The Harmony of the Scriptures.
By Uriah Smith
THE readers of the REVIEW will be glad to learn that the sermon published in No. 17, last volume, entitled “The Alleged Discrepancies of Scripture,” by F. H. Newhall, D. D., has been issued at this Office in tract form for more general distribution. It does not, indeed, undertake to explain all the particular and individual discrepancies which skeptics claim in the Scriptures, but it lays down principles, and fortifies them with sound and logical reasoning, which cover all these particulars. As a brief but comprehensive view of the whole inspired volume, we have never seen its equal, while as a production of literary merit we think it would be difficult to find its superior. We would like to refresh the mind of the reader by quoting a few paragraphs; but out of a string of pearls, all of which are gems of the first value, one is at a loss to choose. We take two paragraphs at random: “Certain irregularities in the path of Uranus led some who feebly held the clue of nature to speculate whether the law of gravity at that immense distance operated in all its rigor; but the true astronomer saw mirrored in these perturbations another world, pacing its solitary rounds as the outmost sentinel of the solar system. Nature’s laws are thus often found by the philosophers to be knotted in discrepancies, which, when patiently disentangled, have furnished him threads to guide him through new labyrinths of fact and law. Scripture discrepancies are thus the clues to higher harmonies. The true philosopher does not demand a demonstrated theory of these irregularities in nature. The logical understanding is not troubled by them if a plausible hypothesis of reconciliation can be invented. A reasonable mind, which has satisfied itself on independent evidence as to the essential truth, is content if imagination can suggest any adjustment of exceptional facts. In this respect, we should go to Scripture, as the true philosopher goes to nature.” P. 5. Another paragraph we quote, respecting the book of Psalms: “When will our advancing race, in its spiritual development, outgrow the Hebrew psalms? The most advanced Christian of to-day finds these ancient songs and prayers, which burst from the hearts of Hebrew minstrels, prophets, priests, and kings, twenty centuries ago, voicing more perfectly than any other language his profoundest meditations, his sternest struggles, his sublimest joys and aspirations. It is not mere traditional reverence that has bound the Hebrew psalter on the heart of the Christian church. The eternal glow of the wondrous book draws humanity of all ages to its quenchless warmth. Some of these strains drop like angels down to the darkest depths of human agony; and there are others that blow the hurricanes from their trumpets, and clash the thunders from their cymbals, to pour forth the grandest joys a mortal heart can know.” P. 29. Compare these utterances with the literature of spiritualism. In the third enlarged edition, just issued, of a work by A. J. Davis, entitled “Death and the After Life,” having casually opened to p. 135, we find the following:— “In the Summer-Land this ‘language of the heart’ is carried to an inconceivable degree of perfection. For instance, suppose you and your brother, or you and your sister, should meet—you who have not met for long, lonely years. If you have outgrown the necessity of external speech, and if you have been taught through the mysterious suggestiveness of pure Music, you then deepen into the language of impersonal and perfect Love. In the higher Spheres such language is alone the medium of communication. It is the language of absolute contact of personal love atmospheres.” If any one can tell what is meant by the “mysterious suggestiveness of pure Music,” and the “absolute contact of personal love atmospheres,” he must have become deeply imbued with that sentimentalism which Hawthorne describes as a compound of “mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and saw-dust.” There is one other leading characteristic of spiritualist writings; that is, blasphemy. A few words from W. F. Jamieson, will serve as an index of the whole. In the Crucible of April 22, 1871, he says:— “A personal God would be a monstrosity.” “All prayer addressed to a supposed Supreme Intelligence is Idolatry. There is not, and cannot be, a Supreme Spirit even.” The God of the Bible he calls—a God of “Jewish manufacture,” and declares that he is “an unmitigated tyrant, a despicable murderer, worse and meaner than a common cut-throat.” And he goes on to state that if a Yankee should ever have the ill-luck to get into his kingdom, he would kick his “alabaster throne” to pieces, shout the battle hymn of the Republic, and sing Yankee Doodle by way of variation, proclaim a presidential election, and put the power into the hands of the people. Between these extremes of soft and simpering silliness, and heart-chilling, blood-curdling blasphemy, the spiritual philosophy vibrates. It turns aside from this track only to excuse, advocate, and defend, the most shameless licentiousness in men and women. How persons still claiming any of the nobler attributes of humanity can turn aside from the pure teachings and sublime utterances of God’s word, to revel in such stuff as this, can be accounted for only on the ground that they are the mesmerized tools of demoniac power. We earnestly exhort the people to use every means to guard themselves against the influence of this work of the enemy, to shun its corruptions, and escape its terrible doom. Everything which has a tendency to increase in our hearts a love for God’s sacred word, will, so far, help in this direction. To this end the little work under notice, has been issued, and for the same reason we recommend believers everywhere to read and circulate it. U. S.