OBJECTIONS NOT CONCLUSIVE.

71

familiar thing that a score of philosophers cannot explain. It is not necessary to be able to solve satisfactorily all the objections that are alleged against the doctrines of Revelation, before we receive it as the Word of God. This would be as if a man must be a natural philosopher, and skillful enough to explain the process of breathing and all the apparatus made therefor before he could inhale the air; or be able to analyze his bread and explain the whole process of eating and of digestion and assimilation before he should be allowed to eat. And surely this is a process but few will be able to realize. The true view of this point is, that there may be truth-truth supported by irrefragable arguments, and yet, at the same time, be obnoxious to apparent objections, numerous, plausible and by no means easily answered. Dr. Johnson has stated this point in this way: "There are," says he, "objections against a plenum and objections against a vacuum; but one of them must be true. And sensible men, really desirous of discovering truth, will perceive that reason directs them to examine, first, the argument in favor of that side of the question where the first presumption of truth appears." The case, then, stands in the manner following: We have books which we call Sacred. The first thing is to examine their authority and the evidences that support it. Then we may hear objections; but if the proofs that the Bible is the Word of God are sufficient, then, even if there are objections not easy if at all susceptible of solution, still we are bound to receive it as the Word of God. When the Gospel was first preached, Jews and Gentiles de

manded to know on what grounds its claims rested.* They asked themselves, each one, Why should I embrace it? Not what are the objections to it? So in regard to the Bible, we believe the difficulties are greatly overstated. The objections are magnified. Many of them are only apparent. Patience, candor and intelligence may remove them, or explain them. But, if not, we have reasons for believing the Bible to be the Word of God, in spite of all the objections to it that its opponents have ever been able to produce. And as reasonable, accountable beings, we are bound to hold to it as the Word of God, until we are furnished with something better.

The

Where books and newspapers are not generally circulated, the people are much under the influence of oral teachings. In older times, among all nations, story tellers were an influential class of instructors. people of the East have always been remarkably fond of story telling. The Arabian Nights, Persian tales of Genii, and all their literature is proof of this. The chief points of Abraham's life, and of Isaac and Jacob, of Joseph and Moses, and of Joshua, David and Solomon, live on their lips to this day. The names are sometimes changed altogether, and generally a little modified, and Ishmael and Esau are usually made greater heroes than Isaac and Jacob; and many a weary evening is beguiled away in the Arab's tent by the story of Hebrew patriarchs and kings. Rebekah's marriage with the son of the great Shiekh, Abou Ibrahim, El Halil, and the story of Joseph, of Daniel,

*Whately, in several of his very able works, and Dr. Hawkins, in his work on Tradition, have some excellent thoughts on this subject, and presented much more fully than can be done here.

PATRIARCHAL STORIES.

73

and of Susannah and Hadassah, are almost as well known among the wandering children of the deserts of Asia and Africa, (though they are neither able to read nor write,) in their essential points, as they are to our Sunday school classes. From this there are two lessons to be learned: First, That God graciously consulted for the preservation of revealed truth by committing His oracles, in times past, to Orientals, and not to any of us Western peoples, nor to a race resembling us. The language of the Hebrews, its idioms and structure, and their geographical position and national relationships, and peculiar formation of mind, fitted them pre-eminently to receive and preserve for mankind until the fullness of time for their manifestation, the Divine communications, made from the beginning, to patriarchs and prophets for the benefit of the human race. Salvation is of the Jews. They were God's reservoir of saving truth. And the second lesson is, that we owe a great debt of gratitude to God and to our country—to our parents and friends for our privileges, literary and religious. We have the word of God in all its essential purity, both in the original and in translations and versions, so that we may all hear of the wonderful things of God in the tongue with which we were born.

2. We expect to be able to show that true happiness is to be found in putting our trust in Providence. The whole story of Esther "is like a transparency hung before the Pavilion of the Almighty, through which his counsels shine, and his unerring hand is invisible." The whole book illustrates the fact that Providence

has a life plan for every individual, and works out that plan in the use of the ordinary events of life.

We shall find a providence in this history touching the ancient Church of God worthy of special remembrance. It is both natural and strange that any of the Jews should have preferred to remain in exile after the decree of Cyrus permitting them to return to their own land, and to the enjoyment of their own peculiar religious services at Jerusalem. As they built houses and planted vineyards in the land of their captivity, and prayed for the prosperity of their conquerors and masters, it is not strange they should have become attached to their Persian homes; but it is strange that any of those that belonged to Abraham's posterity should have become so indifferent to the great promises that were yet unfulfilled as to seem to abandon them, and give up their distinctiveness as a nation, made peculiar and separated from all other peoples. Such, however, was the fact. While some returned, many were content to remain. Nor are the Jews we find throughout the Persian empire to be supposed as belonging only, if at all, to "Those trackless fugitives, the lost Ten Tribes." They were also of the house of Judah and Benjamin. But the God of their fathers neither failed to protect those that returned to the Holy Land, nor those that remained behind in Persia. Nor are examples of eminent piety and zeal for their religion wholly wanting either among those that returned with Nehemiah and Ezra, or among those that remained on the Euphrates.

The two prominent agents raised up at this time for the preservation of the church are Mordecai and Esther,

GOD'S AGENTS EVERYWHERE.

75

by whom God worked out a "glorious deliverance from one of the most mournful, imminent and universal dangers of total destruction that ever had threatened the Jewish church." The providence of God in raising up a Hebrew maid to be the Queen of Persia, and in overthrowing Haman for his iniquity, and in rewarding Mordecai for his piety and integrity, is wonderful. The piety and wisdom of Esther and Mordecai are not, however, so super-eminent as to obscure the dealings of a most gracious sovereignty. The virtues of the instruments do not render any the less conspicuous the mercy and power of God toward his ancient people in their captivity and voluntary exile. The sovereign goodness of God toward his church is seen sometimes in using the heathen to afflict it, and then in overturning them and in making their perdition subservient to the advancement of his truth. Jehovah is King in all the earth. He maketh the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he restraineth. A poct

has well said, in teaching us to recognize God's providence, that

"If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say, This is God's doing;

Is it not also His doing, when an aphis creepeth on a rose-bud? If an avalanche roll from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of

Providence:

Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar?"

"Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified. But I am poor and needy;

: