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THE WATCHMAN
y —
PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY TIE
SOUTHERN PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
NASHVILLE. TENNESSEE
Price, $1.00 per Year Single Copy, 5 Cents
. BUTLER
G. | - 4 S. N. HASKELL Associate
L. A. SMITH | Editors }
E. J. BURNHAM J Editors
ENTERED AT THE POST OFFICE AT NASHVILLE, TENN.,
AS SECOND CLASS MATTER, APRIL 12, 1906.
Nashville, Tennessee, January 22, 1907.
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE
HE writer would call special attention
to the article with the above heading,
copied from that precious volume,
“Education,” one of the latest volumes
of Mrs. E. G. White's writings. We know of
nothing superior to it in the literature of the
world to-day.
Fact and Speculation
The world is full of skepticism, doubt, and
infidelity. Much of it grows out of the won-
derful so-called “science of geology.” Genu-
ine science is “knowledge; knowledge of prin-
ciples and causes; ascertained truth or facts.”
—Iebster. Much that passes for geology is
speculation, pure and simple. There are facts
connected with geology; such as finding in the
earth skeletons and remains of animals, fowls,
fishes, and reptiles, some of which have no
existence in the world to-day, and many of
which are far larger than the skeletons of any
living creature.
The question is, When did these animals
live? and how came they in the positions where
they are found? The speculation that passes
for science comes in when scientists, so-called,
attempt to answer these questions. Their
speculations on these points fill volumes, yes,
thousands of them. They tell us that millions
upon millions of years have passed away in the
process of evolution while these things were
gradually being developed.
These teachers have cast away the Mosaic
record, and launched out on the boundless
sea of speculation. Many of them have de-
nied the existence of God himself. And the’
whole effort and aim of some of them seems
to be to get rid of the very idea of a personal
God such as the Scriptures teach. Just think
of it,— a universe of orderly arrangement, sc
grand and wonderful that minds of the great-
est wisdom and power are overwhelmed with
wonder and astonishment as they investigate
and behold the beauty and symmetry, the per-
fect adaptation of means to the end; the un-
ceasing regularity of the movements of the
heavenly bodies, never making a mistake of
a minute of time in their revolutions, or in-
terfering with the harmony of their movements
for ages, and all this without a God to order
or direct, to create and to sustain.
[}
Divine and Human Wisdom
"The greatest of men cannot organize any-
thing to perfection.
Look at the railroads,
THE WATCHMAN
one of man’s greatest masterpieces, running
amuck, coming into collision about every day.
Thousands of human lives are destroyed by
them every year. So of the great ships, which
are in constant dangers and calamities, be-
cause of man’s mistakes. Nothing that man
touches is perfect. Yet the vast universe
comes into existence by unaided chance, and
runs itself in perfect order for ages without
a directing or creative mind; so these men
tell us. Was there ever seen such folly?
These so-called scientists and great phil-
osophers are floundering around in their spec-
ulations, ascribing at different periods millions
of years, less or more, to the time it took for
the earth to create and develop itself in the
process of evolution. There is little argu-
ment among even leading men holding these
views. How do they, or can they, really
know anything of these supposed processes?
— They cannot. It is mere guess-work. Yet
millions of people have given up their Bibles
to follow these vagaries of the imagination.
A Solid Foundation
When we take the Bible record, we find
terra firma. Its positive statements afford
support for faith in a loving Father who has
created us all. The great deluge comes in as
a dispensation of punishment for the sin of
forgetting God and the consequent terrible
iniquity. These philosophers tell us there
never was any flood. The writer was once
passing through the Green River country go-
ing to California at an early day in his min-
istry. At a little station where the train
stopped for a little season was a man selling
curiosities. There were on exhibition many
pieces of rock dug out of lofty mountains near
by. There were the forms of fishes in the
very substance of the rock. The head, the
eyes, the fins, the tail, even the scales could
be plainly discerned. These mountains must
have been thousands of feet in height. Here
was a lesson for the geologist. How did these
multitudes of fishes come to be on the top of
these mountains?
The Flood and Some of Its Results
The record declares, “ The fountains of the
great deep were broken up.” Gen. 7:11. The
waters from above met the waters from be-
neath, the whole configuration of the globe
was changed. The vast trees and all forms
of vegetation were hurled by the mighty ocean
currents into the greatest confusion. The rec-
~ord is so brief that we know not the particu-
lars of what happened.
In the great masses of ice in some regions
not far from the north pole have been discov-
ered the embedded forms of the huge mam-
moth, whole, with horns, and ‘hair covering
the body, skin all intact, and flesh frozen solid.
Some of these, becoming exposed by the
change of the elements, have been partially de-
voured by the white bear and other carnivo-
rous animals, Must it not be evident to ev-
ery sensible person that the preservation of
these for ages was caused by some sudden con-
vulsion in our globe like the flood? None of
these creatures now exist, and they are not
known in the record of ages. We know but
little of the conditions existing before the
flood.
The statements in the article on the first
page of this paper are in perfect harmony with
the facts given, while the speculations of ge-
ologists cannot explain them. How little
we yet know of what is contained beneath the
surface of our globe! From the very brief
record of the flood we get but few particulars
of the awful catastrophe that then occurred.
But we get enough, when compared with the
inspired record in other scriptures, to know
that it was a stupendous and wonderful event.
It 1s used as an illustration of the awful ter-
rors of the last great day. ‘As the days of
Noah were, so shall also the coming of the
Son of man be.” The engulfing of the whole
human family excepting those riding in the
ark, was a lively type of the coming day. As
described by the servant of the Lord, we get
a vivid idea of its terrors. The ark itself
was saved from destruction only by the super-
natural power of God. And even Satan was
so terrified that he greatly feared that his final
doom had come. We cannot but believe that
the very crust of the earth was broken up, and
possibly continents sank and rose; islands dis-
appeared, and others were elevated.
For hundreds of miles on the upper Mis-
sissippi above Dubuque, a broad space is cut
through solid rocks three or four hundred feet
in depth. This valley where the Mississippi
runs is often one or two miles broad, and
the streams which run into the great river
have very deep, wide and
even little streams that one can step across.
Some of these streams could never have cut
such a channel as is now in existence with
their present volume of water. In the nature
of things, there must have been an immense
sea of water which cut down this great body
of rock so much wider than these streams now
are. It must have been done with terribie
power, and not by a long course of erosion
also channels,
as at present existing.
This great valley from the falls of St. An-
thony down for hundreds of miles forcibly
calls the mind of the writer back to the time
of the flood, when vast bodies of water were
seeking the lower level, now occupied by the
great oceans.
The Hope Set before Us
God's word affords the best explanation of
the present conditions of our globe of any
book extant. It is the only cure for the
wandering vagaries of geological speculations
run mad, as seen in the world at the present
time. The dear old Book of books presents
before us godliness, which gives promise of
the life that now is, and that which is to come.
The hopes it presents are the most precious
of any ever presented to human view. They
are soul-thrilling, full of comfort and joy un-
speakable and full of glory. The writer once
floundered about in human speculations and
infidelity. He knows the blessedness of the
Christian religion. Money could not tempt
him ever to return to that fearful condition
of being without hope and without God in
the world. G. IL. B.