire, all 
 the world in which Augustus had any interest, so 
 the former may mean the world so far as Noah was 
 concerned. Such general expressions need not be 
 taken literally, any more than we are when we say, 
 " Everybody is going to such and such a place." 
 The ark, which was a little larger than the Great 
 Eastern, may not have been capable of holding two 
 of every species around the entire globe, but all the 
 animals (two and two of them) of the land which 
 we may suppose to have been swept by a partial 
 flood may have had sufficient room. But is there 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 anv evidence (outside of the Bible) of even a local 
 flood of* anv great extent? Yes; almost all nations 
 have traditions of a destructive deluge. As the 
 descendants of Noah multiplied and were dispersed 
 over the earth, the memory of the great catastrophe 
 would naturally be passed down the ages, although, 
 of course, variations would arise. There is, accord- 
 ingly the account of Berosus, in many respects 
 resembling the scriptural narrative. The Chinese 
 have a story that all the world was once drowned 
 except three emperors. The Greeks had their Deu- 
 calion, who built a ship in which he and his wife 
 were saved from an inundation which destroyed all 
 the rest of mankind. Among the American Indians 
 are various traditions, one of which makes it the 
 humming-bird that returns with a twig in its beak. 
 Now, all this proves that there must have been some 
 original fact which gave rise to the different stories. 
 Nor is the deluge an unlikely event, looking at it 
 from a geological standpoint. Only as long ago as 
 "June, 1819," says the geologist Lyell, "the sea 
 flowed in by the eastern mouth of the Indus, and 
 in a few hours converted a tract of land two thou- 
 sand square miles in area into an inland sea." We 
 are familiar with geological elevations and depres- 
 sions of land. Winchell, in his Sketches of Creation, 
 Bays that "in 1822 the entire coast of Chili was 
 elevated to a height varying from two to seven feet 
 — an extent equal to the area of New England and 
 New York having been lifted up bodily." The 
 
FORMIDABLE OBJECTIONS. 89 
 
 same geologist declares that "a depression in the 
 valley of the Lower Mississippi of only three hun- 
 dred feet would admit the waters of the Gulf of 
 Mexico up to the mouth of the Ohio." When 
 Dawson, even from the scientific standpoint, tells us 
 of geological deluges submerging the plains of 
 Europe under one thousand feet of water, and 
 informs us that the earth since the advent of man 
 has taken at least one such "plunge-bath before 
 attaining its modern fixity," we need not be very 
 skeptical about a Bible flood, partial or universal ; 
 we need not in the least discredit that of the time 
 of Noah. God very properly says, 
 
 "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? 
 Declare, if thou hast understanding. 
 
 ****** 
 Doubtless, thou knowest, for thou wast then born, 
 And the number of thy days is great !" 
 
 We were not present when the great deep in the 
 time of Noah is said to have been broken up, and 
 we have no right to deny what is written as fact, 
 what is sustained by universal tradition and what 
 is rendered probable by geologic science. 
 
 In conclusion, whether we believe in the deluge 
 or not, there is coming the flood of death which 
 will be to each of us a terrible reality. There is no 
 getting around the waters of that Jordan, and un- 
 happy shall we be if this mighty tide sweep us out 
 into eternity while we are scoffing. We will then 
 
90 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 wish to be in one ark, and that is the ark of salva- 
 tion. Seek safety in time, for there is such a thing 
 bag too late. 
 
 " Come to the ark, ere yet the flood 
 Your lingering steps oppose; 
 Come, for the door which open stood 
 Is now about to close." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Behold, the ships also, though they are so great, and are 
 driven by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very 
 small rudder, whither the impulse of the steersman willeth." 
 — James 3 : 4. 
 
 THE apostle is arguing against setting up to be 
 " teachers " of divine things. He implies that 
 special qualifications are required for the respon- 
 sible position of making known the will of God. 
 Self-constituted teachers are sure to make mistakes 
 from which the inspired are free. " If any man," 
 says the context, " stumbleth not in word, the same 
 is a perfect man." " The tongue," James says, " is 
 a little member," but it can easily make a slip. 
 The truth of this we recognize in the oft-used Latin 
 phrase, lapsus linguce, a slip of the tongue. Now, 
 the teachers whom God inspired to give us a perfect 
 rule of faith and practice, to give us the Scriptures, 
 have not stumbled even in word. A slight inac- 
 curacy, a slip of the tongue as to any essential fact, 
 would be an impeachment of the veracity of the 
 Bible, but such we do not find. If we did, it 
 would throw the Old and New Testaments out of 
 
 91 
 
92 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 the course of the divinely given, and would leave 
 DA all at sea religiously. On the other hand, a very 
 trifling mark of truthfulness confirms our faith m 
 the infallibility of Holy Writ, and the more indi- 
 rect and casual the proof the stronger it is. Pro- 
 fessor Blunt in his Undesigned Coincidences, and 
 Pa ley in his Horce Paulines, or Hours with Paul, 
 have brought together a great many incidental 
 confirmations of the Bible. A few of these, with 
 others that have come to me in a personal investi- 
 gation of the subject, will be passed before you 
 for your consideration, and, it is to be hoped, for 
 your edification. 
 
 The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments 
 have come down the ages like ships; they have 
 been "driven by rough winds," they have been 
 subjected to severe gales of criticism; but when 
 they have seemed about to be lost on the rocks of 
 skepticism and infidelity, they have been righted to 
 their course by a subtle impulse given at the hand 
 of the great Steersman. "Though they are so 
 great," yet again and again they have been recov- 
 ered to the faith of God's people by some unde- 
 signed agreement which has been made to appear 
 between different ones of the sacred writers, by 
 some unimportant allusion which has been found 
 to be true to fact. Hence the significance of our 
 text as applied to the Scriptures: "Behold, the 
 si lips also, though they are so great, and are driven 
 by rough winds, are yet turned about by a very 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 93 
 
 small rudder, whither the impulse of the steersman 
 willeth." Undesigned coincidences will at this 
 time be made repeatedly to be the very small rud- 
 der which God uses to bring back the Scriptures 
 from where some would have them driven by con- 
 trary winds. 
 
 1. First, let us look at the Old Testament. 
 When Joseph was sold by his brethren it was to a 
 caravan, we read in Genesis, " bearing spicery, and 
 balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." 
 There we see a mere allusion to a species of Orien- 
 tal traffic carried on with the ancient Egyptians. 
 There was no special occasion for mentioning the 
 spicery that was being conveyed to Egypt ; the sale 
 of a brother was the main subject. But this small 
 incident, to which only a passing reference is made, 
 fits in with the fact that Egypt needed a great deal 
 of this kind of merchandise, and that that country, 
 therefore, was a probable and profitable market for 
 balm from the East. Years afterward Joseph, as 
 we are informed, " embalmed " his father, and it is 
 implied that embalming was an Egyptian custom, 
 while centuries subsequently we read in the Gospel 
 of John about Nicodemus for the burial of Jesus 
 " bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a 
 hundred pound weight." If a hundred pounds 
 were required for a single body, of course Egypt 
 with its practice of embalming was a great market 
 for spicery. So remarkably does an indirect allu- 
 sion in Genesis tally with fact. The casual refer- 
 
!)1 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 to Bpicery is the small rudder keeping the ship 
 to the straight track of truthfulness. 
 
 Take, again, that great biblical event of the pas- 
 
 of the Jordan. When did it occur? Accord- 
 ing to the book of Joshua, it was (and it is stated 
 parenthetically as being aside from the chief thing 
 to be narrated) when " Jordan overfloweth all its 
 banks all the time of harvest." The time is further 
 indicated as being " on the tenth day of the first 
 month.' 1 That we know from other sources to 
 have been four days before the Passover. But the 
 Israelites left Egypt at the Passover, just after the 
 ten plagues, one of them being the hail by which it 
 is said in Exodus " the flax and the barley were 
 smitten. " Now, three days before the crossing 
 of the Jordan spies were sent into Jericho, where 
 they were hidden by Rahab, and how ? We 
 read in Joshua that she " hid them with the stalks 
 of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof." 
 The smiting of the flax with hail in one book cor- 
 responds with the hiding under flax in the other, 
 and that, too, though neither writer was speaking 
 of flax directly, but the one was describing a plague 
 and the other the passage of the Jordan, both which 
 events occurred at or near the Passover or harvest. 
 They both happened, we say, to mention flax at 
 its full development, and thus they unconsciously 
 Strengthen each other and our confidence in their 
 veracity. They are mutually corroborative, and in 
 the most incidental manner. The very indirectness 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 95 
 
 of this kind of proof is what confirms our faith. It 
 is the very small rudder which turns the whole 
 ship, which recovers to our assured belief the whole 
 Old Testament when driven by the rough winds 
 of unbelief. 
 
 Again, we read in Numbers that the spies sent 
 by Moses into Canaan saw " men of great stature," 
 " sons of Anak." Joshua, however, it is said in 
 the book bearing his name, " cut off the Anakim," 
 " utterly destroyed them." But pass down to the 
 time of David, and we learn from Samuel that the 
 giants had not all been exterminated, for " Goliath 
 of Gath " defied the armies of the living God. 
 Turn back to Joshua, and see if they did entirely 
 annihilate the Anakim, and see if you can account 
 for "Goliath of Gath." Certainly you can, for 
 just beyond what has already been quoted it is 
 said, " There was none of the Anakim left in the 
 land of the children of Israel : only in Gaza, in 
 Gath, and in Ashdod, did some remain." Thus 
 do we have three independent witnesses — Moses, 
 Joshua and Samuel — agreeing, though they mani- 
 festly do not plan for the agreement. This is a 
 little item to be taken into account in the considera- 
 tion of so great a subject, but it is none the less 
 important for that reason. A straw shows which 
 way the wind blows. A very small rudder deter- 
 mines the course of a great ship. A very minor 
 incident helps to establish the whole Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 At the preaching of Jonah, to proceed in further 
 illustration of our topic, there was such repentance 
 that we read in the prophet there were "covered 
 with sackcloth both man and beast" A singular 
 and an improbable way of mourning that was, to 
 have the very beasts in the array of mourning. Is 
 not the whole narrative of the preaching to the 
 Ninevitee proven a myth by this strange circum- 
 stance which is related as a fact? It might seem 
 BO until we take up a pagan writer, Plutarch, by 
 whom we are informed that at the death of Pelop- 
 idaa his soldiers "cut off their horses' manes and 
 their own hair ;" while at the death of a very dear 
 friend Alexander the Great was so overcome " that 
 to express his sorrow he immediately ordered the 
 manes and tails of all his horses and mules to be 
 cut." Thus does a pagan writer, without intending 
 it, render credible the sacred writer, who says that 
 the kiug of Nineveh, as an expression of repent- 
 ance before God, ordered the very flocks and herds 
 to be " covered with sackcloth." This is a little 
 incident, but it confirms the truthfulness of Jonah, 
 that most bitterly assailed of all the books of the 
 Bible, and it thus assists in establishing the entire 
 Old Testament. It is the very small rudder which 
 turns the whole ship. 
 
 Another example : David in adversity experienced 
 kindness from an aged Gileadite, and by way of re- 
 ward he took into the royal favor a son of his friend 
 by the name of "Chimham." There is only the 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 97 
 
 barest allusion to it in Samuel and Kings. Exactly 
 what David did for Chimham it is not said, but 
 he probably gave him an estate in the vicinity of 
 the court. The name, however, does not appear for 
 four hundred years. May it not have been all a 
 fable about Chimham experiencing the royal favor? 
 Was it real history or was it a beautiful romance ? 
 We pass down four centuries and we find Jeremiah 
 prophesying. He is describing a time of peril, and 
 he is telling of some Jews trying to escape from 
 the captivity which came, and he uses this lan- 
 guage : " And they departed, and dwelt in Geruth 
 (margin, the lodging-place of) Chimham, which is 
 by Bethlehem, to go to enter into Egypt, because 
 of the Chaldeans." Thus does it appear that Chim- 
 ham was an actual person, that he really had expe- 
 rienced the royal favor by having an estate settled 
 upon him — an estate which bore his name four hun- 
 dred years after the event. What is more, the 
 prophet was evidently not trying to confirm the 
 earlier narrative, for the name of Chimham comes 
 in only incidentally as a stopping-place for some 
 Jewish refugees on the way to Egypt. So that by 
 a dark hint to an event which transpired four cen- 
 turies before, by a hint which not one reader in a 
 thousand would notice, in so indirect a way is the 
 word of God confirmed, and the confirmation is all 
 the stronger because entirely undesigned. 
 
 Again, we read in Second Kings, " Now Mesha, 
 king of Moab, was a sheepmaster ; and he rendered 
 7 
 
THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 unto the king of Israel the wool of an hundred 
 thousand lambs, and of an hundred thousand rams." 
 Hut this Moabite king rebelled ; he determined to 
 have relief from the oppressive tribute imposed. 
 We Uarn further from the scriptural narrative that 
 he was overwhelmingly defeated, but that he rallied 
 in a last stronghold, and that there he made to his 
 god, upon the wall in full sight of the besieging 
 Israelites, the costly burnt-offering of his first-born 
 son. And what was the result? The biblical an- 
 swer is, " And there was great wrath against Israel : 
 and they departed from him, and returned to their 
 own land." That is, the Israelites, horrified at the 
 human, and at the same time inhuman, sacrifice, re- 
 linquished the siege for fear of a divine judgment 
 upon them as being indirectly the cause of the great 
 wickedness committed, and the Moabite monarch 
 thus gained his end, the independence of his king- 
 dom, and, as he believed and as it seemed, through 
 the divine favor secured by the open sacrifice of his 
 son. This all seems very improbable, does it not? 
 Happening, too, nine hundred years before Christ, 
 it becomes the more doubtful, even if it is related 
 in the Bible. But there has come in these recent 
 times a remarkable confirmation of the scriptural 
 Btory. In 1868 a traveler in the ancient territory 
 of the Moabites came upon a stone three feet nine 
 inches long, two feet four inches wide and one foot 
 two inches thick. This is the famous Moabite 
 lie, one of the most marvelous discoveries in this 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 99 
 
 century of wonders. It is now in London, and 
 what does it contain ? An inscription made by the 
 Moabite king himself nine centuries before the 
 Christian era, and establishing the truthfulness of 
 the inspired record. " I, Mesha," is the reading in 
 chiseled and imperishable characters, " erected this 
 stone to Chemosh, . . . for he saved me from 
 all despoilers and let me see my desire upon all my 
 enemies." And who were among his enemies? 
 The Moabite Stone replies, the " king of Israel, 
 who oppressed Moab many days." Thus are the 
 very stones crying out in defence of God's word 
 and of our holy religion. 
 
 Still, again : profane historians relate that the 
 capture of Babylon took place under Nabonnedus, 
 not under Belshazzar, whom Daniel names. Skep- 
 tics used to enlarge upon this discrepancy, as well 
 as upon other contradictions. But a few years ago 
 in the vicinity of Babylon was found a cylinder 
 which gave the information that Nabonnedus had 
 a son by the name of Belshazzar who was associated 
 with the father in the government. A complete 
 harmony is thus established between the profane his- 
 torian and sacred narrator, while at the same time a 
 casual remark of the latter is explained. Belshazzar, 
 according to Daniel, had promised that the reader 
 of the handwriting on the wall should be " third 
 ruler in the kingdom." Why not second, instead 
 of third ? The association of two monarchs, Na- 
 bonnedus and Belshazzar, in ruling clears up 
 
100 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 what was long a mystery. The inspired writer 
 casually remarks that the reader of the handwriting 
 was to be made " third " in the kingdom, and no 
 one knew why third till a cylinder a little while ago 
 revealed the secret by its allusion to the Babylonian 
 throne being occupied by father and son jointly, 
 who of course would be first and second, although 
 Daniel directly mentions only one of the two. We 
 could go on indefinitely giving specifications of the 
 incidental confirmation of the Old Testament. Re- 
 peatedly, a very small rudder rights the ship of 
 God's word when driven by the rough winds of 
 skeptical assault. 
 
 2. We have, in the second place, just as striking 
 confirmations of the New Testament. Does Paul 
 say in his Epistle to the Ephesians, "I am an ani- 
 bassador in chains"? The historian in Acts makes 
 him say, "I am bound with this chain." Does 
 the historic narrative say, "Saul laid waste the 
 Church"? He confirms this when he writes his 
 letter to the Galatians, "Beyond measure I per- 
 secuted the Church of God." Does Luke write 
 that Timothy was "the son of a Jewess"? Paul 
 intimates (and an intimation is stronger proof some- 
 times than a direct assertion) the same thing when 
 in his Epistle to Timothy he says, "From a babe 
 thou hast known the sacred writings." To be sure, 
 he had known the Scriptures from childhood if he 
 had a Jewish mother. The words of Luke and 
 Paul in this way, without design, are mutually 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 101 
 
 confirmatory. Does Luke affirm that the Sadducees 
 say, "There is no resurrection, neither angel, nor 
 spirit"? Josephus, who was born 37 A. D., and 
 thus belonged to the first century of the Christian 
 era, says, "The doctrine of the Sadducees is 
 this, that souls die with the bodies." Thus Jew 
 and Christian agree, and that, too, without col- 
 lusion. 
 
 Quite aside from his main purpose, the writer of 
 the Acts speaks of " the Beautiful Gate of the tem- 
 ple." The Jewish historian, without any reference 
 to Luke, tells of a gate of the temple which 
 "greatly excelled" the others, and which was 
 "adorned after a most costly manner, as having 
 much richer and thicker plates of silver and gold " 
 than the rest. Did the priest of Jupiter, according 
 to the Acts, bring " oxen and garlands " to sacrifice 
 in honor of ihe apostles ? In a triumph voted to 
 an ancient general there figured, according to classic 
 story (Plutarch), "a hundred and twenty stalled 
 oxen, with their horns gilded and their heads 
 adorned with ribbons and garlands" Thus accu- 
 rate as to facts which we are inclined to dispute are 
 the New-Testament writers, and when without con- 
 trivance they are corroborated by pagan testimony, 
 we must believe that those who were faithful in re- 
 cording what was least are equally trustworthy in 
 their narration of weightier matters. 
 
 Did Paul slander the Cretans when in his letter 
 to Titus he warned them against " teaching things 
 
102 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake"? 
 Nay, this accords with the character ascribed to 
 them by Plutarch in his life of Perseus, who was 
 noted for being covetous, and who "cheated," it is 
 -aid, hifl C/rctan followers, not giving them the 
 money lie promised for some valuable plate. The 
 historian adds, " He only played the Cretan with 
 the Cretans." The inspired and the uninspired 
 writers agree in the character ascribed to those 
 islanders, and yet the harmony between the two 
 was unintentional. A little and yet a significant 
 circumstance is this : it is the very small rudder 
 turning the whole ship, large though it be; it is 
 one of those undesigned coincidences which con- 
 firm the truth of the whole New Testament. 
 
 Does this inspired book tell us of the crucifixion 
 of Christ by Pilate, and of his followers being 
 " called Christians"? The Roman Tacitus of the 
 first century speaks of "persons commonly called 
 Christians who were hated for their enormities. 
 Christufi, the founder of that name, was put to death 
 i criminal by Pontius Pilate." Does Luke in 
 the Acts say, "Claudius had commanded all the 
 Jews to depart from Rome " ? Suetonius, a Latin 
 contemporary, says of the same emperor, "He 
 banished from Rome all the Jews, who were con- 
 tinually making disturbances at the instigation of 
 one Chrcstus;" that is, Christ. These are little 
 things, but they harmonize wonderfully and with- 
 OUl anv purpose of that kind. 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 103 
 
 "When the multitude was to be miraculously fed 
 on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, John says 
 that Jesus asked " Philip " where bread could be 
 bought. Why, do you suppose, was the question 
 directed to Philip ? Well, we can ascertain why in a 
 circuitous way. From Luke we learn that the 
 exact locality of the miracle was in the vicinity of 
 " a city called Bethsaida." Then we are told by 
 John, but not in connection with the miracle, that 
 " Philip was from Bethsaida." In this roundabout 
 manner do we see why Philip was asked where bread 
 could be secured. He was brought up in that 
 neighborhood, and would know, if any one did, 
 where the desired purchase could be made. This 
 is indirect but very strong evidence for the truthful- 
 ness of John in that, without saying that the feed- 
 ing of the multitude was at Bethsaida, he made 
 Christ ask concerning a place for buying bread of 
 the disciple who would be apt to know because of 
 the locality being near his native city. It is one of 
 those minor touches which establish the veracity 
 of the New Testament. 
 
 Again does the small rudder appear when Paul 
 in his letter to the Romans commends to them 
 Phcebe, "a servant of the church which is at 
 Cenchrea" and when it is remarked of him in 
 the most casual way in the Acts, " having shorn 
 his head in Cenchrea" The one reference shows 
 that he was acquainted with a member of the 
 church there, and the other that he had been there ; 
 
in I THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 and without any intention they confirm each other 
 and strengthen our faith in the whole New Testa- 
 nicnt. 
 
 Once more: we read in Colossians, "Onesimus, 
 the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of 
 yon ; w that is, one of the Colossians. Can this be, 
 not directly, but indirectly, proved? Turn to 
 Philemon, and Onesimus is found to be a "ser- 
 vant" of Philemon. But did Philemon live in 
 Colosfi e? The letter to him does not give us any 
 information on this point, but the Epistle does con- 
 tain greetings to Philemon "and to Archippus" 
 Where did Archippus reside? The Epistle to the 
 Colossians says, " Say to Archippus, Take heed to 
 the ministry which thou hast received." So that 
 Archippus was of Colosse, and hence Philemon 
 was, who is coupled with him in the letter to 
 Philemon, and therefore Onesimus was of Colosse, 
 for he was a slave of Philemon ; and in this cir- 
 cuitous manner is established the truth of what the 
 apostle wrote to the Colossians : Onesimus, " who is 
 one of you." These circumstantial coincidences are 
 what give credibility to the testimony of different 
 witnesses in court, and it is these minute agreements 
 without design which prove the truthfulness of the 
 various writers of the New Testament. 
 
 The feet is, that both the Old Testament and 
 the New are constantly being verified in the most 
 indirect and yet positive ways by the marvelous 
 discoveries which are taking place. There is the 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 105 
 
 oft-mentioned case, already referred to in a pre- 
 vious chapter, of the proper title of Sergius 
 Paulus, who governed the island of Cyprus at the 
 time of Paul's visit. Luke was long thought to 
 have made a mistake in calling this ruler " pro- 
 consul " instead of " propraetor/' but among the 
 confirmations of his entire accuracy is none stronger 
 than the finding by General Cesnola, in modern 
 excavations at Cyprus, of a coin bearing the in- 
 scription, "In the proconsulship of Paulus" who 
 may have been the Sergius Paulus named by the 
 sacred historian, and whose title at least was def- 
 initely fixed beyond all controversy. Two other 
 very striking incidents are worth mentioning because 
 of their important bearing. Since we read in 
 Haggai, " and will make thee as a signet," very 
 significantly, within a few years, at the sinking of 
 a shaft to the depth of forty-three feet outside the 
 wall of Jerusalem, there has been discovered amid 
 fragments of pottery and glass a gentleman's seal, 
 a finely-grained black stone, with the inscription, 
 "Haggai the son of Shebaniah" The lettering is 
 of the kind used at the time of the Babylonian 
 Captivity. The prophet Haggai was one of the 
 exiles who returned to Jerusalem under the lead 
 of Zerubbabel. The seal found may therefore be 
 the one which suggested Haggai's words when he 
 said of his leader, " and will make thee as a signet." 
 The prophet may have held up before Zerubbabel 
 his own signet, and possibly the very seal lately 
 
Km; THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 exhumed, and certainly inscribed with the name of 
 "Haggai" When, again, like that noble Roman 
 who bought at its full price the very ground on 
 which the army of Hannibal was encamped, Jere- 
 miah with all confidence in the future made his 
 ancestral purchase in his native Anathoth over 
 which the Babylonian engines of war were rolling, 
 the prophet said of this famous business transaction, 
 u 1 subscribed the deed, and sealed it;" And how 
 he prised his seal is indicated by that other verse 
 in his prophecy where he represents God as saying 
 of the king of Judah that though he " were the 
 Bignet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee 
 thence." In connection with all this is the very 
 suggestive fact that among recent discoveries in 
 Egypt, where we find the prophet in his later life, 
 is a remarkable seal with Phoenician characters 
 which read, "To the Prosperity of Jeremiah" The 
 type of lettering is assigned to the seventh century 
 before Christ, and hence the seal, it has been said, 
 " may be a veritable relic of the great Hebrew 
 prophet Jeremiah." These surely are wonderful 
 incidental confirmations of the prophetic writings. 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is, that both 
 Testaments, Old and New, have come down many 
 centuries over a tempestuous sea, assailed by fierce 
 galea of an unbelieving criticism, but as often as 
 they have been driven out toward the rocks of 
 infidelity, they have been veered back into the 
 confidence of Christians bv some undesigned coin- 
 
INCIDENTAL CONFIRMATIONS. 107 
 
 cidence, by some incidental confirmation of their 
 entire truthfulness. " Behold, the ships also, though 
 they are so great, and are driven by rough winds, 
 are yet turned about by a very small rudder, 
 whither the impulse of the steersman willeth." 
 So it has been with the Holy Scriptures, and let us 
 thank God for their preservation and complete 
 establishment in ways so circuitous and undesigned. 
 God by a very small rudder has repeatedly kept 
 them straight on their course to carry the gospel 
 of glad tidings to all the world. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE; OR, THE CREATIVE 
 WEEK, 
 
 "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
 sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." — 
 Ex. 20: 11. 
 
 WE will take a general and a specific view of 
 the subject suggested by this text, which 
 brings at once to our thought the topic of the 
 Bible and Science. 
 
 1. The creative week, as described by Moses in 
 the first chapter of Genesis, has probably caused 
 more discussion than any other portion of Scripture ; 
 nor have Genesis and geology yet been harmonized 
 in a way that satisfies all minds. There are those 
 to whom the differences between religion and science 
 at this very starting-point of the controversy seem 
 irreconcilable, and they accordingly reject the whole 
 Bcheme of revelation, and they acknowledge noth- 
 ing but nature. The first article of the unbeliever's 
 creed lias been stated in this fashion: "I believe 
 that there is no God, but that matter is God, and 
 God is matter; and that it is no matter whether 
 there i- any God or not." 
 
 108 
 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 109 
 
 But while some consider the Mosaic cosmogony 
 as wholly mythical, and while others regard it as 
 allegorical — a picture at best of the great epochs in 
 creation — most biblical scholars hold that the nar- 
 rative is essentially historical and altogether true. 
 Still, no intelligent interpreter now maintains that 
 the whole creation took place in six literal days. 
 That was for centuries the prevailing view (al- 
 though Augustine and others of the early Fathers 
 did not hold to it), but it was long the general 
 view, which at first was not abandoned, though it 
 did seem to conflict with geologic facts. 
 
 What if the sedimentary formations were such 
 as to indicate a work of thousands and perhaps 
 millions of years ? It was argued that God could 
 have formed the deposits at once. So could he form 
 the blade of grass in an instant, but we see that he 
 does not, and it is difficult to believe that he in a 
 moment's time created the sandstones, whose for- 
 mation a natural and protracted growth, such as is 
 going on to-day, better explains. What if the 
 rocks did contain fossil remains which seemed to 
 show that animals and plants existed long ages 
 before the assumed time of the creation? God 
 could have instantly created a fossil, it was claimed, 
 to represent an animal or a plant which never really 
 existed. He perhaps could have done so, but it is 
 not at all likely that he did. 
 
 That argument failed to satisfy the human mind. 
 If, in excavating, the remains of a buried city 
 
110 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Bhoold be exhumed, people would believe that it 
 had been built there naturally by a generation of 
 living men. Of course God might have imbedded 
 in the earth, by a fiat of his, just such ruins when 
 be called this universe into being, but only the 
 most ignorant would give credence to any such 
 theory. So the discovery of fossils deep down in 
 sedimentary rocks which could have been formed 
 by the slow deposits of waters only during a period 
 tar longer than the commonly accepted age of this 
 world, forces the reason to believe that, for in- 
 stance, the foot-tracks of those immense animals 
 u which stalked on the Permian sands and mud " 
 were impressed there naturally by those gigantic 
 creatures when those alluvial deposits were made 
 thousands and thousands of years ago, and that God 
 did not six millenniums ago by a miraculous act 
 imprint life-like tracks in the stratified layers just 
 to deceive man. Likewise the petrified leaf or tree 
 cannot be thought to be a supernatural, but a nat- 
 ural, formation. We did not see it turn to stone, 
 but we know it did, because we can trace the orig- 
 inal vegetable lines and characteristics. So that 
 a progressive creation is no longer doubted, the prog- 
 ress extending over more than six days of twenty- 
 four hours each. 
 
 There are two main methods of giving time for 
 the geologic formations. The one is to fix a great 
 gulf between the first verse of the inspired record 
 and what follows : " In the beginning God created 
 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE, 111 
 
 the heaven and the earth." To that indefinite 
 period, " in the beginning," can be assigned those 
 long ages of which we read in the books — Cam- 
 brian, Silurian, Carboniferous, or Primary, Second- 
 ary and Tertiary, or Azoic, Mesozoic and Palaeozoic, 
 and so on up through the technical list ; — these all 
 would belong to the " in the beginning." Then 
 would follow six natural days, during which the 
 previous chaotic disorder, by fiats of the Almighty, 
 would be resolved into the beautiful cosmos which 
 became the habitation of man. 
 
 The other method of reconciling the geologic and 
 Mosaic records is to make the days to be vast 
 stretches of time. The most prominent advocates 
 of this view from the scientific standpoint are Pro- 
 fessor Dana of Yale and the late Professor Guyot 
 of Princeton College, and their explanations are 
 certainly very plausible ; and it is not strange that 
 a large portion of Christendom seems to be settling 
 down to an acceptance of the harmony which can 
 thus be established. It violates no law of herme- 
 neutics, no sound exegetical principle, to prolong in- 
 definitely the six days of creation. We are assured 
 by the sacred writers themselves that one day is 
 with the Lord as a thousand years. Then such ex- 
 pressions as these are found in the Bible : " the day 
 of salvation," " the day of wrath," " the day of 
 temptation," " the day of trouble," " the day of 
 Egypt," where manifestly there is no hour-limit. 
 In the very narrative of the creation the word is 
 
112 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 employed to mark varying periods of duration. It 
 occurs three times before the appearance of the sun 
 at all — of that orb which gave the present succes- 
 sion of darkness and light. Once it is used to cover 
 the whole process of the creation — " in the day 
 that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens," 
 this day being thus coextensive with the six days 
 previously mentioned. As a matter of interpreta- 
 tion, therefore, there can be no objection to making 
 the days denote geologic ages, as the scholarly Tay- 
 ler Lewis long ago did in his famous Six Days of 
 Creation. 
 
 A more important question is, Is the order of 
 creation the same scripturally that it is scientifically? 
 The parallelism is so marked as to have convinced 
 the master-minds of even the eminent scientists to 
 whom reference has been made that the two revela- 
 tions, in the word of truth and in the work of na- 
 ture, must be alike from God. The Yale professor, 
 in his Manual of Geology, says : " The order of 
 events in the Scripture cosmogony corresponds es- 
 sentially with that which has been given " (in his 
 book) ; and he sees in this "a far-reaching prophecy 
 to which philosophy could not have attained, how- 
 ever instructed." The distinguished Princeton nat- 
 uralist was so struck with the resemblances that he 
 wrote a little volume on Creation ; or, Tlie Biblical 
 Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science, in which 
 his enthusiasm kindles because of what he calls 
 " the grand cosmogonic week described by Moses." 
 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 113 
 
 Principal Dawson of Canada, in his Origin of the 
 World, still more minutely presents the wonderful 
 agreement of the Bible and science. It is the 
 thoughts of such specialists that we have endeavored 
 to assimilate and are trying to unfold. 
 
 In these times of skeptical contrasts drawn be- 
 tween creation and evolution, to the disparagement 
 of the former, we need to bear in mind that they are 
 not necessarily antagonistic — that there are theistic 
 and Christian evolutionists, like the late Professor 
 Gray of Harvard and botany fame, and like the 
 lamented Agassiz. Let us only become acquainted 
 with the facts, and we shall not be frightened at in- 
 fidel claims of divergence and opposition, and our 
 faith will not waver in the least as we repeat the 
 words spoken of old by inspiration : " For in six 
 days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and 
 all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." 
 
 2. Turning now to details, let us follow along 
 the latest paths of science over the creative week, 
 and let us see how they do not diverge at all from 
 the old paths of religion. 
 
 The first day, or geologic age, was characterized 
 by the creation of matter and by the appearance of 
 light. The universe was called into being, but in a 
 chaotic or nebulous condition — u the earth was waste 
 and void." A nebula was created, diffused through 
 space, but this vapory mass was inert till God said, 
 " Let there be light." This was not the light of 
 the sun (which had not yet appeared), but cosmical 
 
 8 
 
114 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 light, a light produced by molecular action. The 
 Almighty imparted a rotary motion to the igneous 
 mass ; he set it revolving ; he gave it laws of action 
 which still operate in gravity, in chemical and other 
 natural forces. This was the beginning, a fire-mist 
 turning on an axis, matter in activity. " A flash 
 of light through the universe," says the scientist 
 (Dana condensing from Guyot), " would be the first 
 announcement of the work begun." So much for 
 the first day, for its evening and morning — " a fa- 
 miliar metaphor," we are told (Dana) with appar- 
 ent good reason, to indicate "the beginning and 
 consummation of each work," for there was as yet 
 no solar day. There was simply luminosity from 
 the movements of multitudinous atoms. 
 
 The second day, or geologic age, was marked by 
 the separation of the waters from the waters by a 
 firmament. The gaseous would in time by contrac- 
 tion become the molten, of the consistency of water. 
 Such waters were separated from waters ; the great 
 watery bulk broke up into different globules of still 
 immense proportions. On the first day matter was 
 created and endowed with force, but it was one 
 whirling, fluid mass, with vast sphericity. As it 
 cooled and condensed it would revolve more and 
 more rapidly, till the centrifugal force became 
 greater than the centripetal, and portion after por- 
 tion, like so many watery drops, w r ould be thrown 
 off, each assuming a spheroidal shape by the laws 
 of motion. One of these vast revolving masses 
 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 115 
 
 would be the original material of our solar system, 
 which in turn would break up, and the planets would 
 in this way be formed ; and they too, as often as they 
 threw off a portion of their still liquid bulk, would 
 have a satellite or moon. Thus our present solar 
 system would be gradually produced or evolved, 
 with the central mass constituting the sun, which is 
 still a glowing, heated ball. This dividing and sub- 
 dividing of primordial matter occupied the second 
 day. The earth, before included in the general 
 mass, was individualized, was given a separate ex- 
 istence, a definite shape. Its waters were divided 
 off from the other waters. This liquid globe of 
 ours became defined, disentangled from the rest of 
 the fire-mist. The exact words of the scientist 
 (Guyot) in describing the work of the second day 
 are : " The vast primitive nebula of the first day 
 breaks up into a multitude of gaseous masses, and 
 these are concentrated into stars." One of these 
 nebulous stars would be the earth. 
 
 The third day came, and with it, according to the 
 biblical narrative, continents and oceans and vege- 
 tation. This accords with the geological facts. 
 The unfinished earth would cool and contract, and 
 the condensed vapors would make a sea covering 
 the entire surface of the globe. The heated sphere 
 with its cooling crust would naturally crumple up, 
 form into great wrinkles, acquire elevations and de- 
 pressions, and there would thus result the sea and 
 the dry land. Then the lower plant-organisms 
 
1 1 iy THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 would start, while yet the waters were too hot for 
 animal Life; and it is worth observing that some forms 
 of vegetation can exist at two hundred degrees Fah- 
 renheit. The earth would be a great humid, shaded 
 hothouse, giving rise to those luxuriant growths to 
 which the everlasting rocks testify, when ferns at- 
 tained the height of our most stately forest trees. 
 Whether vegetation developed without a creative act 
 from existent matter is not clear. One thing is 
 certain, no experiments have yet succeeded in ar- 
 ranging material particles so as to produce living 
 species; spontaneous generation is yet unproved. 
 Possibly vegetation did develop from matter en- 
 dowed from the beginning with germinant force 
 under favorable conditions, for the language is, 
 " Let the earth bring forth" There was an absolute 
 creation on the first day, but the word (i create " is 
 not used of the work of the second day, when, 
 therefore, the earth may have been, and seems to 
 have been, evolved from the general mass ; and the 
 word " create" is not used of the work of the third 
 day, when it would seem as if continents and oceans 
 were formed by a natural process, and when possibly 
 vegetation was developed from the earth, and not 
 strictly created ; when the creation would be mediate 
 — from pre-existent materials. These are unsettled 
 points, but there is no doubt as to the agreement in 
 the main events of the third day in Genesis and of 
 the corresponding age in geology. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, Moses has no sun, no 
 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 117 
 
 moon, no stars till the fourth day ; but this, too, is 
 in accordance with the revelation which science has 
 to make. While the earth was hot it would have a 
 steaming atmosphere. Thick vapors would con- 
 stantly rise from the waters, and there would never 
 be the absence of dense clouds. Even when the first 
 vegetation appeared at a possible temperature of 
 two hundred degrees, there must have arisen great 
 volumes of steam. The humidity of the air must 
 have been beyond anything experienced now, even 
 in our fogs that fairly drip and that prevent vision 
 farther than a few feet. By continued cooling the 
 water would to a less and less degree be converted 
 into cloud, and the encircling envelope of fog would 
 at length break and vanish, and the sun would for 
 the first time blaze forth. The moon would also 
 swing in her orbit a thing of beauty, and the stars 
 would flash their brightness on the scene. Thus 
 " God made two great lights " on the fourth day, so 
 we read, " and he made the stars also." That is, 
 he made them to appear, for the word here is not 
 " create." What wonderful exactness of language ! 
 and how amazing that the unscientific Moses had 
 our luminaries to shine forth in just the right geo- 
 logic time ! He had them created in the beginning, 
 when they belonged to the first nebulous mass, but 
 he did not have them outlined in a clear sky till the 
 earth had sufficiently cooled to cease forming impen- 
 etrable clouds. Verily, great and marvelous are 
 God's works as they appear in the scriptural and 
 
118 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 scientific facts connected with the fourth day in the 
 creative week. 
 
 The fifth day consistently introduces the lower or- 
 ders of animal life, which yet is higher than vegetable 
 life, and here for the first since the original creation 
 the strong word " create" occurs, as if to teach that 
 ♦there is no development from plant to beast. 
 
 The sixth day ushers in the higher animals, with 
 man to crown the work, and with reference to him 
 again a creation is asserted, and repeated three times, 
 as if to emphasize his entire distinctness from the 
 brute, out of which he could not have been evolved 
 any more than the animal from the plant; and the 
 scientist himself (Dana) bears this testimony : " No 
 remains of ancient man have been found that are 
 of a lower grade than the lowest of existing tribes ; 
 none that show any less of the erect posture and of 
 other characteristics of the exalted species." Of 
 the development of animal life from its lowest forms 
 up through the reptilian age, when great bird-like 
 and kangaroo-shaped creatures raising themselves 
 on their hind legs stood eighty feet high in our own 
 Colorado — of the progress of animal life up to man 
 during the fifth and sixth days — Guyot says that 
 Scripture gives " the precise order indicated by 
 geology." 
 
 Thus the harmony between the six days of 
 Genesis and the corresponding ages of geology is 
 complete. Both recognize a gradual development, 
 and both find crises where evolution must be 
 
THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE. 119 
 
 supplemented by creation; and the only question 
 of debate is how often the purely creative acts 
 occurred. An original creation can never be dis- 
 proved, and if it should be finally established that 
 humanity itself was evolved out of some primordial 
 organism, there will still be a Creator to adore and 
 worship in Him who could endow a floating nebula 
 with such potency as to develop a system of worlds, 
 a fiery globe, a green earth, bright skies, bird and 
 beast, and that lord of all — imperial man. 
 
 The seventh day well came with its absence of 
 special creative energy, extending over the entire 
 history of mankind. The era of human existence 
 is God's Sabbath. It also is a geologic day, having 
 lasted already at least six thousand years, during 
 which God has, in a measure, been resting. Such is 
 the creative week, with its culminating glory in this 
 wonderful Sabbatic age of man. And Guyot notes 
 a striking circumstance when he says, " At the end 
 of each of the six working days of creation we 
 find an evening. But the morning of the seventh 
 is not followed by any evening. The day is still 
 open. When the evening shall come the last hour 
 of humanity will strike." As this moment, prac- 
 tically for each of us, is rapidly approaching in the 
 certainty of death, and as God has his Sabbath of 
 holy complacency in his work, let us, in our smaller 
 way, after our six days of labor have a seventh 
 when we can be still and worshipful, when we can 
 contemplate such noble themes as that which has 
 
120 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 been occupying our attention. May we ever after 
 this, in view of the thought which has been pre- 
 sented, be able to say with a sublimer significance, 
 with a firmer faith, with a more devotional and 
 reverent spirit, and with a gladder heart, "Remem- 
 ber the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . . For in 
 six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, 
 and all that in them is, and rested the seventh 
 day." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE MUMMIES OF THE 
 PHARAOHS. 
 
 "And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on 
 all his servants, and on all the people of his land ; for thou 
 knewest that they dealt proudly against them ; and didst get 
 thee a name, as it is this day." — Neh. 9 : 10. 
 
 IN the spring of 1887 the papers contained the 
 startling news that the remains of Lincoln had 
 been examined and recognized preparatory to what 
 might be hoped to be the final interment of our 
 great martyr-President. More than twenty years 
 had elapsed since he died, but his features still 
 bore the old familiar expression. Wonderful, we 
 say, that the loved face of the distinguished dead 
 should have been kept in such a state of preserva- 
 tion ! More marvelous is the fact to which our 
 attention is now to be directed. Through the eyes 
 of actual observers we are to look upon the coun- 
 tenances of some of the Pharaohs of Egypt. 
 Napoleon stimulated his soldiers to gain the cele- 
 brated victory at the battle of the Pyramids as in 
 full view of those monuments of antiquity he said, 
 " From those summits forty centuries contemplate 
 your actions." To-day not only the stupendous 
 
 121 
 
122 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 works of the Pharaohs, but those monarchs them- 
 selves, are literally looking down upon all travelers 
 to Egypt in the mummies which have lately been 
 discovered at Thebes. 
 
 Many have been growing incredulous of what is 
 related in the Bible of the ancient rulers of Egypt 
 in connection with biblical characters. Skepticism 
 has been assailing Moses, has been sneering at his 
 " mistakes/' till some have come to regard him as 
 a mythical personage. The story of Joseph has 
 been called a beautiful romance, but nothing more. 
 One school of the higher criticism has been trying 
 to undermine the historical accuracy of the whole 
 Pentateuch. " The signs and wonders upon Pha- 
 raoh " of which the text speaks have been regarded 
 as idle tales, as the imaginations of superstitious 
 minds, like the fables with which classic story 
 abounds. But just when the assaults of infidelity 
 upon the early scriptural narratives have been 
 made with the greatest confidence of utterly demol- 
 ishing the foundations of revealed religion, there 
 have come confirmations of the Bible truly astonish- 
 ing. Greater, if anything, than the miracles of old 
 have been the revelations of the last few years, 
 whereby the mummies of some of the greatest of 
 the Pharaohs have been discovered. 
 
 It is well known that embalming was carried to 
 a state of almost perfection by the Egyptians. 
 For eenturies the art was practiced, and it has been 
 estimated that there must be in the land of the 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHARAOHS. 123 
 
 Nile from four hundred to seven hundred million 
 mummies. These are constantly being brought to 
 light, and a few dollars will now purchase one of 
 these dry, shriveled bodies of ages ago. 
 
 In 1881 there flashed over the wires to England, 
 France and the whole world the announcement 
 of a rich "find" of royal mummies. In 1882 
 came the official reports of professors and archaeo- 
 logical authorities. Experts in, Egyptology had 
 for some time been struck with rare ornaments 
 coming into circulation, the inscriptions on which 
 indicated that they had been worn by royalty in 
 very remote times. These came from three brothers 
 who would not reveal the source whence they were 
 deriving a very handsome revenue. They hinted 
 that they had greater treasures yet which might in 
 the future be produced for a consideration. They, 
 however, kept their profitable secret till the impris- 
 onment of one of them, and the fear of the other 
 two that he would divulge the secret and alone 
 receive the promised reward, led to the revealing 
 of the place — a cave full of royal mummies. 
 
 In the solid rock anciently had been sunk a shaft 
 six feet and a half square and about thirty-seven 
 feet deep. At the bottom of this was a long and 
 winding passage, ending in a chamber or vault 
 twenty-three feet long by thirteen feet wide. In 
 this subterranean room reposed nearly forty mum- 
 mies, some of which have proved to be the em- 
 balmed bodies of the greatest of the Pharaohs. 
 
1 2 I THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 They were removed, and packed as so much freight 
 in a modern steamer, which, puffing and whistling, 
 bore them triumphantly over the very waters along 
 which had swept the magnificent funeral-barges of 
 the same mighty dead between three and four thou- 
 sand years ago. What a commentary on human 
 neatness ! Those mummied Pharaohs now adorn a 
 museum at Boolak on the Nile, a short distance from 
 Cairo. These are the "signs and wonders upon 
 Pharaoh/ 1 to quote from our text, " as it is this day." 
 What Pharaohs have been found ? Pharaoh was 
 the name of an office rather than of any one ruler. 
 It was like Caesar in Roman annals, like Czar in 
 Russian history, like President in our own country. 
 It meant " Great House," and thus corresponded to 
 " Sublime Porte " in Turkey at present. The house 
 of Pharaoh teas great. It furnished a long line of 
 famous monarchs who reigned in splendor through 
 hundreds of years. They dealt proudly against 
 God's people, but Nehemiah declares that the Lord 
 got him a name by the " signs and wonders upon 
 Pharaoh." This was true of the miracles wrought 
 anciently, and it is no less true of the mummies 
 which have been providentially found just when 
 the attacks upon the Mosaic books have been most 
 ere and confident. The higher criticism of the 
 skeptical sort goes down before the mummied 
 Pharaohs who have been authenticated, duly num- 
 bered aud laid away on shelves. Let us inquire 
 who some of them are. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHARAOHS. 125 
 
 1. It is not certain who the Pharaoh of Joseph's 
 time was, but among those unwrapt in the summer 
 of 1886 was Thotmes the Third, who is noted as the 
 great obelisk-maker, and Joseph lived in On, the 
 city of the Sun, where the obelisks principally 
 stood. They were meant to point to the orb of 
 day, that object of Egyptian worship, somewhat as 
 our church-spires point heavenward to direct our 
 thoughts thither. When the sarcophagus of Thot- 
 mes, the obelisk-maker, was opened, there was dis- 
 covered a little wasp which had evidently been at- 
 tracted by the perfumes and the flowers used in 
 burial, and which had inadvertently been sealed up 
 with the dead monarch. Thotmes was not tall, only 
 five feet and two inches, but he seems to have had 
 lofty aspirations, or he would not have erected so 
 many obelisks, one of which now stands in Central 
 Park, New York City. That is something very 
 tangible to link us to the distant past. There is 
 nothing mythical and unreal about that grand 
 pyramid of stone, weighing over two hundred tons, 
 but slender and graceful, and tapering needle-like 
 to a point, so that when Augustus Caesar had it re- 
 moved to Alexandria to commemorate his conquest 
 of Egypt soon after the death of the most beautiful 
 of Egyptian queens, it was not inappropriately called 
 Cleopatra's Needle — a name which it still bears, 
 although it was first erected by Thotmes in the city 
 of Joseph's residence. There it stood, with others, 
 at the entrance to the temple of the Sun. It is not 
 
126 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 certain when Joseph lived, but if at the later date 
 to which he is assigned by scholars, then he looked 
 upon this identical obelisk. His father-in-law, the 
 priest of On, daily passed it as he went into the 
 temple to officiate at the altar. This priest's 
 daughter, who became the wife of Joseph, in this 
 case, must have often been helped in her devo- 
 tions by the stately monolith reaching with its top 
 toward the sky, the source of light. As another 
 has said, the morning she became a bride would be 
 ushered in by prayers whose inspiration would in 
 part arise from the sight of the heavenward-point- 
 ing obelisk upon which Ave to-day gaze with awe 
 and pleasure, and at whose base the traveler 
 stands amid a rush of historic memories. Whether 
 Joseph and his Egyptian wife saw this obelisk or 
 not — and they probably did — they at any rate saw 
 that father of obelisks which still stands at Heliop- 
 olis, and which, we are told, was raised on its ped- 
 estal before Abraham was born. Now the great 
 obelisk-maker was Thotmes, whose mummy, with 
 others, has recently been unrolled. Unfortunately, 
 he crumbled to dust soon after his exposure to the 
 air, but not till he had been photographed. We 
 c<an therefore look upon the picture of the Pharaoh 
 who did most to adorn with obelisks the city where 
 Joseph rose to distinction. How much more real 
 such a fact makes the person with whose dramatic 
 history we are familiar as from slavery and the 
 dungeon he rose to be second only to Pharaoh ! 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHARAOHS, 127 
 
 The Pharaoh who did most for the city where 
 Joseph married his wife has been seen within the 
 last three years. His mummied face has been 
 actually observed by more than one, and a granite 
 column which he made can be seen by every visitor 
 to the metropolis of our country. How strange 
 and wonderful it all is ! " Signs and wonders upon 
 Pharaoh " " as it is this day." 
 
 2. Another Pharaoh whose mummy in the Boo- 
 lak Museum is putting honor upon God's word is 
 Seti the First. We read in Scripture of " Pharaoh's 
 daughter " who went down to the river to bathe, 
 and who saw caught in reeds of the Nile a beautiful 
 babe in a little ark. We have always had a warm 
 feeling for the princess who was touched by the 
 tears of the helpless innocent, and who named him 
 Moses, which means " drawn out," in allusion to 
 his having been taken out of the water. How we 
 would like to look upon the kindly face of her to 
 whom the young sister of the saved child went with 
 a proposition to find a nurse, while the ingenious 
 plan was carried out of the mother herself being 
 brought for the tender service ! How we would 
 like to see the features of Pharaoh's daughter, who 
 gave Moses his early training, initiating him into 
 " all the wisdom of the Egyptians " ! We may yet 
 see the face of this fair princess. Meanwhile we 
 are permitted to look upon the face of her supposed 
 father (or possibly grandfather), Seti, who may have 
 begun the Oppression, but who now lies a mummy in 
 
128 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 a museum on the Nile not far from the place where 
 the child Moses was rescued from a fate which act- 
 ually was that of multitudes of other babes. Great 
 power had this Pharaoh then, but now his sarcoph- 
 agus is in an English museum, and he himself is 
 fated to serve as a curiosity on the very scene of his 
 tyranny. He graces a niche at Boolak, and of him 
 Dr. C. S. Robinson says, with a fine sarcasm, " the 
 most beautiful mummy-head which ever found a 
 place in the museum." Such is the father, as is 
 believed, of " Pharaoh's daughter." Can it be pos- 
 sible? It is, wonderfully confirming the word of 
 God. It is among the " signs and wonders upon 
 Pharaoh " " as it is this day." 
 
 3. The next Pharaoh has been identified beyond 
 all shadow of a doubt as the one who specially 
 made the Israelites to sigh and groan " by reason 
 of the bondage." In Exodus we read of the poor 
 slaves, " And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, 
 Pithom and Raamses." Recent excavations have 
 laid bare one of these, Pithom. What is seen ? A 
 brick wall twenty-two feet thick and six hundred 
 and fifty feet long each side. Nearly all the en- 
 closed space is occupied with solidly-built square 
 chambers, separated by brick walls eight to ten feet 
 thick, without windows or doors. This, from the 
 in<rriptions, has been found to be Pithom, and 
 Rawlinson, the historian and Egyptologist, says 
 there is "no reasonable doubt that one of the two 
 cities built by the Israelites has been laid bare." It 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHARAOHS. 129 
 
 is also stated that some of the bricks are of a su- 
 perior and others of an inferior quality, some with 
 straw and others without, or at least without the 
 proper quality and quantity. It was bricks for this 
 store-city that the Israelites had to furnish in un- 
 diminished numbers each day, even after govern- 
 ment had ceased to provide straw, and they had to 
 u find it M as best they could, while they succeeded 
 in getting only " stubble for straw." What a con- 
 firmation there is here of the truth of the Mosaic 
 record ! 
 
 The other store-city, Eaamses, has not yet been 
 discovered, but a statue of its builder has been 
 found. It is a colossal figure weighing four hun- 
 dred tons, having been cut from a single block of 
 stone. This bears upon its girdle the name of 
 Barneses the Second (or Great). Fragments of 
 another still larger statue of this monarch have 
 been found here and there, and we are informed 
 that if the scattered pieces were put together they 
 would make an image ninety feet high, with a 
 weight of nine hundred tons. On so large a scale 
 did Eameses build, and he built by his Hebrew 
 slaves Pithom which has actually been unearthed, 
 and Raamses, bearing his name and likely yet to be 
 brought to light. 
 
 But why speak of his statues and monuments when 
 we have the king himself? Among the mummies 
 lately unrolled was that of the Pharaoh who knew 
 not Joseph. Eameses, the Pharaoh of the Oppres- 
 
130 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 simi, adorns the museum at Boolak. His funeral 
 alia, the cerements of death, the successive band- 
 ages were removed in the presence of a distin- 
 guished company of Egyptians, Turks, English- 
 men and representatives of other nations. Amid 
 breathless attention the old tyrant was unwrapt, 
 and, entirely stripped, the great oppressor of the 
 Israelites lay before those at whose mercy he was 
 more completely even than were at his mercy the 
 Hebrews whose lives he made so bitter in the brick- 
 yards. We feel the reality of the oppression which 
 drove the Israelites into rebellion when we can look 
 upon the great oppressor himself. It gives us solid 
 satisfaction to see his poor mummy examined to-day 
 as a curiosity. 
 
 We can look without a fear upon his forehead, 
 described as "low and narrow;" his eyebrows, 
 "thick and white;" his small eyes; his aquiline 
 nose ; his ears, pierced for the wearing of jewelry ; 
 his broad shoulders ; and his tall frame, over six 
 feet in height. We can go to Egypt and see all 
 this — gaze upon the great Barneses. Or if we can- 
 not take the trip to the distant land of the Nile, we 
 can at least get a photograph of this ancient mon- 
 arch. Our very newspapers contain cuts of his 
 mummied head and shoulders. Let some modern 
 brick maker adopt his face as a trade-mark to be 
 stamped upon the plastic clay, and the revenges 
 of time, or rather of Divine Providence, will be 
 complete. The mummied remains of the oppressor, 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHABAOHS. 131 
 
 Rameses, are among the " signs and wonders upon 
 Pharaoh " " as it is this day." These are no an- 
 cient, but they are modern, Egyptian miracles al- 
 most. The truth in the case of the Pharaohs of 
 the Bible is stranger than fiction. 
 
 4. The Pharaoh of the Exodus itself has not yet 
 been found. We know who he was. He was a 
 son of Rarneses, and was called Menephtah the 
 First. Very significantly, a monument of his in 
 the Berlin Museum speaks of the sudden and mel- 
 ancholy death of a son of his. Could this calam- 
 ity have occurred when every house in Egypt 
 mourned its first-born except where the blood 
 was sprinkled on the doorposts? 
 
 Is it all a myth about the ten plagues ? Herod- 
 otus even speaks of a judgment visited upon 
 Menephtah. Says the father of historians of this 
 monarch : " He impiously hurled a spear into the 
 overflowing waves of the river, which a sudden 
 wind caused to rise to an unusual height ;" and for 
 this defiance of Deity he was smitten with a ten 
 years' blindness. So that, according to this pagan 
 writer, there was at least one plague inflicted upon 
 this Pharaoh ; and indeed the plagues were ten if 
 the number of years be taken into account. From 
 this Greek source he is seen to have had just the 
 spirit, proud and imperious, which the Pharaoh of 
 the Exodus had. 
 
 But where is his mummy to confirm the Bible 
 story regarding his career? It has not yet been 
 
132 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 found, and perhaps never will be, for all his host 
 was overthrown in the Red Sea, and he himself 
 may also have perished thus, for "there remained 
 not bo much as one of them," and the Psalmist 
 Bays God "overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the 
 Red Sea." To be sure, his body may have been 
 recovered and embalmed, and perhaps, as some 
 biblical scholars maintain, he himself was not 
 drowned at all, the scriptural expression being 
 simply one of the common universals; but it is 
 at least significant that though we have the mummy 
 of his father and grandfather, his is missing. His 
 unembalmed body may be lying at the bottom of 
 the Red Sea. The very absence, therefore, of the 
 mummy of the Pharaoh of the Exodus is confirm- 
 atory of God's word. His absence from the mu- 
 seum on the banks of the Nile is as significant as the 
 presence of others. "Signs and wonders upon 
 Pharaoh" " as it is this day " ! That vacant niche 
 at Boolak is a sign and wonder. 
 
 5. Among the most natural of mummied faces 
 lately brought to light is that of Pinotem the Sec- 
 ond, whose portrait appears in Harper's Monthly 
 for July, 1882. The mummies of his wife and 
 infant child are also among the recent discoveries. 
 The babe, only sixteen inches long and reposing in 
 the same sarcophagus as the queen, tells the sad 
 Btory of their deaths, perhaps three thousand years 
 ago. The little one barely saw the light of earth, 
 and then lay down with the mother in the long 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHARAOHS. 133 
 
 sleep of death. There is pathos in such revela- 
 tions. 
 
 Now, some scholars identify Pinotem with the 
 Pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married. If 
 this be correct j we may say with the honorary sec- 
 retary of the Egypt Exploration Fund (Amelia B. 
 Edwards), and therefore eminent authority, " It is 
 surely a strange subject for reflection that while 
 Solomon and all his glories have passed away, the 
 father, mother and infant sister of his Egyptian 
 bride may be seen to this day under a glass case 
 in the Boolak Museum." This is only re-echoing 
 Scripture : " signs and wonders upon Pharaoh " " as 
 it is this day." 
 
 Finally, what further signs and wonders God has 
 in store for the strengthening of our faith we do not 
 know. Jacob was " embalmed " in Egypt, and he 
 was laid away in the cave of Machpelah. Not 
 since the Mohammedan possession of this sacred 
 place nor within the memory of man has any one 
 been admitted to the innermost part of the cave. 
 If entrance ever should be gained thereto in the 
 innermost shrine, said Dean Stanley, u one at least 
 of the patriarchal family may possibly still repose 
 intact — the embalmed body of Jacob." 
 
 So, too, the " bones" of Joseph, which were so 
 carefully preserved in Egypt during the long sojourn 
 of his descendants there — those bones concerning 
 which he gave commandment at his death that at 
 the departure of the Israelites for the promised land 
 
184 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 they should be taken along — those bones which 
 were carried up and down for forty years in the 
 wilderness, and which were subsequently interred by 
 Joshua at Shechem, to be transferred, possibly at a 
 later date, according to the Mussulman tradition, 
 to the cave of Machpelah, — those "bones" of Jo- 
 seph, his embalmed body, may yet be found. Just 
 as strange things have happened in the discovery 
 of the mummy of the Pharaoh who " knew not 
 Joseph." 
 
 But signs and wonders enough we have had to 
 make us see the truth of religion and of the Bible, and 
 to make us realize the vanity of all that is earthly. 
 Of the four to seven hundred million mummies re- 
 posing in the sandy soil of Egypt, we have been 
 looking at only a few ; but surely these have been 
 sufficient to impress us with the thought of human 
 mortality. Soon we all shall be sleeping in the 
 dust of the earth, and centuries hence our bones 
 may be lying in museums. The " signs and won- 
 ders upon Pharaoh" "as it is this day" should 
 teach us the solemn lesson of the frailty of our 
 bodies, and should lead us to give due attention to 
 the immortal part. During the thirty to forty cen- 
 turies through which the mummies of the Pharaohs 
 have come down to us, — during this long sleep of 
 physical death the Pharaohs themselves, their im- 
 mortal spirits, have been living somewhere. When 
 not forty but a thousand and a million centuries of 
 eternity have rolled away, our souls will still be 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PHARAOHS. 135 
 
 in existence. How impressive the fact of such a 
 sweep of centuries ! Let us prepare for the endless 
 future, for God will get him a name upon all who 
 are enemies to spiritual Israel, and who deal proudly 
 against the Church of Christ founded on apostles 
 and prophets. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, 
 And light unto my path. — Ps. 119 : 105. 
 
 WHEREVER the Bible goes it dissipates dark- 
 ness. Its elevating influence is unquestioned. 
 Let a traveler in a wild, forsaken coucitry put up 
 for the night in an out-of-the-way, suspicious-look- 
 ing house, and he might feel uneasy about his life 
 and money. But let the good old Book be taken 
 down, and let the head of the family reverently 
 read therefrom in evening worship, and one would 
 fear no longer; he would go to his rest with a 
 feeling of perfect safety. An anecdote is related 
 of some skeptical sailors, of their being wrecked 
 on an isle of the sea, and of how they were afraid 
 of being eaten by cannibals till some of them, 
 creeping cautiously from the shore to the top of a 
 hill, saw in the valley below the spire of a Christian 
 church, whereupon they leaped to their feet, and 
 railed to their fellows that it was all right. Why 
 that sudden sense of security? Because even those 
 infidels knew that where the Bible and the church 
 Were, manners would be humanized. These are 
 
 136 
 
ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 137 
 
 practical tests to show the real divineness of the 
 Scriptures. Now let us note the elevating influence 
 of the Bible along certain great lines. 
 
 1. Not to discuss the gradual undermining of 
 slavery since the introduction of New-Testament 
 ideas of brotherhood, till, instead of two bondmen 
 to one freeman throughout the Roman empire at 
 the advent of Christ, human bondage is now 
 practically extinct throughout Christendom, — with 
 this barest allusion, passing over a recognized ref- 
 ormation that has been wrought by scriptural 
 teaching along the line of individual liberty, mark 
 the change that has taken place with reference to 
 childhood. Every reader of classical literature is 
 acquainted with the ancient practice of exposing 
 infants. Paris, who abducted the beautiful Helen 
 and thus brought on the Trojan war, was in infancy 
 abandoned on Mount Ida. Romulus and Remus, 
 the founders of the Eternal City, were, according to 
 the traditional story, thrown into the Tiber. Plato, 
 in stating his doctrine of the community of families, 
 says : " Their children are also common, and no 
 parent is to know his child nor any child his 
 parent." And what was to be the disposition of 
 the little ones in the ideal republic ? Why, this : 
 " The proper officers will take the offspring of the 
 good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will 
 deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a 
 separate quarter ; but the offspring of the inferior, 
 or of the better when they chance to be deformed, 
 
138 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 they will conceal in some mysterious, unknown 
 place. Decency will be respected." That is from 
 Plato, whom Joseph Cook places among the celes- 
 tials. Then nursing-mothers were to be taken to 
 the fold under such precautions as to prevent any 
 recognition of their own children. 
 
 But most to be pitied were the poor waifs who 
 were cast out to be the victims of the weather or 
 of wild beast, or to be reared for slavery, and often 
 the brothel, by any who might choose to bring 
 them up to years of maturity. Aristotle advocated 
 the inhuman custom of exposure. " Let it be the 
 law," he said, " that nothing imperfect or maimed 
 shall be brought up." Plutarch mentions " a sort 
 of chasm " into which helpless infants were cast. 
 
 When the great Roman general Germanicus died, 
 the event was commemorated by imposing civic 
 and religious rites, and among the honors to the 
 renowned dead were, says Suetonius the Latin 
 historian, " new-born infants exposed." How dif- 
 ferent from the part taken by children in connection 
 with the death of General Grant, upon whose 
 coffin was affectionately laid by them a wreath of 
 oak-leaves which they had gathered out of the 
 woods, and which by direction of the family was 
 proudly carried in the great funeral procession in 
 New York, in one of the grandest pageants the 
 world has ever witnessed ! 
 
 What a transformation Christianity has wrought 
 in the estimation placed upon childhood! Ever 
 
ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 139 
 
 since the Babe of Bethlehem was cradled in a 
 manger, and ever since as a man he said, " of such 
 is the kingdom/' little children have been more 
 honored and more tenderly loved and nurtured. 
 The parental relation has been dearer ; motherhood 
 has meant a great deal more. Unlike Plato's 
 republic, which was inimical to childhood, unlike 
 the pagan world generally with its exposure of 
 infants, the millennium of Scripture is when " a 
 little child shall lead them/' while of the New Je- 
 rusalem the prophet says, " And the streets of the 
 city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the 
 streets thereof." Such instructions, coming with the 
 authority of inspiration, have revolutionized public 
 sentiment relative to infancy and childhood. 
 
 2. The Bible has also elevated woman. Grecian 
 and Roman womanhood is not to be admired. To 
 be sure, there were some pure and beautiful charac- 
 ters. Greece boasted a Penelope, who accepted the 
 proposal of marriage from Ulysses by covering her 
 face with a veil to hide her blushes, and who re- 
 jected all suitors during the twenty years' absence 
 of her husband at the Trojan War, remaining 
 faithful in the hope of his return, in which she was 
 not disappointed. Rome, too, had a Cornelia, who 
 in an early widowhood refused many advantageous 
 offers (one from a king) that she might devote her- 
 self entirely to her children ; and when a caller 
 desired to see her jewelry, in her two boys, invited 
 in for the purpose, she showed " her jewels." But 
 
1 10 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 these are solitary examples. The prevailing type 
 of womanhood was that of worldliness and wicked- 
 ness, with no high aim in life. Dress and dinner- 
 party, theatre and circus, absorbed the feminine 
 attention. 
 
 A wife of Caligula the emperor on one wedding 
 occasion wore a set of emeralds worth two millions 
 of dollars. One of the wives of Nero, says Pliny, 
 "was accustomed to have her daintier mules shod 
 with gold." In the train of such unnatural ex- 
 travagance followed immoralities and infidelities 
 which finally broke up the family and destroyed 
 the state. 
 
 The biblical idea of wedlock, the divine order 
 of things, is indicated by the one man and one 
 woman placed in Eden. God evidently intended 
 marriage to be monogamous. Polygamy sprang 
 up, and was practiced even by Old-Testament 
 saints, but this was a departure from the original 
 intent, and was expressly attributed to the hardness 
 of the people's hearts by Christ, who restored the 
 marriage relation to its primeval condition, making 
 again the twain one. 
 
 Turn now to Greece, and what was its ideal re- 
 lation between man and woman? Let Plato, the 
 greatest of its moral philosophers, answer. In the 
 portrayal of his model republic, in the description* 
 of his Utopia, he proposes a community of wives. 
 u Ajb among other animals, so also among men," is 
 the exact wording of the plan. We stand aghast 
 
ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 141 
 
 at the proposition, and especially when he writes 
 calmly of improving the race after the manner of 
 the methods pursued with " hunting-dogs" and 
 "birds." With such teaching from the highest 
 sources it is not strange that the prominent women 
 of Greece, the companions of statesmen and phil- 
 osophers, were the Aspasias and Phrynes, persons 
 who would not be tolerated in decent society at 
 present. Such at that time had their witty sayings 
 collected, and statues were erected to their memory 
 by an admiring public. The wife, on the contrary, 
 sank into obscurity. She was relegated to practical 
 slavery. She was made to feel her inferiority. " Is 
 there a human being," asks Socrates, " with whom 
 you talk less than with your wife ?" And he used 
 to go and talk with one of the women of the town. 
 Perhaps Xantippe was not altogether to blame for 
 her exhibitions of temper. 
 
 In Rome it was no better. There had once been 
 domestic excellence. Indeed, the claim was that 
 there were no divorces for the first five hundred 
 years of Roman history. But in the first century 
 of our era such a state of innocence was only a dim 
 and distant memory, and hence Juvenal says : 
 
 " Yes, I believe that chastity was known 
 And prized on earth while Saturn filled the throne, 
 When rocks a bleak and scanty shelter gave, 
 When sheep and shepherds thronged one common cave, 
 And when the mountain-wife her couch bestrewed 
 With skins of beasts, joint tenants of the wood, 
 And reeds, and leaves plucked from the neighboring tree." 
 
143 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 He had reason for such a lamentation, since, accord- 
 ing to his testimony, the nuptial garlands were not 
 faded often till marriage had given place to divorce, 
 and since 1 one woman could have had this truthful 
 inscription on her tomb, "eight husbands in five 
 year*" Cicero divorced his wife with whom he 
 had lived thirty years, and married a young woman 
 of wealth, whom in turn he discarded. Martial, 
 who was born a few years after the Saviour's death, 
 mentions in one of his epigrams a woman who mar- 
 ried her tenth husband within a month. Seneca, 
 contemporary with Paul, makes the astounding 
 declaration that there are " distinguished women 
 of noble families " who " reckon their years not by 
 the number of the consuls, but by that of their hus- 
 bands." Of course the wife sank under such cir- 
 cumstances. She became unworthy of notice. Not 
 so very incredible, therefore, is the information 
 given by Plutarch of a member of the Senate ex- 
 pelled from that body " because," such is the his- 
 torian's precise language, "in the presence of his 
 daughter and in open day he had kissed his wife." 
 The lordly Roman, no more than the Grecian, 
 would not have approved of the sentiment of 
 Scripture : 
 
 " Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, 
 Many daughters have done virtuously, 
 But thou excellest them all." 
 
 According to the pagan idea, the wife was to receive 
 

 ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 143 
 
 no appreciative word or caress. She was to be kept 
 suitably humble. By cold neglect she was to be 
 taught her lower position in the scale of being. 
 Then in the name of a hospitable friendship be- 
 tween families, and under the form of religious 
 worship within the very temples, prevailed the 
 most abominable practices, of which it would be a 
 shame even to speak. The conjugal relation was 
 thus destroyed, divorces became easy and immoral- 
 ity swept away the family. 
 
 Christianity wrought a great transformation. It 
 elevated women to companionship. Our Lord did 
 not disdain their ministrations. He honored them 
 by appearing to them first after the resurrection. 
 Paul rejoiced to find in them his first converts, and 
 taught that there was in Christianity neither male 
 nor female. They felt a new dignity in being thus 
 recognized, and they rose under the encouragement 
 step by step, until Libanius, the cultured friend of 
 the apostate emperor Julian, once exclaimed, "What 
 women there are among the Christians !" Such 
 was the judgment of even a pagan as to the ele- 
 vating influence of Bible-teaching upon woman- 
 hood. 
 
 3. Consider next how nations have been lifted 
 by the religion of the Bible from barbarism. 
 "Wherever the Scriptures are read, and only there, 
 do we see a high order of civilization. Take Eu- 
 ropean countries, and we find enlightenment graded 
 according to the knowledge that each has of God's 
 
141 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 word. Heathen nations begin to wake up intellect- 
 ually and commercially as soon as they are given the 
 Scriptures. The Sandwich Islands and Madagascar 
 are striking examples of the elevating influence of 
 the Bible. Nor will it do to attribute the changed 
 condition of things to the general spirit of progress. 
 Let a mining-town in the very midst of civilization 
 be for a succession of years without the preached 
 word, and how soon the people degenerate, until 
 there is a reign of terror, of gambling, of drunk- 
 enness, of lust, of anarchy ! But let the gospel be 
 introduced, and communities begin improving; and 
 it is the same with nations. 
 
 Let us trace the development under biblical 
 teaching of a single great nation, the English. 
 "When Caesar landed in Britain, 55 B. c, he found 
 the inhabitants to be savages, with " clothing of 
 skins." Sometimes they were not as richly attired 
 as that even, for, in the language of Cowper, 
 
 " Time was when clothing sumptuous or for use, 
 Save their own painted skins, our sires had none." 
 
 When the Roman general Suetonius about 60 
 A. B. proposed to conquer Britain, he was surprised 
 at the wild appearance of the natives lining the 
 shore and ready to fight. Women mingled with 
 the soldiers, and, swinging their flaming torches 
 and tossing their disheveled hair, they ran back- 
 ward and forward and shrieked like incarnate 
 fiends. The Britons were nothing less than savage 
 
ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 145 
 
 tribes. Their religion was the veriest superstition. 
 Sometimes their priests, the Druids, offered up hu- 
 man victims to the imaginary deities. How could 
 people be reclaimed from such degradation ? Why, 
 the religion of the Bible was introduced, and, says 
 Hume himself, they made great " advances toward 
 arts and civil manners." 
 
 But just as they began to emerge from their bar- 
 barism there came apparent disaster in the immi- 
 gration of a new and less-civilized element into the 
 country. In the fifth century hordes of barbarians 
 from the German forests crossed the sea and estab- 
 lished themselves in Britain. These Angles and 
 Saxons divided the country up among themselves 
 into seven separate kingdoms. Who were these 
 Anglo-Saxons, from whom, as well as from the 
 Britons, we are descended? They were heathen 
 tribes which fought each other, much as our Indians 
 have done. Fighting was their main occupation 
 for several generations, but their contests were of 
 so little account as hardly to deserve historical men- 
 tion. Indeed, Milton, according to Hume, says 
 "that the skirmishes of kites and crows as much 
 merited a particular narrative as the confused trans- 
 actions and battles of the Saxon Heptarchy f and 
 the historian Knight speaks of their fierce hostilities 
 and treacherous alliances affecting us " little more 
 than the wars and truces of Choctaws and Chero- 
 kees." 
 
 Such were the Anglo-Saxons, who were below 
 10 
 
146 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 the Britons even in point of civilization. They 
 nearly extirpated the Christian religion, thereby 
 causing the country to revert, says Hume, to its 
 "ancient barbarity." Macaulay refers to their 
 coarseness in his allusion to their " huge piles 
 of food and hogsheads of strong drink." They 
 had but little more refinement than brutes. All 
 that was fair about them was their physical features. 
 They had long flaxen hair and blooming counte- 
 nances, but mentally, socially and' morally they 
 were very inferior, and the cultivated Roman 
 looked upon them about as we look upon the 
 negroes of Central Africa. Indeed, these heathen 
 ancestors of ours were bought and sold as slaves, 
 as the Africans have been in later times. 
 
 Connected with this fact is the familiar but ever- 
 romantic story of what led to their evangelization 
 and civilization. A pious abbot was strolling along 
 the streets of Rome. He stopped at the market- 
 place to witness the sales. Some slaves were on the 
 auction-block, and he was struck by their fresh, 
 beautiful faces, and when, upon inquiring their 
 nationality, he was told that they were Angles, he 
 replied with that famous pun which has come down 
 the centuries, that they would more properly be de- 
 nominated angels ; and he was interested at once in 
 their religious welfare. When he afterward sat on 
 the pontifical throne as Gregory the Great he re- 
 solved to send missionaries to them in their distant 
 island home. 
 
ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 147 
 
 That is the kind of ancestors we had, and if it 
 had not been for the cause of Christian or foreign 
 missions we would be sitting in pagan darkness, 
 for their religion was gross beyond conception. 
 They had numerous gods, to whom they sacrificed 
 not only animals, but human beings. Their chief 
 deity was the god of war, and hence the better 
 fighters they were the more religious they were. 
 Their idea of Paradise was that of a vast hall where 
 they could recline on couches and drink ale from the 
 skulls of their slain enemies. 
 
 But the religion of the Bible was carried to these 
 debased Anglo-Saxons. One of their chiefs, King 
 Ethelbert of Kent, had married a French princess 
 who was a Christian, and Queen Bertha was allowed 
 the free exercise of her religion. This was the 
 opportune time chosen by Gregory, but when his 
 forty missionaries, headed by Augustine, got as far 
 as France, they heard such frightful things about 
 those to whom they were going, fearful as the sto- 
 ries of modern cannibalism, that they begged to be 
 released from the perilous mission. They, however, 
 were urged to proceed with their lives in their 
 hands, and they did brave the peril. When they 
 reached Britain (597 A. D.) they sought an audience 
 with King Ethelbert of Kent. The cautious mon- 
 arch received them in the open air, lest they should 
 influence him by some sort of magic. He kept 
 them at a safe distance. He guarded against being 
 mesmerized or bewitched by the strange foreigners, 
 
148 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 who, however, gradually disarmed him of fear and 
 gained his confidence, till eventually he became a 
 convert to Christianity, his wife's religion. Thus 
 was the gospel introduced again among our pagan 
 ancestors, and even the great infidel historian of 
 England pronounces this event " the most memor- 
 able" in the reign of that king. The leaven spread 
 to the other divisions of the Heptarchy, and in 664 
 A. D. a union was brought about between the 
 various branches of the Anglo-Saxon Church ; and 
 this prepared the way for that political union in 
 827 A. D., when, under Egbert, the seven independ- 
 ent kingdoms were consolidated and the united 
 country was first called Angle-land — that is, Eng- 
 land — and the English race started on its march of 
 amazing progress. 
 
 What lifted those warring tribes out of heathen- 
 ism and developed and cemented them into a great 
 people ? The Bible. Into Britons and Anglo-Sax- 
 ons life from above was breathed, and the mightiest, 
 grandest people of all history sprung into being. 
 Every new incursion of Danes or Normans was 
 taken up under the power of the gospel and uti- 
 lized as fresh blood to be sent coursing through the 
 body politic. There have been revolutions now 
 and then, but these have been only the eruptions 
 which have left the nation healthier and stronger. 
 Territory has been added to territory, till English- 
 speaking people to-day control a scope of country 
 simply colossal in extent, the sun never setting on 
 
ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE. 149 
 
 the worldwide dominion and England's drum-beat 
 being literally heard around the globe. Art, science, 
 civilization and Christianity keep pace with the 
 onward movement of this great political power. 
 Isaiah grows eloquent over the little one becoming 
 a thousand, and the small one a strong nation, 
 through the Lord's hastening, and he breaks out, 
 " Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the 
 doves to their windows ? Surely the isles shall 
 wait for Me, and the ships of Tarshish first." The 
 prophet seems almost to have seen the white-sailed 
 fleets of the British isles riding proudly every sea, 
 speeding over vast expanses of water with the rapid 
 flight of white doves before a storm, and with the 
 velocity of the cloud borne swiftly along by cy- 
 clonic wind. Out of savage Britons and heathen 
 Anglo-Saxons, out of piratical Danes and semi- 
 civilized Normans, has been wrought by the religion 
 of the Bible that which we do see. God's word has 
 been the lamp and light by which this national 
 progress has been made. To whatever nation it 
 goes it has the same elevating influence, and even 
 Parwin, after seeing the transformation wrought by 
 the gospel on certain isles of the sea, became a reg- 
 ular contributor to the cause, and testified, " The 
 lesson of the missionary is that of the enchanter's 
 wand." Let, then, this magical book be sent around 
 the globe. Glad are we that it has been rendered 
 into three hundred and sixty tongues and dialects 
 by the British and American Bible societies, and 
 
150 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 let there be no halt in the good work till the 
 "blest volume" has been carried in the vernac- 
 ular to every kindred, every tribe, on this terres- 
 trial ball. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE GOLDEN CITY OF 
 BABYLON. 
 
 " The golden city ceased."— Isa. 14 : 4. 
 
 THE reference is to Babylon, and let us see 
 how the word of God regarding it has been 
 fulfilled. There is no more fascinating subject 
 than the agreements of history and prophecy. The 
 faith must be strengthened when prophets foretold 
 events whose actual occurrence historians relate 
 hundreds of years afterward. Babylon is only 
 one of many illustrations of the exact correspond- 
 ence between scriptural prediction and historical 
 fact. 
 
 The former glory of the city and its present 
 desolation can hardly be overstated. It is well 
 described by Isaiah as the " golden city" and as 
 " the lady of kingdoms " and as the " beauty of 
 the Chaldeans' pride." Herodotus, two hundred 
 and fifty years later and an eye-witness, says : " Its 
 extent, its beauty and its magnificence surpass all 
 that has come within my knowledge." According 
 to this writer, it was laid out in a square each of 
 whose sides was fifteen miles in length. That 
 
 161 
 
152 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 makes a grand total of two hundred and twenty- 
 live square miles, whereas London has only one 
 hundred and twenty-two square miles, and New 
 York only forty-one. Chicago itself, with its one 
 hundred and seventy-four square miles since the 
 recent annexations which make it the largest city 
 in area in the world, is not so large as ancient 
 Babylon was. 
 
 The glory of the city was augmented in that, 
 according to a Roman historian (Quintus Rufus 
 Curtius), nine-tenths of all the enclosed space con- 
 sisted of gardens and meadows and parks. It was 
 even said to contain tillable land enough to support 
 its inhabitants in a time of siege. It was a great 
 country-city. Its streets crossed each other at right 
 angles, and were one hundred and fifty feet broad, 
 and were lined with elegant residences three and 
 four stories high. 
 
 Its political supremacy was once such that Jere- 
 miah could call it the " hammer of the whole earth," 
 to " break in pieces " whatever it smote. When 
 the Mohammedans in the eighth century swept over 
 Spain, and were moving on to the conquest of Eu- 
 rope, there met the hitherto invincible Moslems a 
 hero who dealt such sturdy blows that he has ever 
 since been known as Charles Martel, which, being 
 interpreted, is " Charles the Hammer." The vigor 
 of his arm beat back the Saracen power and saved 
 Christendom. He struck hard and gained a proud 
 title, which, however, Babylon centuries before had 
 
THE BIBLE AND BABYLON. 153 
 
 won in that it was called the " hammer of the whole 
 earth." 
 
 But what was to be the fate of this strong and 
 beautiful city ? Hear the language of Jeremiah : 
 "And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling- 
 place for jackals, an astonishment, and an hissing, 
 without inhabitant." No less explicit was Isaiah, 
 who said, "It shall never be inhabited, neither 
 shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation : 
 neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there ; neither 
 shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. 
 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there ; and 
 their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and 
 ostriches shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance 
 there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, and 
 jackals in the pleasant palaces." Has this utter 
 forsakenness overtaken the golden city ? As early 
 as 20 b. c, Strabo speaks of the site of Babylon 
 as a " vast desolation." Jerome in the fourth cen- 
 tury of our era declares that it was the hunting- 
 ground of the Persian monarchs. Bawlinson in 
 his Ancient Monarchies says : " Vast heaps or 
 mounds, shapeless and unsightly, are scattered 
 at intervals over the entire region where it is 
 certain that Babylon anciently stood." Do you 
 wish the testimony of an eminent archaeologist 
 who has personally been on the ground and ex- 
 plored the ruins ? " The site of Babylon," says 
 Layard, "is a naked and hideous waste." "Owls," 
 he says, "start from the scanty thickets, and the 
 
1 5 1 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 foul jackal stalks through the furrows." An 
 English consul (C. J. Rich, 1811) testifies: "There 
 arc many dens of wild beasts in various parts, iu 
 one of which I found the bones of sheep and other 
 animals, and perceived a strong smell like that of 
 a lion. I also found quantities of porcupine-quills, 
 and in most of the cavities are numbers of bats and 
 owls." Verily the golden city has ceased ! • 
 
 If we enter into details, we shall see the same 
 wonderful verification of the word spoken of old 
 by the Lord. There is not merely a general, but 
 there is a specific, fulfillment of the prophetic. 
 
 1. One of the marked features of Babylon was 
 its system of irrigation. Through the centre of 
 the city flowed the Euphrates, a river a quarter of 
 a mile wide, " and its depth such," said Xenophon, 
 " that of two men standing, the one upon the other, 
 the uppermost would not appear above the water. 
 So that the river afforded a better defense to the 
 city than its walls." Canals, broad and sometimes 
 navigable, were cut in every direction. An im- 
 mense artificial lake was dug west of the city. 
 This was thirty-five feet deep and one hundred and 
 sixty miles in circuit, or forty miles square. Into 
 this the whole river could be turned if at any time 
 a dry river-bed was desired for mechanical con- 
 -t ructions. Very properly was the city thus 
 addressed by Jeremiah: "O thou that dwellest 
 upon many waters/' while the Jewish captives said 
 plaintively, 
 
THE BIBLE AND BABYLON. 155 
 
 " By the rivers of Babylon, 
 There we sat down, yea, we wept, 
 When we remembered Zion." 
 
 But what said Jehovah of this extensive system of 
 irrigation ? — " I will dry up her sea, and make her 
 fountain dry." Long ago Diodorus, of the age of 
 the first Caesars, referred to the canals being filled 
 with alluvial deposits, while what had been a fertile 
 garden was converted into a marsh ; and it remains 
 to this day, according to the modern traveler, a 
 "desert," no longer blossoming as the rose. 
 
 2. Take, again, those walls which Herodotus 
 says were over three hundred feet high and over 
 eighty feet wide — those walls upon which, between 
 the battlements, four-horse chariots could meet and 
 pass without colliding. Consider also those hun- 
 dred gates of brass which the father of historians 
 mentions. Surely such substantial works would 
 endure. Nay, Jeremiah cries, "her walls are 
 thrown down." This prophet is still more definite 
 when he says, " The broad walls of Babylon shall 
 be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be 
 burned with fire." Have those splendid fortifica- 
 tions survived in spite of Heaven's malediction? 
 Listen to a recent visitor (Bishop J. P. Newman) 
 to these historic scenes : " To-day can be seen, and 
 only here and there, low, shapeless, detached mounds 
 where once the proud walls stood." Our very 
 Bible Dictionary says : " Babylon has been a quarry 
 from which all the tribes in the vicinity have 
 
156 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 perpetually derived the bricks with which they 
 have built their cities." The fortifications are all 
 gone. 
 
 3. But there was a massive temple in the city. 
 Has it, like the Pantheon of Rome, come down to 
 the present? 
 
 It is Herodotus who tells us of a temple of the 
 god Bel eight stories high, with a winding staircase 
 running around the outside clear to the top, which 
 was surmounted by statues, one of them forty feet 
 in height. Here treasures are said to have accu- 
 mulated to the estimated value of more than six 
 hundred millions of dollars. Here, we learn from 
 the sacred historian, were stored the vessels taken 
 from Jerusalem, for the record reads, " Nebuchad- 
 nezzar also carried off the vessels of the house of 
 the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at 
 Babylon." This may have been the tower of 
 Babel, which, you recollect, was to " reach unto 
 heaven," and, though it was not completed at the 
 time on account of the confusion of tongues, it 
 appears to have been a cherished project afterward, 
 for Isaiah seems to have it in mind when he 
 represents Babylon as saying, " I will ascend into 
 heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of 
 God." This temple of Bel is described by Herod- 
 otus, who makes it rise to the height of six hundred 
 feet, which is higher than St. Peter's at Rome (four 
 hundred and forty-eight feet), or St. PauPs at 
 London (four hundred and four feet), or the Ca- 
 
THE BIBLE AN I) BABYLON. 157 
 
 thedral at Strasburg (four hundred and sixty-one 
 feet), or the Capitol at Washington (three hundred 
 and fifty feet), or the Washington Monument (five 
 hundred and fifty-five feet) ; it is surpassed in height 
 only by the Eiffel Tower at Paris, which springs 
 into the air one thousand feet. 
 
 What says prophecy of this imposing structure 
 of old devoted to the degrading and licentious wor- 
 ship of the god Bel ? Jeremiah exclaims, " Baby- 
 lon is taken, Bel is put to shame "j " And I will do 
 judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring 
 forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed 
 up." Did this receiver of rich treasures have to 
 disgorge ? Herodotus says that Xerxes plundered 
 this temple. Ezra says, " And the gold and silver 
 vessels also of the house of God, which Nebuchad- 
 nezzar took out of the temple that was at Jerusalem, 
 and brought them into the temple of Babylon, 
 those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of 
 Babylon." Some at least of the six hundred mil- 
 lions of treasures which had been swallowed up 
 were taken by Xerxes, and the holy vessels which 
 had been swallowed up were removed at the com- 
 mand of Cyrus and restored to Jerusalem. Well 
 did Isaiah prophesy, "Bel boweth down," while 
 Jeremiah declared, " Though Babylon should mount 
 up to heaven, and though she should fortify the 
 height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers 
 come unto her, saith the Lord ; " and it was even 
 so. Not even the completed tower of Babel, not 
 
158 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 this temple of Bel with its eight stories tower- 
 ing up to an altitude of nearly six hundred feet, 
 ii. i even tliis splendid edifice of the golden city, 
 could resist the decree of God, for the traveler of 
 to-day (Bishop Newman) sees it in the mound, Birs 
 Nimroud, " rising suddenly out of the desert plain, 
 a riven, fragmentary, blasted pile," looming "up a 
 vast mass of shapeless ruins, as when, by some 
 mighty convulsion of nature, temples are thrown 
 on temples and towers are piled on towers." Such 
 are the words of one who has been an observer 
 of what he so vividly portrays. Verily Bel ex- 
 alted to heaven has bowed down. So utter was 
 the ruin that when Alexander the Great visited 
 it he employed ten thousand men two months to 
 clear away the rubbish preparatory to rebuilding, 
 and then the task was abandoned while yet a 
 beginning had scarcely been made. 
 
 4. The palace of Nebuchadnezzar (the modern 
 Kasr) has fared no better — the palace whose outer 
 circumference w T as six miles, whose inner walls were 
 of colored bricks upon which were depicted such 
 hunting-scenes as a man thrusting his spear through 
 a lion and a woman on horseback hurling her lance 
 at a leopard — fitting representations for a city 
 founded by Nimrod the mighty hunter. 
 
 Within this palace w r ere the famous "hanging 
 
 dens," covering three and a half acres, erected 
 
 by the king for his homesick queen, who had come 
 
 from a mountainous country and who longed for 
 
THE BIBLE AND BABYLON. 159 
 
 the hills of her native land. She had an artificial 
 hill made for her with a succession of terraces, each 
 watered by machinery drawing the supply up from 
 the Euphrates, and distributing it to delicate flowers 
 and to enormous trees rooted in hollow piers filled 
 with mould. By marble steps the queen could ascend 
 this mountain, which towered above the high walls 
 in the most picturesque manner ; she could recline 
 during the heat of the day in romantic arbors on 
 the hillside. Like Xero's celebrated Golden House, 
 which contained within its spacious area cornfields, 
 woods and a lake, Nebuchadnezzar's palace contained 
 a mountain. 
 
 It may have been here where Nebuchadnezzar 
 walked and viewed the city when he said, " Is not 
 this great Babylon which I have built for the royal 
 dwelling-place by the might of my power and for 
 the glory of my majesty ?" It was for his impiety 
 on this occasion that he was stricken with insanity, 
 to wander for a while a lunatic, perhaps on this 
 very mountain, his body wet with the dew of 
 heaven, his hair grown like eagles' feathers, his 
 nails like birds' claws, while he ate grass as oxen. 
 It was probably in this palace with its hanging 
 gardens that Belshazzar feasted a thousand of his 
 lords, and saw on the wall, not a hunting-scene, but 
 the fingers of a man's hand writing his death- 
 sentence. It may have been here where Daniel 
 faced both these great monarchs, and told them 
 boldly of their sins; and to commemorate possibly 
 
160 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 his rescue from the den of lions he may have seen 
 in some conspicuous spot the still-existing sculptured 
 lion, about thirteen feet long and ten feet high, 
 .standing over a prostrate man with outstretched 
 arms ; he may have seen this great work of art 
 which has been unearthed in these latter days. 
 Grander than the temple of Bel was this palace with 
 its artificial mountain, which the Greeks called one 
 of the seven wonders of the world. 
 
 And did prophecy doom this to destruction ? It 
 is Jeremiah who speaks thus in the name of the 
 Lord : " Behold, I am against thee, O destroying 
 mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the 
 earth : and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, 
 and roll thee down from the rocks, and I will 
 make thee a burnt mountain." Such was the pre- 
 diction. What is the fact according to present 
 explorations ? The one from whom we have quoted 
 before, and who has stood on the very site of the 
 once superb palace, says : " Everywhere were shape- 
 less mounds, covered with fragments of glass, 
 marble, pottery, and inscribed bricks, mingled with 
 a white nitrous soil whose blanched appearance 
 completed the picture of desolation." 
 
 5. Once more, the very method of the city's 
 capture, which led to its final destruction, is fore- 
 told. Isaiah says, " Desolation shall come upon 
 thee suddenly, which thou knowest not " ; " Thus 
 saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, . . . The 
 gates shall not be shut. . . . And I will give thee 
 
THE BIBLE AND BABYLON. 161 
 
 the treasures of darkness." Jeremiah says, "I 
 have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, 
 O Babylon, and thou wast not aware " ; " Surely I 
 will fill thee with men, as with the canker-worm ; 
 and they shall lift up a shout against thee " ; " One 
 post shall run to meet another, and one messenger 
 to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that 
 his city is taken in every quarter : and the passages 
 are surprised ; " " And I will make drunk her 
 princes and wise men, her governors and her 
 deputies, and her mighty men ; and they shall 
 sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake." Such are 
 the predictions uttered more than a hundred years 
 before Babylon fell. 
 
 What are the facts? Whether Cyrus himself 
 was the divine instrument, or — which is more 
 probable — whether, as Professor Ladd claims, " the 
 name of Cyrus in Isaiah is used as a title of the 
 Persian monarchs in general," and whether thus, 
 as is likely, Darius was the one who took the city 
 by the well-known stratagem, — Eawlinson the his- 
 torian gives the substantial facts as follows : " When 
 all was prepared Cyrus determined to wait for the 
 arrival of a certain festival, during which the 
 whole populace were wont to engage in drinking 
 and reveling, and then silently in the dead of night 
 to turn the water of the river and make his attack. 
 . . . Drunken riot and mad excitement held pos- 
 session of the town : the siege was forgotten ; 
 ordinary precautions were neglected. ... In silence 
 11 
 
162 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 and darkness the Persians watched at the two points 
 where the Euphrates entered and left the walls. 
 Anxiously they noted the gradual sinking of the 
 water. ... At last shadowy forms began to emerge 
 from the obscurity of the deep river-bed, and on 
 the landing-places opposite the river-gates scattered 
 clusters of men grew into solid columns ; the un- 
 defended gateways were seized; a war-shout was 
 raised ; the alarm was taken and spread. ... In 
 the darkness and confusion of the night a terrible 
 massacre ensued. The drunken revelers could 
 make no resistance. . . . Bursting into the palace, 
 a band of Persians made their way to the presence 
 of the monarch and slew him on the scene of his 
 impious revelry. Other bands carried fire and 
 sword through the town. When morning came 
 Cyrus found himself undisputed master of the 
 citv." Thus and there were all the minutiae of 
 prophetic utterance fulfilled; thus and there died 
 Belshazzar. There two centuries later died Alex- 
 ander the Great in a similar revel, after trying in 
 vain to rebuild the city, its canals, walls, temple 
 and palace. He knew not that the decree had 
 gone forth — "the golden city ceased." 
 
 Babylon the great has for ever fallen. Prophecy 
 has become history, and the word of God standeth 
 sure, and, blessed be his name, " the Lord knoweth 
 them that are his." We can have unfailing con- 
 fidence in our God, who will bring to pass whatever 
 he has promised as well as threatened. No golden 
 
THE BIBLE AND BABYLON. 163 
 
 city even, no principalities or powers of the wicked 
 one, can thwart his great purpose with reference to 
 his redeemed children. He shall bring them out of 
 the great tribulation. He shall gather his elect out of 
 a world that is passing away. What encouragement 
 here for Christians ! and what warning to the un- 
 converted, who are certain to be overwhelmed at 
 last ! The golden city could not withstand God, who 
 swept it " with the besom of destruction." So shall 
 it be with the unrighteous, but God's people are 
 eternally safe. They are journeying to a golden 
 city which shall never cease — a city of jasper 
 walls, with foundations of all manner of precious 
 stones, with gates of pearl, whose builder and 
 maker is God. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE COMMERCIAL CITY OF 
 TYRE. 
 
 " Who is there like Tyre, like her that is brought to silence 
 in the midst of the sea?"— Ezek. 27 : 32. 
 
 WE are to consider this commercial city at cer- 
 tain great epochs, and we are to see how va- 
 rious prophecies have been fulfilled in her history. 
 Ezekiel devotes nearly three chapters, Isaiah one 
 chapter and other prophets a few verses to por- 
 traying the future of Tyre. They all predict the 
 utter desolation that was to come, and our text 
 might have constituted the sad refrain of each of 
 the inspired writers : " Who is there like Tyre, like 
 her that is brought to silence in the midst of the 
 sea r 
 
 I. Such a fate seemed unlikely in view of the 
 prosperity and splendor of the city at the time of 
 the deliverance of the prophecies. 
 
 1. Tyre was situated on the eastern coast of the 
 Mediterranean, being built both on the mainland 
 and on an adjoining island half a mile distant, and 
 it was in the latter position that her strength and 
 
 164 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 165 
 
 glory specially consisted. She might have been 
 called, as Venice has been, " the bride of the sea." 
 She is addressed as " at the entry of the sea " and as 
 " in the heart of the seas," and as " the stronghold 
 of the sea." She could not, however, conceive of 
 such a misfortune as being " brought to silence in 
 the midst of the sea." 
 
 She had stood for centuries, and she seemed abso- 
 lutely secure for all time. She boasted of her an- 
 tiquity, as is evident from the question which Isaiah 
 said would be asked in subsequent ages : " Is this 
 your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient 
 days ?" She could poiut to a hoary and venerable 
 past. She could have told the author of our text 
 that a thousand years before Joshua had spoken of 
 "the fenced city of Tyre." She could have re- 
 minded the prophet that four hundred years back 
 her sovereign, Hiram, was called upon by Solomon 
 for help in building the temple. When Herodotus 
 visited her, a hundred years later than EzekiePs 
 time, this father of historians, who went to see the 
 famous temple erected to Hercules in that city, was 
 told by the Tyrian priests " that from the building 
 of Tyre two thousand and three hundred years had 
 elapsed." With so many centuries of happy ex- 
 istence the proud city would naturally be incred- 
 ulous as to her predicted downfall. She was accus- 
 tomed to say, " I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, 
 in the midst of the seas." 
 
 Being sea-girt, she considered herself as impreg- 
 
166 THE BIBLE VERIFIED, 
 
 nable as mighty Sidon, whose daughter she was, 
 and whose citizens the sacred writer had in mind 
 when he spoke of people dwelling "in security, 
 after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure ; 
 for there was none in the land, possessing authority, 
 that might put them to shame in anything." That 
 is the way the Tyrians felt — absolutely secure be- 
 cause of their insular position. 
 
 2. Besides, they were strongly fortified. We 
 know what their walls must have been from a 
 single stone which has remained to this day, and 
 which measures seventeen feet in length and six 
 and a half feet in thickness. Furthermore, in 
 recent explorations at Jerusalem a shaft has been 
 sunk eighty feet, and the foundations laid by Solo- 
 mon have been disclosed, and some of these stones 
 are twenty to twenty-six feet long. With reference 
 to these we are informed (Wright's Ancient Cities) : 
 " The calcium light revealed upon them Phoenician 
 numerals, letters and other signs in red paint, which 
 are supposed to be quarry-marks made by Hiram's 
 masons." If the Tyrians were skillful enough to 
 transport all the way to Jerusalem such immense 
 stones, we may be sure their fortifications were 
 massive, and sufficiently so to make their overthrow 
 apparently impossible. 
 
 3. Thus secure from surrounding water and 
 mortar, Tyre prosecuted business with an enter- 
 prise and success that have never been surpassed. 
 Ezekiel gives a whole chapter to describing her 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 167 
 
 commerce, and he seems to weave in all the geo- 
 graphical names then known to show the extent of 
 her traffic with the nations of earth. Well did 
 Isaiah call her merchants " princes," for they 
 bought and sold everywhere. They sailed the 
 Black Sea, and returned, if not with golden fleeces 
 for which the first Argonauts sought, at least with 
 rich treasures. They had long before manned 
 Solomon's ships, which sped down the Red Sea, 
 and brought back from India not only the gold of 
 Ophir, but also all manner of curious things, such 
 as apes and peacocks, which had never been seen 
 before in Palestine, and which created a great 
 sensation there. The Tyrians had to furnish the 
 sailors for these celebrated expeditions, and they 
 never ceased to enrich themselves from the distant 
 lands. 
 
 They had gone all over the Mediterranean. 
 They had planted a powerful colony at Carthage 
 in Northern Africa. They had extracted wealth 
 from the mines of Spain, till their ships of Tar- 
 shish became as well known as England's East 
 Indiamen are to-day. They are said to have found 
 silver in such abundance that they did not have 
 room to store it away in their vessels, and that they 
 might utilize every inch of space they are said to 
 have used the precious metal for their anchors. 
 At any rate, according to Ezekiel, the rowing 
 " benches" were of " ivory," while "fine linen 
 with broidered work from Egypt " constituted their 
 
168 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 "sails/* and the ship's "awning" was made of 
 "blue and purple from the isles." 
 
 Nay, their gay merchantmen ventured out through 
 the Pillars of Hercules ; they ran the very gauntlet 
 of what was then a Gibraltar indeed as they moved 
 out into the great and almost unknown Atlantic. 
 Diodorus Siculus tells of their reaching what seemed 
 to them the Isles of the Blest, and the Azores or 
 Canaries in their tropical beauty must have seemed 
 the "dwelling of gods rather than of men." They 
 are believed to have gone clear to the British isles, 
 and to have gotten tin at Cornwall, and Herodotus 
 speaks of their getting tin from " the ends of the 
 earth," although he was incredulous about what 
 were called the Tin Islands (Cassiterides). 
 
 Nor could he credit what was a fact, that these 
 adventurous navigators before his day had sailed 
 down the Red Sea, and that they had actually gone 
 round the southernmost point of Africa, and had 
 made their way back through the straits opening 
 from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean. He re- 
 lated how on his visit to Tyre the Tyrians had told 
 him of their having reached a point where the sun 
 was always north of them, where the shadows were 
 always cast in one direction. " For my part," he 
 says, " I do not believe them " ; and yet what they 
 told him about the sun was positive proof that they 
 had rounded the cape, thus anticipating by more 
 than two thousand years Vasco da Gama, who by 
 the same exploit in these comparatively modern 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 169 
 
 times so astonished all Europe and gained undying 
 fame. The Tyrians were ahead of him by only 
 two millenniums; that is all. So long ago did they 
 thoroughly understand the seas which they rode in 
 triumph everywhere, while they made their city the 
 wealthiest that ever existed as they gathered from 
 far and near silver and gold, iron, tin and lead, 
 emeralds, rubies, diamonds and "all precious stones." 
 All these the prophet mentions, besides " choice 
 wares, in wrappings of blue and broidered work, 
 and in chests of rich apparel bound with cords." 
 There ought to be mentioned also the city's great 
 industry of extracting dye from shellfish, her facto- 
 ries for this purpose being so numerous, according 
 to Strabo, as to fill the air with an unpleasant 
 odor. But a vast revenue was derived from this 
 source. Any article bearing the delicate coloring 
 of Tyrian skill was in universal demand. Juvenal 
 speaks of " Tyrian tapestry " as something partic- 
 ularly fine. Virgil speaks of the luxury of " Tyr- 
 ian purple " for sleeping apartments. Homer, ages 
 before, had sung of 
 
 "Belts 
 That, rich with Tyrian dye, refulgent glowed." 
 
 While Tyre became the richest and most splendid 
 city of antiquity, " the mart of nations," she pur- 
 sued her commercial ends with such selfishness and 
 with such utter disregard of God that she waa 
 doomed to destruction. She had a form of godli- 
 
170 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ness. She built a magnificent temple on her island, 
 and this wonder of the world was what specially 
 drew Herodotus to the city, and he was full of ad- 
 miration for two colossal columns of gold and eme- 
 rald which adorned the beautiful structure. He may 
 have been mistaken in the material, but the appear- 
 ance was that of two massive pillars of gold and 
 emerald. So that the Tyrians had a form of godli- 
 ness ; they had a house of worship which must have 
 rivaled Solomon's temple — which must have equaled, 
 if it did not surpass, the finest edifices in which the 
 wealthy now meet. 
 
 But they worshiped Mammon more than the true 
 God, those Tyrians did, as people often do yet. 
 They left no stone unturned to heap up riches. So 
 selfishly did they seek gain that it is said (American 
 Gydopcedia) if a Phoenician merchantman bound 
 for some land of mineral wealth should find that a 
 Roman ship was following, the master of the Tyrian 
 vessel would run his craft upon the rocks, so as to 
 lead the other to destruction, and on returning home 
 the loyal citizens of Tyre would have his loss made 
 good by the city ; so determined was she that other 
 people should not learn of her sources of wealth. 
 The story is not incredible when we are informed 
 by the prophet that at the destruction of Jerusalem 
 on a certain occasion Tyre said exultingly, u Aha, 
 she is broken that was the gate of the peoples ; she 
 is turned unto me : I shall be replenished, now that 
 she is laid waste." It was for this unworthy spirit 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 171 
 
 that the doom of Tyre was pronounced. She was 
 to be utterly destroyed, until the lamentation should 
 be, " Who is there like Tyre, like her that is brought 
 to silence in the midst of the sea ?" 
 
 II. We will now turn to see how the city, not- 
 withstanding her strong insular position and her 
 antiquity, notwithstanding her massive walls, not- 
 withstanding all her resources which she possessed 
 as " the stronghold of the sea," how in spite of 
 everything and contrary to all human probability, 
 was finally leveled to the ground. We will note 
 the successive steps by which her ruin was accom- 
 plished. There was wheel within wheel, but the 
 divine purpose went straight forward. 
 
 1. The prophecies were fulfilled in part by the 
 siege of Nebuchadnezzar. The protracted nature 
 of this siege was foretold when Ezekiel said, " Every 
 head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled." 
 Was this the fact ? Josephus, on the authority of 
 both Greek and Phoenician histories, states that the 
 siege continued thirteen years. Even then it is 
 said, by way of prediction, " yet had he no wages." 
 Was the siege practically without result? was it 
 without the usual spoil for the conqueror? It is 
 not certain that the city was really taken. Or if it 
 was, it may have been so impoverished as to have 
 proved disappointing to the greed of the victor, who 
 naturally would have had great expectations with 
 reference to a city reputed to be very opulent. 
 
 But Jerome would seem to give the best explana- 
 
172 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 tion of there being " no wages." He says, on the 
 authority of Assyrian histories, that when the Tyr- 
 ians found further resistance would be useless, " they 
 went on board their ships, and fled to Carthage or 
 to some islands of the Ionian and .ZEgean seas " ; 
 and he adds that they took their valuables along. 
 They were not, therefore, totally destroyed yet — 
 not yet, in the words of the text, "brought to 
 silence in the midst of the sea." But they were 
 humbled under the mighty hand of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar. It was not intended in the providence of 
 God that utter desolation should come at once. 
 
 Isaiah had expressed the extent of the humbling 
 when he said, "Tyre shall be forgotten seventy 
 years " ; that is, she was to share with the Jews 
 the Babylonian captivity. "And it shall come to 
 pass after the end of seventy years," the prophet 
 continues, "that the Lord will visit Tyre, and she 
 shall return to her hire," even w r ith " all the king- 
 doms of the world." This also corresponds with 
 the actual course of events. 
 
 2. The city did renew her prosperity, and two 
 centuries later she thought she was strong enough 
 to defy Alexander the Great as she had done the 
 Assyrian. She was not only seagirt, but she was 
 surrounded with walls which were one hundred 
 and fifty feet high on the side of the island next to 
 the mainland. The brilliant defence which she 
 made is a matter of familiar history. In resisting 
 the great Macedonian in 332 B. c, even more than 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 173 
 
 in opposing the Assyrian in 585, did she show her 
 heroism. The later siege was only seven months 
 as against the several years previously, but the 
 struggle was more terrific. 
 
 Alexander proceeded to construct a huge mole 
 from the continent to the island, but no sooner did 
 it appear above the water than it was furiously 
 assaulted, and a fire-ship, driven into it, spread 
 havoc, and a storm arose to assist in the demolition 
 of the causeway, which sank out of sight in the 
 raging sea. Again it was slowly built with great 
 trees and rocks and earth, until it for ever closed 
 the gap between continental and insular Tyre, and 
 along it were pushed the engines of war, while a 
 large fleet moved from the sea upon the fortifica- 
 tions ; and, though even then the conqueror wavered 
 in his resolution because of the strength of the 
 city, he at length after a fearful conflict won the 
 day. 
 
 And were there any specific prophecies fulfilled ? 
 It had been predicted, " They shall lay thy stones 
 and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the 
 waters." In Quintus Curtius or in Rollin we can 
 read that the portions of the city on the mainland 
 were used to construct the mole or causeway to the 
 island, and thus the stones and timber and dust of 
 the city were literally laid " in the midst of the 
 waters." From the same historians we learn that 
 the city was fired, and thus the words of Amos 
 came true : " I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, 
 
174 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 and it shall devour the palaces thereof"; and 
 Zechariah's prediction was verified : " The Lord 
 will dispossess her, and he will smite her power 
 in the sea ; and she shall be devoured with fire." 
 Then Joel had prophesied: "The children also 
 of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye 
 sold unto the sons of the Grecians, that ye might 
 remove them from their border : behold, I will stir 
 them up out of the place whither ye have sold 
 them, and will return your recompense upon your 
 own head ; and I will sell your sons and your 
 daughters." This unequivocal prediction was uttered 
 four hundred and fifty years before Alexander's 
 capture of Tyre, and the exasperated general did 
 sell thirty thousand into slavery from that single 
 city. In this connection it is " interesting to read 
 on a clay tablet found at Nineveh," says Dr. W. B. 
 Wright, " the contract of a Tyrian merchant with 
 an Assyrian lady for the sale of two Hebrew 
 slaves." But for such iniquity the Tyrians were 
 sold into slavery by the destroyer of their city. 
 Joel (800 b. c.) denounced the Tyrians for selling 
 the Hebrews, and yet a Ninevite tablet now in 
 the British Museum informs us that July 20, 709 
 B. c, a century after the prophet's reproval, a 
 Phoenician sold to a woman of Nineveh two He- 
 brews for one hundred and thirty-five dollars. But 
 the predicted recompense upon their own heads 
 came when thirty thousand in captured Tyre were 
 sold into bondage by Alexander. 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 175 
 
 Nay, those who fled, as they had done before, 
 to Carthage and other colonial possessions around 
 the Mediterranean only fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy, 
 which says : " Arise, pass over to Kittim ; even 
 there shalt thou have no rest." Of Tyre's chief 
 colony, the Carthaginians, it was sadly true that 
 they had " no rest." With the three Punic wars 
 which they waged through so many years with 
 Rome, with such generals as Hannibal and Scipio 
 to lead the respective armies, with the cry, " Car- 
 thago delenda est " (" Carthage must be destroyed ") 
 repeatedly awakening applause in the Eoman Senate, 
 — with such familiar facts of history, verily those 
 who were driven forth from the merchant city had 
 "no rest," not even in the isles of the sea, not even 
 in the colonial possessions fringing the Mediterra- 
 nean. Says Diodorus Siculus : " They prevented a 
 part of their children and wives from falling into 
 the hands of the enemy by sending them away 
 secretly to the Carthaginians," but they did not 
 prevent disaster coming to them even there. 
 
 3. And yet judgment was tempered with mercy. 
 A blessing was predicted. Isaiah relieved the 
 darkness of the future with a temporary gleam of 
 light. He looked forward to a time when "her 
 merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the 
 Lord : it shall not be treasured nor laid up ; for 
 her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before 
 the Lord." She was not to be " brought to silence 
 in the midst of the sea " till she had received the 
 
176 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 gospel, and in a measure had accepted the same. 
 Did that day ever come? 
 
 Among the " great multitude " who came to hear 
 Jesus and to be healed of their diseases were, 
 according to Luke, people from " Tyre and Sidon." 
 It was in the " borders of Tyre and Sidon " that 
 the " little daughter" of the " Syro-phoenician " 
 woman was relieved by the Lord of a demoniacal 
 possession. Paul "landed at Tyre," where he 
 found " disciples," with whom he remained a week, 
 and by whom, " with wives and children," he was 
 accompanied to the ship at his departure, while 
 they prayed together " on the beach " and bade 
 each other a tender " farewell." 
 
 Subsequently Tyre became the seat of a Christian 
 bishopric. There, in 324 A. d., Eusebius dedicated 
 a fine cathedral, which he said he could not fittingly 
 describe, " the grandeur that surpasses description, 
 and the dazzling aspect of works glittering in the 
 face of the speaker, the heights rising to the 
 heavens." This ecclesiastical historian, comment- 
 ing upon Isaiah's prophecy, says, " It is fulfilled in 
 our time. For since a church of God hath been 
 founded in Tyre as well as in other nations, many 
 of its goods gotten by merchandise are consecrated 
 to the Lord, being offered to his Church." Still 
 later Jerome says : " We may behold churches in 
 Tyre built to Christ ; we may see their riches, that 
 they are not laid up nor treasured, but given to 
 those who dwell before the Lord." 
 
THE BIBLE AND TYRE. 177 
 
 4. But Jerome was astonished at the non-fulfill- 
 ment of part of the prophecies. In the beginning 
 of the fifth century of the Christian era he said 
 Tyre was " the most noble and the most beautiful 
 city of Phoenicia," and he asks how this can be 
 made to agree with Ezekiel's prophecy, " Thou 
 shalt be built no more." He did not seem to real- 
 ize that centuries are required for the establishment 
 of God's entire word. It was to be left, in the 
 providence of God, to these later generations to 
 witness the complete verification of the prophecy, 
 that Tyre should be " brought to silence in the 
 midst of the sea." 
 
 We will not speak of the Saracen conquest of the 
 city, nor of its subsequent recovery by the Crusa- 
 ders, nor of its humiliation again under the Turk. 
 Suffice it to say that since 1561 there has been the 
 sure and final decline. Did Ezekiel say, " I will 
 make thee a bare rock : thou shalt be a place for 
 the spreading of nets"? In 1697, Maundrell 
 saw it a desolation indeed, the miserable inhab- 
 itants subsisting, he says, " chiefly upon fishing." 
 
 Did the prophet say that the stones of the city 
 should lie "in the midst of the waters"? Says 
 the scholarly Robinson in 1838, from personal ob- 
 servation : " The sole tokens of her more ancient 
 splendor — columns of red and gray granite, some- 
 times forty or fifty heaped together, or marble pil- 
 lars — He broken and strewed beneath the waves in 
 the midst of the sea." " Granite columns," says 
 
 12 
 
178 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 another observer (Dr. Thomson in his Land and 
 the Booh), " are thickly spread over the bottom of 
 the sea on every side." Likewise we learn from 
 Tristran, in his Land of Israel, that " for half a 
 mile from the shore the sea flows to the depth of 
 a foot or two over flat rocks covered by one mass 
 of prostrate columns." 
 
 Does Ezekiel further say, "Thou shalt be no 
 more : though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou 
 never be found " ? Renan confirms this. He writes : 
 " A traveler who was not informed of its existence 
 might pass along the whole coast without being 
 aware that he was close to an ancient city." 
 
 With such facts before us we can take up the 
 dirge of the text, " Who is there like Tyre, like 
 her that is brought to silence in the midst of 
 the sea ?" Verily the word of the Lord does stand 
 sure. Centuries may be required for its verification, 
 but in the end every hostile power will be humbled, 
 while the Church of God shall be preserved and 
 exalted. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 BIBLICAL SIGNS PRECEDING THE DESTRUCTION 
 OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 "And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned 
 with goodly stones and offerings, he said, As for these things 
 which ye behold, the days will come in which there shall not 
 be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown 
 down. And they asked him, saying, Master, when therefore 
 shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign when these 
 things are about to come to pass ?" — Luke 21 : 5-7. 
 
 rpHE destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple 
 -L therein by Titus in the year 70 A. d. was pre- 
 dicted by Christ about forty years before the event. 
 The disciples were amazed at the prophecy, and 
 they could hardly believe that it would be fulfilled. 
 They asked the Master what signs would precede 
 the great catastrophe, and he told them plainly, as 
 he sat with them on Mount Olivet with the Holy 
 City in full view and shining resplendent in the soft 
 glow of a setting sun. Let us glance at history 
 and see if the signs predicted with much detail did 
 take place. It might be said, by way of introduc- 
 tion, that the signs seem to point primarily to the 
 end of Jerusalem, and secondarily to the end of the 
 world. There were, as Farrar has said, " two hori- 
 
 179 
 
180 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 zons, one near and one far off," while he adds that 
 as the signs "did usher in the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem, so shall (they) reappear on a larger scale be- 
 fore the end of all things is at hand." Confining 
 ourselves for the present to the dramatic ending of 
 the Jewish polity and dispensation, we will consider 
 the signs that were to precede that first great day 
 of the Lord which is symbolic of a yet more dread- 
 ful day to come. 
 
 1. "Before all these things" — was one of the 
 signs — " they shall lay their hands on you and shall 
 persecute you." This prophecy certainly was most 
 terribly fulfilled before the year 70, when Titus de- 
 stroyed the city and temple. James was beheaded 
 by Agrippa, and Paul by Nero, before that date. 
 The history of the apostolic Church was one suc- 
 cession of religious persecutions. This is evident 
 from the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, and 
 it is corroborated by profane history, which cannot 
 be considered prejudiced in favor of Christianity. 
 When the great fire broke out in Rome, continuing, 
 says Suetonius, " six days and seven nights," until 
 nearly half the city was burned down, Nero re- 
 marked upon " the beautiful effects of the confla- 
 gration." Now, this emperor himself was believed 
 to have ordered the city to be fired, and, says Taci- 
 tus, "to suppress the rumor he falsely charged with 
 the guilt and punished with the most exquisite tor- 
 tures the persons commonly called Christians, who 
 were hated for their enormities. Christus, the 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 181 
 
 founder of that name, was put to death as a crim- 
 inal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judaea, in 
 the reign of Tiberius : but the pernicious super- 
 stition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not 
 only through Judaea, where the mischief originated, 
 but through the city of Rome itself, whither all 
 things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quar- 
 ters as to a common receptacle, and where they are 
 encouraged. Accordingly, first those were seized 
 who confessed they were Christians ; next, on their 
 information, a vast multitude were convicted, not 
 so much on the charge of burning the city as of 
 hating the human race. And in their deaths they 
 were also made the subjects of sport, for they were 
 covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried 
 to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, 
 and when day declined burned to serve for noctur- 
 nal lights." Such is the language, not of a Chris- 
 tian, but of a pagan, and of one whose life covered 
 the latter half of the first century and the beginning 
 of the second. The sign of religious persecution 
 did then occur, and this very persecution, described 
 by the Latin historian, raged six years before the 
 destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 2. A second most improbable sign was, "This 
 gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the 
 whole world for a testimony unto all the nations ; 
 and then shall the end come." Have we any evi- 
 dence that this sign preceded the destruction of 
 Jerusalem? The Roman empire was recognized 
 
182 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 in those days as comprising " the whole world/' for 
 of the decree by Caesar Augustus Luke says, " All 
 the world should be enrolled"; that is, the entire 
 empire. Even with this limitation it would seem 
 impossible that a religion whose Founder was cru- 
 cified — a religion which antagonized all other re- 
 ligions by pronouncing them false — a religion which 
 did not flatter men, but called them guilty sinners 
 — a religion which required self-denial and sacrifice 
 of life even — a religion which, after all, did not 
 propose to propagate itself by force, — it would seem 
 impossible that such a religion should be so widely 
 diffused in forty years ; but Christ staked his repu- 
 tation on the prediction that before the destruction 
 of Jerusalem, before 70 A. d., his gospel should be 
 published in all the known world; and there is 
 reason for believing that the prophecy proved true. 
 Tacitus, in the quotation already made from him, 
 says that the pernicious superstition was only sup- 
 pressed in one place to break out in another, " not 
 only through Judaea, where the mischief originated, 
 but through the city of Rome itself, whither all 
 things horrible and disgraceful flow." Pliny the 
 Younger, who died about 116 A. d., writes: "Nor 
 has the contagion of this superstition seized cities 
 only, but the lesser towns also and the open coun- 
 try." Clement, who was a contemporary of Paul, 
 says of that apostle, " He was a preacher both to 
 the East and the West ; he taught the whole world 
 righteousness " ; and Paul died before the year 70, 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 183 
 
 previous to which Christ had said the gospel should 
 be published among all nations. When he foretold 
 the sign he had but a handful of followers, but the 
 sign did not fail. 
 
 3. There were also to be great civil commotions 
 — "wars and rumors of wars." Christ's advent 
 was at a time of universal peace, the temple of 
 Janus was closed. Nevertheless, there was to be 
 within a generation the wildest disorder in govern- 
 mental affairs ; so he prophesied, at least. 
 
 Turning now for the period in question to Tacitus, 
 and running over the contents of his Annals, we 
 see such expressions as these: "Disturbances in 
 Germany," " commotions in Africa," " commotions 
 in Thrace," "insurrections in Gaul," "intrigues 
 among the Parthians," " the war in Britain," " war 
 in Armenia." So too from Josephus we learn 
 what upheavals there were throughout the empire. 
 " In all Syria," he says, the disorders were terrible ; 
 " every city was divided into two armies," Syrians 
 and Jews ; " so the daytime was spent in shedding 
 of blood, and the night in fear." We are told 
 that it was " common to see cities filled with dead 
 bodies still lying unburied, and those of old men 
 mixed with infants; . . . women also lay among 
 them." No wonder with the dead thus scattered 
 about promiscuously Josephus could only call the 
 calamities inexpressible. Thirteen thousand were 
 slain in Scythopolis. Ten thousand at Damascus 
 had their "throats cut," Twenty thousand were 
 
184 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 killed "in one hour's time" at Caesarea. In Alex- 
 andria neither old nor young were spared till fifty 
 thousand lay dead in " heaps." Nor was it single 
 provinces here and there which felt the commo- 
 tions. The empire itself was rocking to its founda- 
 tions just previous to the eventful year of 70. 
 There were four emperors within two years, and 
 all of them met with violent deaths. Nero, accord- 
 ing to Suetonius, " drove a dagger into his throat " ; 
 Galba was run down by several horsemen, and his 
 head was cut off by a common soldier, who, " thrust- 
 ing his thumb into the mouth," thus carried the 
 horrible trophy; Otho " stabbed himself" in the 
 breast ; and Yitellius was despatched by slow tor- 
 ture and then " dragged by a hook into the Tiber." 
 So that it was not now and then a province, but it 
 was, as Suetonius says, " the empire," which was in 
 a "disturbed and unsettled state." Such is the 
 testimony as to the facts by historians who little 
 knew that Christ had foretold all forty years before, 
 when he declared there should be " wars and 
 rumors of wars," nationality arrayed against nation- 
 ality and king against king, before the end should 
 come, before Jerusalem should be destroyed. 
 
 4. Was there anything else to precede this great 
 event? Yes. "Many shall come in my name, 
 saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many 
 astray." Were there impostors of this kind? 
 Josephus says there was " a great number of false 
 prophets/' He mentions one by the name of 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 185 
 
 Theudas, who persuaded many to "take their 
 effects with them and follow him to the river 
 Jordan," which he was going to " divide " ; and, it 
 is added, "many were deluded by his words." 
 We read again in the Jewish historian of an 
 Egyptian who "'pretended to be a prophet also, 
 and got together thirty thousand men," whom he 
 promised that from the Mount of Olives he would 
 show " how, at his command, the walls of Jerusa- 
 lem would fall down." These are only examples 
 of the false Christs, of whom Josephus says there 
 was a " great number," and of whom Christ had 
 prophesied there would be " many." The prediction 
 and the fact accord. There was at the time a 
 feverish expectation very favorable to impostors. 
 Even the pagan Suetonius (and he ought to have 
 known, because he lived in the latter part of the 
 first and the beginning of the second century) says : 
 " A firm persuasion had long prevailed through all 
 the East that it was fated for the empire of the 
 world at that time to devolve on some who should 
 go forth from Judsea." It was because of this 
 prevailing feeling that so many false Christs ap- 
 peared, and the true Christ foresaw and foretold it 
 all. It was one of the signs which were to precede 
 the overthrow of Jerusalem. 
 
 5. Another sign was to be destructive plagues, 
 " great earthquakes," to use Luke's expression, " and 
 in divers places famines and pestilences." Josephus 
 mentions a "famine" in the reign of Claudius so 
 
186 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 severe that "many people died for want of what 
 was necessary to procure food." Suetonius refers 
 to a "pestilence" at Rome under Nero, and he 
 says, " within the space of one autumn there died 
 no less than thirty thousand persons." Tacitus 
 speaks of a "failure in the crops, and a famine 
 consequent thereupon." He also states that " fre- 
 quent earthquakes occurred, by which many houses 
 were thrown down." He alludes to one year 
 wherein " twelve populous cities of Asia fell in 
 ruins from an earthquake " ; and he adds, " It is 
 related that immense mountains sank down, that 
 level places were seen to be elevated into hills, and 
 that fires flashed forth during the catastrophe." 
 Josephus describes an earthquake where there were 
 " amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth." 
 Finally, Seneca in the year 58 writes : "How often 
 have cities of Asia and Achsea fallen with one fatal 
 shock ! how many cities have been swallowed up in 
 Syria ! how many in Macedonia ! How often has 
 Cyprus been wasted by this calamity ! how often 
 has Paphos become a ruin ! News has often been 
 brought us of the demolition of whole cities at 
 once." In the light of such testimony how striking 
 Christ's prediction, " great earthquakes, and in 
 divers places famines and pestilences" ! 
 
 6. Perhaps the most startling prophecy was that 
 there should be what an evangelist calls " signs in 
 sun and moon and stars," " terrors and great signs 
 from heaven." Were there these? A comet "re- 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 187 
 
 sembling," says Josephus, "a sword," hung omi- 
 nously over the city a whole year. One night, 
 according to the same witness, the temple was 
 mysteriously flooded with a light bright as day and 
 lasting "half an hour." On a certain evening just 
 before sunset " chariots and troops of soldiers in 
 their armor were seen running about among the 
 clouds." Stranger than all, the priests one night, 
 on going into the temple to perform their usual 
 duties, " felt a quaking and heard a great noise, and 
 after that they heard a sound as of a multitude, 
 saying, i Let us remove hence/ " Such are some 
 of the " terrors and great signs from heaven " which 
 Josephus mentions. Tacitus, too, referring to the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, says, " Armies were seen 
 to engage in different parts of the sky; . . . the 
 temple shone by the sudden fire of the clouds ; the 
 doors of the temple were suddenly thrown open ; a 
 voice, more than human, was heard that the gods 
 were departing, and at the same time a great mo- 
 tion as if departing." Josephus was a Jew, Tacitus 
 was a Eoman, and neither was a Christian, but 
 what they write as history Christ had spoken as 
 prophecy. 
 
 7. There was one more sign which was to be a 
 precursor of the end: "When ye see Jerusalem 
 compassed with armies, then know that her deso- 
 lation is at hand. Then let them that are in Judiea 
 flee into the mountains; and let them that are in 
 the midst of her depart out." That was a sign 
 
188 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 that the Christians were to make their escape with 
 all haste. Did it turn out as planned for ? Four 
 years before the final catastrophe — that is, 66 A. D. 
 — the Roman general Cestius Gallus marched upon 
 Jerusalem, which was in a state of rebellion. He 
 pressed the siege, and had he continued, says Jose- 
 phus, " a little longer " he would have " certainly 
 taken the city," and would have put "an end to 
 the war that very day." But all at once he beat a 
 retreat. Why ? " Without any reason in the 
 world," says the Jewish historian. But there was 
 a reason of which he was ignorant. It was doubt- 
 less, in the providence of God, to give the Chris- 
 tians their promised opportunity to escape. Upon 
 the temporary withdrawal of the Romans the city- 
 gates stood open for a while, but in a few days 
 they were closed, and active preparations were car- 
 ried on so as to resist the siege which was sure to 
 be renewed. Before the blockade, however, " many 
 of the most eminent of the Jews," says Josephus, 
 " swam away from the city, as from a ship when it 
 was going to sink." Among the many we may 
 suppose the Christians to have been. Indeed, Eu- 
 sebius, the Church historian, who lived from 265 
 to 340 A. D., expressly says that they " by revela- 
 tion left the city, and dwelt in a city of Perea, the 
 name of which is Pella." Very soon after this 
 providential escape came the army of Titus, and 
 Jerusalem was destroyed, and also the temple with 
 its goodly stones. 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 189 
 
 Thus, before the actual destruction there were 
 signs given of the approaching judgment, warn- 
 ings which the disciples heeded to the advantage of 
 their personal safety. But the vast majority lin- 
 gered and suffered untold miseries. "They did 
 not," says Josephus, " attend nor give credit to the 
 signs that were so evident." Nor will many now 
 regard the warnings of God. Desolation will some 
 day sweep over them if they do not listen to the 
 voice of mercy which precedes the infliction of 
 punishment. The Lord makes no idle threats; 
 every word of his comes to pass : it did of old, as 
 we have seen, and it will in the future. We need 
 not go down at the last with a sinking world, and 
 yet we shall, as surely as did the ancient Jews, if 
 we do not improve our opportunities. When the 
 last great day of the Lord shall come, the end of 
 the world, of which the destruction of Jerusalem 
 is emblematic — when there shall precede this sol- 
 emn consummation of human history still more 
 fearful signs than have been considered — may it be 
 ours to be caught up into the air before that final 
 crash and wreck of nature preparatory to the evolv- 
 ing of the new heavens and the new earth. May it 
 be ours to dwell in the New Jerusalem which in 
 the goodness of God succeeds the old. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE DESTRUCTION OF 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killeth the prophets, and 
 stoneth them that are sent unto her ! how often would I have 
 gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! Behold, your 
 house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 23:37, 38); "And 
 as he went forth out of the temple, one of his disciples saith 
 unto him, Master, behold, what manner of stones and what 
 manner of buildings! And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou 
 these great buildings ? there shall not be left here one stone 
 upon another, which shall not be thrown down" (Mark 
 13 : 1, 2) ; " And when he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept 
 over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, 
 the things which belong unto peace ! but now they are hid 
 from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, when 
 thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass 
 thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall dash 
 thee to the ground, and thy children within thee ; and they 
 shall not leave in thee one stone upon another ; because thou 
 knewest not the time of thy visitation" (Luke 19:41, 44); 
 " Then shall be great tribulation, such as hath not been from 
 the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be" 
 (Matt. 24 : 21) ; " And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own 
 body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters which the 
 Lord thy God hath given thee ; in the siege and in the strait- 
 ness, wherewith thine enemies shall straiten thee" (Deut. 
 28 : 53) ; u And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and 
 190 
 
JERUSALEM DESTROYED. 191 
 
 shall be led captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem shall 
 be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles 
 be fulfilled" (Luke 21 : 24). 
 
 fTlHE destruction of Jerusalem was very positive- 
 -L ly foretold by Christ some forty years before 
 the event. Nothing seemed more unlikely at the 
 time. The disciples could hardly believe that the 
 predictions would be verified. The city and the 
 temple seemed too substantial and too glorious to 
 be doomed to such utter ruin and desolation. There 
 were three lines of fortification, containing single 
 stones seventy feet in length. The walls were sur- 
 mounted by strong towers which seemed impregna- 
 ble. The temple was simply magnificent. There 
 were pillars between thirty and forty feet high, each 
 being an entire stone of white marble, and so large 
 that three men with extended arms were required 
 to reach around one. The gates were plated with 
 gold and they swung on hinges of the same precious 
 metal. The roof was covered with one mass of 
 golden spikes to keep the birds from settling there- 
 on. A golden vine with clusters of grapes and 
 with each bunch as large as a man was the admi- 
 ration of all. The rabbins said, " Like a true nat- 
 ural vine it grew greater and greater ; men would 
 be offering, some gold to make a leaf, some a grape, 
 some a bunch : and these were hung upon it, and so 
 it was increasing continually." Such was the tem- 
 ple, and, says Josephus, at the rising of the sun it 
 "reflected back a very fiery splendor," which forced 
 
192 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 people to " turn their eyes away, just as they would 
 have done at the sun's own rays " ; while at a dis- 
 tance, says this historian, the temple, which he had 
 often seen, appeared a like a mountain covered with 
 snow ; for as to those parts of it that were not gilt, 
 they were exceeding white." It is not strange that 
 one of the disciples said admiringly, "Behold, what 
 manner of stones and what manner of buildings." 
 These, however, were not to be left " one stone upon 
 another." It was 70 A. d., under the Roman gen- 
 eral Titus, that the catastrophe came. Let us brief- 
 ly note some of the details of the siege as given in 
 Josephus, Jewish historian of the time and an eye- 
 witness of the successive stages of destruction. 
 
 Not the least of the sufferings of the Jews came 
 through the heads of various factions, each striving 
 for the mastery within the doomed walls. The 
 people had once asked for the release of the robber 
 Barabbas in preference to Jesus, and now they were 
 tormented by robber chiefs who with armed bands 
 roamed the streets and plundered and killed, till 
 there was such a reign of terror that the approach 
 of the Romans was actually hailed with delight by 
 the miserable citizens. Titus drew up his legions 
 before the outer wall. His engines and battering- 
 rams began to play. The former threw immense 
 stones, which, flying through the air and shining 
 white in the night, were at first avoided, but when 
 painted black and thus rendered invisible in the 
 darkness, they crushed whole ranks. There was 
 
JEEVSALEM DESTROYED. 193 
 
 something irresistible in the steady battering of the 
 ram, which was worked backward and forward " by 
 a great multitude of men " with regular swinging 
 strokes. One of the formidable machines, called 
 Niko or Victory because it had never been known 
 to fail, thundered away day and night till a breach 
 was made and the outer wall was taken, and a great 
 part of it was " demolished." The second wall was 
 next attacked. Besiegers and defenders fought des- 
 perately until it also succumbed, and Titus "de- 
 molished it entirely." Not one stone was left upon 
 another. 
 
 Siege was laid to the third wall, and famine 
 began its ravages. "A table," says the Jewish 
 historian, " was nowhere laid for a distinct meal." 
 All ate secretly and hastily, lest their provisions 
 should be discovered and seized by the robbers, 
 who ransacked houses for food, and who, lifting up 
 children, shook them till they let go the morsels to 
 which they clung in their hunger. People would 
 steal out of the city for something to eat, and would 
 be captured by the Romans, and would be crucified 
 to the number of four hundred in one day. They 
 writhed on crosses in sight of fellow-Jews, who 
 crowded the wall above. This tragedy of crucifix- 
 ion went on till there was actually a scarcity of wood 
 for the making of the transverse beams. "His 
 blood be on us, and on our children !" cried the 
 Jews of Him whom they crucified ; and it was, as 
 they also were nailed by the hundreds on crosses. 
 
 13 
 
194 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 Meanwhile the progress was slow, the engines 
 and works of assault being skillfully undermined 
 and burned. Titus decided upon another plan of 
 bringing the besieged to terms. He built, we read, 
 "a wall round about the whole city." This was, 
 as another has said, "a military palisade or rampart, 
 made from the earth thrown out of the ditch and 
 stuck with sharp stakes." In three days, the whole 
 army being employed, was the work completed, and 
 when properly garrisoned there was no possibility 
 of ingress or egress ; the city could in time be 
 starved into submission. How remarkable that 
 Christ should have foretold this plan of operation 
 forty years before the event ! — " The days shall come 
 upon thee, when thine enemies shall cast up a bank 
 [margin, palisade] about thee, and compass thee 
 round, and keep thee in on every side." The 
 Jews were completely hemmed in ; " all hope of 
 escaping," says Josephus, " was now cut off, . . . 
 together with their liberty of going out of the 
 city." 
 
 The famine became more terrible, whole families 
 being swept off. Houses were full of the dying. 
 In the streets were those who had dropped doAvn 
 dead. The robbers plundered the corpses, and they 
 would laughingly try the edge of their swords upon 
 the naked flesh, and would sometimes thrust through 
 those who " still lay alive upon the ground." For 
 a while the dead were buried, but afterward they 
 were only " cast down from the walls into the valleys 
 
JERUSALEM DESTROYED. 195 
 
 beneath." Titus, going his rounds, saw with horror 
 the decaying bodies, whose stench was unendurable, 
 and, groaning aloud, he raised his hands to heaven 
 and " called God to witness that this was not his 
 doing." He seemed half conscious of playing into 
 the hands of an overruling Providence. 
 
 The famishing inhabitants stole away from the 
 city in great numbers, and, it becoming known to 
 the enemy that to save their money they swallowed 
 it, the soldiers of Titus set to cutting " open their 
 living bodies" in search of the hidden treasures; 
 and sometimes "pieces of gold" were found, but 
 " a great many were destroyed " in the " bare hope " 
 of gain. Two thousand were killed in one night 
 for the possible gold they might contain. Though 
 the Roman general threatened his followers with 
 instant death if they continued their horrible work, 
 they still, when detection seemed unlikely, seized 
 Jewish deserters, and, in the words of Joseph us, 
 " dissected them and pulled polluted money out of 
 their bowels." 
 
 The famine increased till people gnawed old 
 leather. "Wisps of hay were eaten, and shoots of 
 trees sold at high prices for food. A wealthy 
 woman of Perea who was caught by the siege in 
 Jerusalem became so maddened with hunger that she 
 slew her nursing child, and, says Josephus, " roasted 
 him and ate the one-half of him, and kept the other 
 half by her concealed" till the robbers, who had 
 plundered her repeatedly, came again. When they 
 
196 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 came and " threatened her that they would cut her 
 throat immediately if she did not show them what 
 food she had," she replied that she had saved a very 
 fine portion for them, and thereupon she "un- 
 covered what was left of her son." When they 
 refused to eat she reproached them for being more 
 fastidious than a woman ; but she was allowed to 
 finish herself the horrid feast, consisting of her 
 own child's flesh. Away back in Deuteronomy it 
 had been prophesied, " Thou shalt eat the fruit of 
 thine own body ... in the siege and in the strait- 
 ness, wherewith thine enemies shall straiten thee." 
 
 Events fast hurried to a close. Titus called a 
 council to discuss the expediency of destroying the 
 temple, which flames were rapidly approaching. 
 The decision was to save the holy house, and the 
 advancing fire was ordered extinguished. But the 
 Roman soldiers, exasperated by continued Jewish 
 attacks, pressed forward, and one of them, mount- 
 ing the shoulders of a comrade, contrary to orders 
 applied a blazing torch to a temple window, and the 
 conflagration was started. Titus at the alarm 
 rushed to the scene and commanded the fire to be 
 quenched, but his voice could not be heard in the 
 din and confusion. He signaled with his hand, but 
 every one was too excited to pay any attention. 
 " And thus," says the Jewish historian, " was the 
 holy house burnt down without Caesar's approba- 
 tion." It was contrary to the wish of Titus, but 
 it was in accordance with the prediction of Christ, 
 
JERUSALEM DESTROYED. 1<)7 
 
 who had said, " Your house is left unto you deso- 
 late." The whole structure was ablaze aud the fire 
 roared like a volcano. The light was seen for miles. 
 People gathered on the walls of the upper city and 
 sent up their wailings. There was the "shout of 
 the Roman legions," and there was the cry of de- 
 spair from those " surrounded with fire and sword," 
 while the hills round about returned the echo of the 
 roaring conflagration, the shouting soldiery and the 
 crying multitude. 
 
 Zion only remained to be taken, and against its 
 steep cliffs mounds were raised, and soon the batter- 
 ing-rams were thundering away. The Jews were 
 dejected, the Romans confident. A breach was 
 speedily made in the wall ; a panic ensued ; the 
 people, fleeing hither and thither, were hunted 
 down, and the streets were made to flow with their 
 blood. Orders were given for the demolition of 
 " the entire city and temple." Three massive tow- 
 ers, however, were spared, that future generations 
 might see what " Roman valor had subdued." 
 When Titus examined these he exclaimed, "We 
 have certainly had God for our assistant in this 
 war, ... for what could the hands of men or any 
 machines do toward overthrowing these towers?" 
 He was right. God had decreed it, and it had 
 been foretold by Christ. Jerusalem was actually 
 " trodden down," and Zion's wall, like the other two, 
 was leveled. "The city," says Joseph us, "was bo 
 thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that 
 
198 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 dug it up to the foundation that there was left noth- 
 ing to make those that came thither believe it had 
 ever been inhabited." Such was the end of a con- 
 flict wherein one million one hundred thousand were 
 killed ("and they shall fall by the edge of the 
 sword"), and ninety-seven thousand were taken 
 prisoners and sold, many of them, into slavery 
 (" and shall be led captive into all the nations "). 
 
 What now had Jesus predicted regarding the 
 destruction of Jerusalem ? — " Then shall be great 
 tribulation, such as hath not been from the begin- 
 ning of the world until now, no, nor ever shall be." 
 What says the Jewish historian in giving a sum- 
 mary of the war? — "It appears to me that the 
 misfortunes of all men from the beginning of the 
 world, if they be compared to those of the Jews, 
 are not so considerable as they were." The fact 
 seems to have corresponded to the prophecy. And 
 what is the judgment of the modern historian? 
 Milman says : " Jerusalem . . . has probably wit- 
 nessed a far greater portion of human misery than 
 any other spot upon the earth." 
 
 A triumph at Eome was voted to Titus for his 
 splendid success. He was crowned with laurel and 
 clothed in purple. His soldiers were arrayed in 
 their finest uniform. The triumphal procession 
 was set in motion amid shouts that rent the air. 
 The tallest and most distinguished of the captured 
 Jews graced the triumph. Carried along in the 
 line of march were beautifully- wrought vessels of 
 
JERUSALEM DESTROYED. 199 
 
 silver and gold. There were rarest wild beasts 
 from all quarters of the globe to help make up the 
 display. Ships were borne along in great numbers, 
 and, after the manner of modern transparencies, 
 magnificent pageants three and four stories high 
 whereon was portrayed all the scenery of ancient 
 warfare, such as "a happy country laid waste and 
 entire squadrons of enemies slain," " houses over- 
 thrown and falling upon their owners," soldiers 
 pouring through breaches in walls, and other simi- 
 lar scenes drawn true to the facts. Of this grand 
 Roman triumph, decreed for the destruction of 
 Jerusalem, there remains yet a witness in the Arch 
 of Titus, still standing in one of the streets of 
 the Eternal City. On that arch the traveler to-day, 
 after the lapse of centuries, sees represented Jewish 
 captives, the golden candlestick and the triumphal 
 car of the Roman general. For eighteen hundred 
 years that marble arch has been witnessing to the 
 literal fulfillment of God's word. For all these 
 centuries has Jerusalem been " trodden down of 
 the Gentiles." 
 
 Three hundred years after the destruction of the 
 city there was a vain attempt by Julian the Ap e- 
 tate to restore the Jewish polity with all the old 
 paraphernalia of worship. This Roman emperor, 
 for the express purpose, says Gibbon, of famishing 
 an " argument against the faith of prophecy and 
 the truth of revelation," gave orders for the r 
 toration of the temple. From every part of the 
 
200 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 empire the Jews flocked, and engaged in the work 
 of reconstruction. Rich men labored with spades 
 and pickaxes of silver, and wealthy women carried 
 materials in silk and purple mantles. But the en- 
 terprise was strangely interrupted. According to 
 both pagan and Christian writers of the time, when 
 the rubbish had been cleared away and the subter- 
 ranean caverns had been opened, flames burst from 
 the long-hidden chambers, balls of fire rolled along 
 the ground with thunderous noise, and the workmen 
 had to abandon the undertaking. Whether it was 
 a miraculous interruption of the work in accordance 
 with contemporary belief, or whether it was a natu- 
 ral and not unknown phenomenon of gases long con- 
 fined exploding on coming in contact with outer air, 
 the work, at any rate, was stopped. The times of 
 the Gentiles had not yet been fulfilled, and Jerusa- 
 lem had still to be trodden down for at least fifteen 
 hundred years more. 
 
 How long the malediction of Heaven against the 
 Holy City is yet to continue in force we cannot say. 
 Whether the Jews shall ever be actually restored to 
 Jerusalem is a question of debate. But that a 
 blessed future is in store for the chosen people upon 
 their conversion to Christ is a part of prophetic 
 teaching. After "the fullness of the Gentiles," 
 says Paul, " all Israel shall be saved." The proph- 
 ecies of Christ, the predictions of the New Testa- 
 ment and of the Old, have to such an extent been 
 verified that we can well believe in what yet re- 
 
JERUSALEM DESTROYED. 201 
 
 mains unfulfilled of God's word. And there is 
 the bright prospect, if not of an earthly Jerusalem 
 restored, at least of a " new Jerusalem coming down 
 out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride 
 adorned for her husband." 
 
CHAPTER XY. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 
 
 " Lo, it is a people that dwell alone, 
 And shall not be reckoned among the nations." — Num. 23 : 9. 
 
 THE absolute uniqueness of the Jews as a people 
 is here indicated. They were and are " pecu- 
 liar," not only in the biblical, but in the modern, 
 sense. 
 
 1. The separateness of the Hebrews, predicted 
 in Scripture, has been realized in history. They 
 were to be altogether unlike others, and they have 
 been. They were told just what to eat and what 
 not to eat, their very diet being so prescribed as to 
 make it necessary for them to live by themselves. 
 From the apostles we learn what a holy horror 
 there was among pious Jews of eating meats that 
 had been sacrificed to idols. Matrimonial alliances 
 were forbidden outside of the chosen circle, and 
 even social relations were confined to the strictest 
 lines ; to sit at the same table with sinners was a 
 disgrace. How multiform were the ceremonial 
 ablutions to cleanse from any defilement that may 
 have been contracted from coming in contact with 
 the unclean Gentile unawares ! This thorough ex- 
 
 202 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 203 
 
 clusiveness was peculiar to the Jews, and it was of 
 divine ordering. God seems to have had a great 
 plan which could be carried out only by the minu- 
 test regulations. 
 
 The human race was then in its childhood, and 
 had to be governed accordingly. The only mis- 
 take, perhaps, of the Jews was their holding on to 
 childish things after they had become men and by 
 various traditions adding to the rules. Still, in a 
 general sense they were true to the plan mapped 
 out for them by God; they were meant to be a 
 peculiar people, clearly marked off from all other 
 nations. 
 
 " Lo, it is a people that dwell alone, 
 And shall not be reckoned among the nations." 
 
 The result is, that a Jew to this day is a Jew 
 wherever he may be, and all down history he 
 stands out separate and easily recognized. No 
 other nationality can be thus distinctly traced from 
 the beginning down. History opens with Abraham 
 emigrating from "Ur of the Chaldees," and the 
 migratory Jew is still marching on, as unique a 
 character as ever. "Whatever the country, what- 
 ever the age, the Jew is a Jew — peculiar. This 
 national exclusiveness seems to point to the mould- 
 ing hand of Him with whom a day is as a thousand 
 years and a thousand years are as a day. Indeed, 
 we can see somewhat of the divine purpose. 
 
 2. It seems to us utter folly to worship idols, to 
 
204 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 bow before gods innumerable. But polytheism is 
 apparently that to which humanity naturally in- 
 clines. Indeed, the ancient world was wholly poly- 
 theistic. The very idea of setting apart the Jews 
 was to introduce and spread the doctrine that there 
 is no God except Jehovah; and even the people 
 who were chosen for this mission were themselves 
 so tinctured with the prevailing religious notions as 
 to be constantly going over into idolatry. God had 
 to be severe with them ; he had to build walls, 
 insisting upon entire separation and punishing the 
 least intermingling with the heathen, or he could 
 never have established the true doctrine of one God 
 and only One. 
 
 Strict as he was, it required centuries to make 
 the Jews themselves thoroughly monotheistic. It 
 was not till the captivity in Babylon that the serv- 
 ing of strange gods was completely rooted out of 
 their hearts. It took two thousand years to get 
 just one nation indoctrinated, for when Christ came 
 the Jews alone were believers in a single Deity 
 pure and simple. The most cultured people on the 
 face of the globe, the educated Greeks, held to 
 "gods many" — so many that in their chief city, 
 Athens, a Roman satirist could say it was easier to 
 find a god than a man. 
 
 This, then, is the second great peculiarity of the 
 Jews : their exclusiveness was with a view to 
 educating them into monotheism, and this with 
 the ulterior purpose of bringing all mankind to the 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 205 
 
 worship of one God. It required two thousand 
 years to make one nation believe this doctrine, and 
 nearly two thousand years more have passed away, 
 and still the great majority of the race are idolaters. 
 God understood the gravity of the situation when 
 he set the Jews off by themselves ; he saw he must 
 adopt the most stringent measures to overcome 
 polytheism. It is very easy for us to ridicule 
 idolatry, for there have been generations of train- 
 ing back of us ; we have inherited the monotheistic 
 doctrine. It is an inheritance which the Jews have 
 given us, and to this source the world is indebted 
 for the passing away of idols. 
 
 To be sure, when Mohammedanism swept over 
 three continents almost the very battle-cry was, 
 " There is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet !" 
 but Mohammed borrowed from Moses, and the 
 Koran is an imperfect digest and mutilation of the 
 Old Testament. We think it very peculiar for men 
 to worship idols, whereas the peculiar thing about 
 it is that we are not polytheists instead of worship- 
 ers of one God — a peculiarity which has been ground 
 into our very being by the persistent teaching of 
 the Jewish Scriptures. What a power the Jew has 
 been we see when we consider that were it not for 
 his influence we to-day would be bowing down to 
 stocks and stones, or at best to sun, moon and stars ! 
 A peculiar people, assuredly, to whom can be 
 traced, under the guidance of God, the overthrow 
 of what is distinctive of heathenism, the debas- 
 
206 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ing worship of material objects. The world is 
 being revolutionized in this respect by Jewish 
 doctrine. 
 
 3. Another peculiarity of this people is the idea of 
 a Messiah which they have introduced into history. 
 Renan, the distinguished French skeptical writer, 
 says : " What more than all else characterized the 
 Jew was his confident . . . belief in a brilliant and 
 happy future for humanity." It was the prophet 
 Micah who foretold that out of Bethlehem should 
 proceed a Ruler " whose goings forth are from of 
 old, from everlasting." Away back in Genesis the 
 promise was made to a Jew, " In thy seed shall all 
 the nations of the earth be blessed." How very 
 romantic that orthodox (not rationalizing) Jews are 
 to this day reading the prophecies of a great 
 Deliverer, and are hoping for his coming, or, at 
 least, if not for the coming of a personal Messiah, 
 for the coming of a Messianic kingdom ! The 
 result is, their golden age is in their future. Heath- 
 en nations look back to the glory of the past, and 
 there is no inspiring hope ahead. The effect is seen 
 in the people's lives ; there is nothing to cheer them 
 on, and they sink into a fatalistic view of things ; 
 they lose ambition and become dead weights to 
 civilization. 
 
 The Jews, however, are expectant ; glorious 
 things are in store for them, and they are buoyant 
 and courageous, and there is no likelihood of their 
 dying out, as many another nationality has died 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 207 
 
 Flash upon a people the conviction that they are 
 going to make a mark in history, fill them with 
 the thought of a future big with events, and they 
 are ever rousing themselves to realize the pictured 
 ideal. The Jews can never pass out of history so 
 long as the hope of Messiah's reign keeps stirring 
 them to nobler achievements, so long as they are 
 for ever working up to the standard which they are 
 sure will some day be reached. So that this Jewish 
 doctrine of better times to come is lifting mankind 
 into hopefulness, which is the necessary condition to 
 successful development, for a disheartened people 
 never yet accomplished anything. It puts the 
 golden age not behind, but ahead, evermore furnish- 
 ing a fresh incentive to exertion. 
 
 And yet, it may be said, as the Jews number only 
 six or seven (or at most twelve) millions in the 
 whole world, their hope of a Messiah cannot have 
 a very general influence. That is true to a certain 
 extent, but where did Christians get their Messiah? 
 It was Disraeli (was it not ?) who said that one half 
 of Christendom worships a Jew, and the other half 
 a Jewess — Jesus and Mary. The irony of this con- 
 tains some truth. Christianity is of Hebraic origin ; 
 salvation is of the Jews, the Master himself said, 
 and to Christianity is due our modern civilization. 
 And while our Christ is in the past so far as his 
 historical environment is concerned, it is the future 
 which is to witness his triumph. 
 
 The millennium is yet to be, and all Christendom 
 
208 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 feels the thrill of what is to come. Not only actual 
 believers in Christ, but all who have come under 
 the influence of his teaching, are living in expect- 
 ancy of wondrous developments. To such a height 
 have our expectations risen that we would not be 
 much surprised at anything which might happen. 
 What with railroad and telegraph and telephone 
 and phonograph, what with the springing to new 
 activity wherever the gospel of Christ is known, 
 what with the opening up of countries long unex- 
 plored, Christendom is almost wild with expecta- 
 tion. We cannot lie down in sluggishness; the 
 breath of life is blowing over us with a freshness 
 which makes every heart and pulse to bound. 
 Thank God for the Jew, for the Messiah who 
 sprung from the Jew, for that glorious hopefulness 
 which only those nations have that are acquainted 
 with the Messianic kingdom ! The gospel has but 
 to touch heathenism and the dry bones begin to stir 
 with life. Japan hears the story and rouses from 
 the sleep of centuries, and is wide awake to enter 
 the race which is to end in victory. Wherever the 
 Jewish Scriptures are read, and only there, is there 
 progress even of the material type, is there a reach- 
 ing forward for the better things to come ; and when 
 we think of it, how our respect for the Jew grows ! 
 No other character has been so prominent in the de- 
 velopments which go to make up history, appearing 
 as it does at every turn in the slow unfolding of the 
 divine purpose. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 209 
 
 4. There is one characteristic of the Jews as a 
 Dation so peculiar that it has made infidels believers 
 — namely, their wide dispersion in exact accordance 
 with prophecy. When Frederick the Great asked 
 his chaplain the strongest argument in a word for 
 the Bible and Christianity, the answer very proper- 
 ly was, " The Jews, Your Majesty." 
 
 We read in Deuteronomy, " The Lord shall scat- 
 ter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the 
 earth even unto the other." Says the same author- 
 ity, "A byword among all the peoples." " Sifted" 
 is the expression of Amos, " among all the nations." 
 " Wanderers" is the apt description of Hosea. 
 " An hissing and a curse," declares Jeremiah. How 
 literally has it all been fulfilled ! The Jews are 
 found everywhere. Missionaries have come across 
 them in China, and even in Central Africa. And 
 a few years ago this paragraph was going the round 
 of the religious press : " Beaconsfield has introduced 
 into Cyprus, among the native troops from India, 
 some Hebrews who claim to be descendants of the 
 mercantile colony .... planted by the navy of 
 Solomon." We could believe almost anything of 
 so romantic, so peculiar a people. 
 
 It is no wonder that so much used to be written 
 about "the lost tribes of Israel," supposed to be 
 hidden away somewhere in the earth, while when 
 our American Indians were discovered it was grave- 
 ly discussed in learned circles if they were not the 
 long-lost tribes, while again some now are maintain* 
 
 14 
 
210 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 ing that the Anglo-Saxons are the lost tribes. Still, 
 that word " lost " appears to me altogether inap- 
 propriate when applied to a people we could not 
 lose sight of if we tried. There apparently is no 
 country where they do not dwell, " scattered " as 
 they are from pole to pole, " sifted" throughout the 
 world ; and it need not be said that they have been 
 "wanderers," giving point to the common phrase, 
 " wandering Jew," and that they have been a " by- 
 word " and a " hissing." 
 
 Read mediaeval history especially, when the Jews 
 had no civil rights, when they were burned by the 
 thousands and when they underwent horrors whose 
 very perusal makes the blood run cold. Read of 
 the more recent Russian atrocities, and of the pres- 
 ent race-prejudice against them at Saratoga, where 
 they are excluded from a leading hotel. All down 
 the ages they have been a marked class, and even 
 now, in Webster's latest, we have the definition of 
 "to jew" as to cheat, to swindle. Believers and 
 unbelievers alike have used the term as one of re- 
 proach, and so have been verifying prophecy. How 
 can this peculiar accordance between prediction and 
 fact be explained ? Is history with its wicked men 
 even in collusion with prophecy to pass a fraud 
 upon the world ? Nay, rather men have been un- 
 conscious instruments in establishing the word 
 spoken of old by the Lord. What a peculiar people, 
 when not Christians alone, but infidels also, have 
 been playing into God's hands to bring about the 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 211 
 
 fulfillment of prophecies uttered hundreds and 
 thousands of years ago ! 
 
 5. One more thing with reference to this peculiar 
 people. It is distinctly taught that as a nation 
 they are to be converted to Christ, and even, 
 according to some scholars, restored to Palestine. 
 Zechariah asserts, " They shall look unto me whom 
 they have pierced, and they shall mourn." " I will 
 plant them upon their own land," speaks the Lord 
 by Amos, " and they shall no more be plucked up." 
 Jeremiah states, " I will gather you from all the 
 nations, and from all the places whither I have 
 driven you, saith the Lord ; and I will bring you 
 again unto the place whence I caused you to be 
 carried away." " I will," says God by Ezekiel, 
 " assemble you out of the countries where ye have 
 been scattered, and I will give you the land of 
 Israel." Though these passages may have had a 
 primary, they certainly have not had a complete, 
 fulfillment ; and it must be admitted that they look 
 strongly toward a literal restoration to the Holy 
 Land. Be that as it may (and it is but fair to say 
 that the weight of scholarship seems to be against 
 it), a national conversion is predicted without doubt. 
 Paul argues this expressly when he says that after 
 the fullness of the Gentiles "all Israel shall be 
 saved " ; and such has been the general belief of 
 the Church. As far back as the year 400, Augus- 
 tine, the great Latin Father, said, "That in the 
 last times, before the judgment, the Jews (by means 
 
212 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 of Elias, who shall expound the law to them) shall 
 believe in Christ, is a thing much asserted in the 
 sayings and hearts of the faithful." In a similar 
 strain the golden-mouthed Chrysostom, the great 
 Greek preacher, spoke; and such has been the faith 
 in all ages. 
 
 The Jews are to be converted ; they are yet to 
 figure largely in history. What if they are few 
 and far between ? what if they do not exceed seven 
 millions in number? It does not require many 
 Jews to count for something. One Jew, and he 
 taken out of prison, ruled Egypt, the richest coun- 
 try of the time. Another Joseph may be born. 
 One Jew, and he a poor captive of war, reigned 
 over Babylon, the most splendid empire of antiquity. 
 Another Daniel may be born. One Jew, and he 
 nailed to a cross, now sways all Christendom, the 
 most extensive kingdom ever founded. With refer- 
 ence to this Jew everything is dated. The infidel 
 recognizes him by the year which he writes at 
 beginning a letter or which he publishes on the 
 title-page of his skeptical book. When a gov- 
 ernment coins money and when the commercial 
 world transacts business, it is all done in some 
 " year of our Lord" who was a Jew. Aside from 
 this most prominent of all Hebrew characters, 
 the Jew still keeps coming up in history with 
 startling conspicuousness, as if to remind man- 
 kind that his mission is not yet finished, as if 
 to proclaim that he is still alive and that he means 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 213 
 
 to live. He will not down, any more than Ban- 
 quo's ghost. 
 
 Now he appears as a shining star in the astronom- 
 ical firmament, Herschel, or as the great Church 
 historian, Neander ; again as the profound philoso- 
 pher, Spinoza or Mendelssohn; once more as the 
 marvelous musician, the grandson Mendelssohn ; 
 or as a striking figure in recent French history, 
 Gambetta; or still as the possessor of immense 
 wealth, Rothschild, who through loans to the Turk- 
 ish government is said to have a practical mortgage 
 on the Holy Land, and who if he has could readily 
 open the way for a literal return of his people to 
 Palestine, and who at least does control the money- 
 market of Europe and of the world ; or the con- 
 spicuous Jew appears as "the man of destiny" in 
 Beaconsfield, who a few years ago, whether we liked 
 or disliked him, had as England's prime minis- 
 ter more power than any other one person on the 
 face of the globe. No ! no ! it does not require 
 many Jews to shape history; one can do it, and 
 does do it every now and then, as if to keep our 
 memories stirred up to an appreciation of his 
 splendid capabilities. The British occupancy of 
 Egypt is stated to be " largely in the interest of 
 Jewish capitalists, holders of Egyptian bonds n ; and 
 now two Hebrews are even said to have bought the 
 site of ancient Babylon. The Jews thus seem to be 
 getting possession, not only of their own land, but 
 also of the lands of their former oppressors, Egyptian 
 
214 THE BIBLE VERIFIED. 
 
 and Babylonian. There is a millennial future for 
 the human race, and the peculiar Jew is to bear 
 a part in the momentous issues out of which shall 
 be evolved the new creation, when all, both Jew 
 and Gentile, shall know the Lord Jesus. 
 
 Finally, in the study of such a subject how we 
 are impressed with the fact that Jehovah is from 
 everlasting to everlasting ! He is never in a hurry 
 to accomplish his plans. He sits on his throne and 
 controls stupendous movements which extend down 
 the ages. Not only in geological formations, but 
 in spiritual developments, he makes haste slowly. 
 Vast stretches of time are needed to understand 
 God. Away back in the beginning, during the 
 successive steps of evolving order out of chaos, it 
 is recorded, " And God saw that it was good " ; and 
 perhaps only he could have seen the good then. 
 When vegetation was so rank that the earth must 
 have seemed one tangled mass of gigantic weeds, 
 only the foreseeing eye of Divinity could have 
 been pleased. u No mere man w could have recog- 
 nized in the luxuriant growth great beds of coal 
 for keeping teeming populations in the far future 
 warm and comfortable. 
 
 We sometimes now are inclined to think that the 
 world is overrun with wickedness, and we query 
 what will come out -of the mass of corruption; but 
 God looks on and gives us the quiet assurance that 
 " all things work together for good," and we are to 
 trust him for the verifying of this declaration. 
 
THE BIBLE AND THE PECULIAR JEWS. 218 
 
 The good time may not come in this generation or 
 in the next or in the next, but we can rest in faith 
 upon Him whose word shall never fail, though the 
 accomplishment may demand cycle upon cycle of 
 time. Through thousands of years he has been 
 carrying the Jews, and he will not relax his pur- 
 pose till all we who are his peculiar people, who 
 " dwell alone " and are separate from the world, 
 have been brought out of the great tribulation, out 
 of the strife and the conflict, out of sorrow and 
 trial and temptation, out of disappointment and 
 woe, to join in song of praise around the throne in 
 heaven : 
 
 " Glory be to the Father, and to the Sod, and to the Holy 
 Ghost : 
 As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ; world 
 without end. Amen." 
 
 THE END. 
 
f-7 
 
mm 
 
 ;' R % ^#mtl Preserv at'onTechnoloqies 
 
 ,-. Wjk W 1 *^ ■■%$&:*$ # $ I] 7 Thomson Park Drive 
 
 fe^-;- =; S& • &^Mi^^ ' ■ Cranberry Township. Pa 1 6066 
 

 'liM^i 
 
 ■■#*