Review and Herald, Vol. 35, No. 7. (2/8/1870)

Review and Herald

Feb 8, 1870

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 8, 1870

OUR FAITH AND HOPE;

By James White

Or, Reasons Why We Believe as We Do.

NUMBER ELEVEN.—THE JUDGMENT.

BY ELDER JAMES WHITE.

“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the judgment was set, and the books were opened.”

“I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed.” Dan. 7: 9, 10, 13, 14.

We have in this scripture a most impressive description of the judgment. If it is not here described, it cannot be found in the Scriptures of truth. The Ancient of Days represents God the Father. One like the Son of Man, who comes to the Ancient of Days, is our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who stand in his presence either to minister or to wait, are not men, but angels. Compare Dan. 7: 10 with Rev. 5: 11. Daniel describes the opening of the judgment of the righteous, which occurs in Heaven prior to the return of the Lord to this world to raise them from the dead. The Father presides as judge. The angels of God are present as ministers and witnesses. At this tribunal the Son of Man presents himself to receive the dominion of the world. Here he is crowned King of kings, and Lord of lords, with which title he afterwards comes to the earth. Rev. 19: 11–16. But men are not present to witness this part of the judgment, or to behold the coronation of Christ. It is the Father and the Son and the holy angels who compose this grand assembly.

The thrones named in the text are not those of earthly governments, but thrones of judgment. The best authorities give the words “cast down” the opposite meaning. They render them “set up,” or “established.” Thus Adam Clarke says: “The thrones were cast down” might be translated erected; so the Vulgate, positi sunt, and so all the versions.” Dr. Hales, in his “Sacred Chronology,” vol. ii, p. 105, renders Dan. 7: 9, thus: “I beheld till the thrones were erected, and the Ancient of Days sat,” &c. The Douay version reads, “were placed;” and so Bernard, and Boothroyd and Wintle in the Cottage Bible. Matthew Henry, in his Exposition, renders it “set up.” Of the original Hebrew word, Gesenius, in his Lexicon, says, “R’mah, (1) To cast, to throw, Dan. 3: 20, 21, 24; 6: 17. (2) To set, to place, e. g., thrones. Dan. 7: 9; comp. Rev. 4: 2.” The term used by the Septuagint is θρόνοι ἐτέθησαν, which, literally rendered, according to Liddell and Scott, would be, “the thrones were set.” Other authorities might be given.

The judgment scene opens with, first, the establishment of thrones and the sitting in judgment of the great God, amid the brightness of that glory, feebly represented by fire and flame, surrounded by angelic hosts; second, with the opening of the life-records of men, from which they are to be judged; and third, the Son of man approaches the Ancient of Days, attended by multitudes of angels, here represented by the clouds of heaven, to receive dominion, glory, and a kingdom. This scene does not represent the second appearing of Christ to this world, unless it can be shown that the Ancient of Days is here.

With these remarks upon the character of the judgment named in Dan. 7: 9, 10, 13, 14, we will briefly call attention to the prophetic chain of that chapter, as it shows our time in the history of earthly governments, and the comparative nearness of the judgment. But to make this portion of symbolic prophecy more clear and forcible to the reader, we will first illustrate:

Suppose you were traveling a road with which you were unacquainted. You inquire of a stranger—he tells you that road leads to a glorious city, filled with every good thing, governed by the most lovely, mild, and benevolent prince that the world ever saw; that in that city there is neither sickness, sorrow, pain nor death. He then proceeds to tell you what you may expect to pass on the road, by which you may know he has told you the truth, and which will mark the progress you have made. First, then, he tells you that, after leaving him, and traveling a while, you will come to a monument that can be seen a great distance; on the top of it you will see a “lion,” having “eagle’s wings.” At a distance beyond that, you will come to another monument, having on it “a bear” with “three ribs” in its mouth. Passing on still, you will at length arrive at a third monument, on the top of which you will behold “a leopard” having “four wings of a fowl,” and “four heads.” After that, you will come to a fourth, on which is a beast dreadful and terrible, with “great iron teeth,” and “ten horns.” And lastly, you will come to another place, where you will see the same beast, with this difference: three of its first horns have been plucked up, and in the place of them has come up a peculiar horn, having “eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth.” The next thing you will look for, after passing the last mentioned sign, is the city.

With these directions you commence your journey. What do you look for first? The lion. At length you see it. That inspires in you some faith in the person’s knowledge and truth, who had directed you. Having passed that sign, the next thing you expect to see, as marked in the directions, is the bear. At length you come in sight of that. There, say you, is the second sign he gave me. He must have been perfectly acquainted with this road, and has told me the truth. Your faith increases as you travel on. What next do you look for? Not the city, certainly. No; you look for the leopard. Well, by and by you behold that in the distance. There it is! you cry; now I know he has told me the truth, and it will come out just as he said. Is the next thing you look for the city? No; you look for that terrible beast with ten horns. You pass that, and say as you pass, How exactly the man who directed me described everything. Now your faith is so confirmed that you almost see the city; but, say you, there is one more sign to pass; viz., the horn with eyes, then the city comes next. Now hope is high, and your anxious eyes gaze with intense interest for the last sign. That comes in view, and you exclaim in raptures, There it is! All doubt is now removed. You look for no more signs. Your longing eyes are fixed to gaze on the glorious city next, and probably no man now, however wise he might profess himself, could make you discredit what your director has told you. The city—the city—is fixed in your eye, and onward you go, hastening to your rest.

Now, if we find on examination that all the events or signs that God has given us, which were to precede the judgment day and the setting up of his everlasting kingdom, have actually transpired, or come to view, what are we to look for next? The judgment of the great day! Let us, then, examine the chapter before us.

Verses 1–3: “In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions of his head upon his bed; then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold the four winds [denoting commotions] of the heaven strove upon the great sea [waters denoting people; see Rev. 17: 15], and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.”

These four beasts are explained by the angel to be four kings. Verse 17. In verse 23, they are said to be four kingdoms, which shows that the word, king, in these visions, signifies kingdom.

Verse 4: “The first was like a lion, and had eagles’ wings; I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.”

Babylon, as described in this vision, is here fitly represented by a lion, the king of beasts, denoting the glory of that kingdom, and corresponds with the head of gold in chap. 2. The eagle’s wings represent the rapidity of its conquests, and the soaring pride of its monarchs. “For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, . . . [Babylon] they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat.” Hab. 1: 6–8. The plucking of his wings may refer to the humiliation of the proud monarch of Babylon, chap. 4: 31–37, or the cowardice of Belshazzar, who, instead of driving away his foes like a lion, shut himself up in the city, feasting and drinking with his lords, till he was killed, and the kingdom given to the Medes and Persians.

Verse 5: “And behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side [representing two lines of kings, one much longer than the other], and it had three ribs in the mouth of it, between the teeth of it; and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.”

The bear corresponds with the silver breast and arms of the image, and represents the Medo-Persian kingdom, which succeeded Babylon. It is clearly the kingdom here described. It was noted for cruelty and thirst for blood. “The three ribs in the mouth of this bear, evidently symbolize the three great powers conquered by the Medo-Persian kingdom, viz., Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt.” See Rollin’s Ancient His-

tory. It subdued many and populous kingdoms. Ahasuerus, or Artaxerxes, reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. See Esther 1: 1.

Verse 6: “After this I beheld, and lo, another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads, and dominion was given to it.”

The leopard corresponds with the brazen sides of the image of chapter 2, and illustrates Grecia. The four wings denote the rapidity of its conquests under Alexander. The four heads represent its division into four parts, after Alexander died and his posterity were murdered.

Verses 7, 8: “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots; and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.”

These verses will be particularly examined when we come to the angel’s explanation. We will also pass over the words of the text in verses 9, 10, 13, 14, which we have noticed.

Verse 11: “I beheld then, because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake; I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.”

Nothing is said of “the dominion” of this beast being “taken away,” as is said of the others. The others lost their dominion after a time, but their subjects survived and were transferred to the succeeding governments; but the very body [subjects] of this fourth kingdom is destroyed, and given to the burning flame.

Verse 12: “As concerning the rest of the beasts they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.”

Babylon, Media and Persia, and Grecia, successively lost the dominion, but the lives of the respective nations were prolonged, being merged into the succeeding governments.

Verses 15–18: “I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall rise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.”

Mark this: There were four beasts presented to the prophet, which represent four universal monarchs, no more, and no less. The fourth “beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame.” This denotes the destruction of all the living wicked. Next the saints of the Most High take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom, not for a thousand years only, but forever, even forever and ever.

Verses 19–25: “Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise; and another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time.”

These verses demand extended comment. The points to be noticed are:

1. The fourth beast, or fourth kingdom. No kingdom that has ever existed on earth will answer to it, except the Roman kingdom. That has been truly diverse from all kingdoms, especially in its forms of government, which were not less than seven, being, at different times, Republican, Consular, Tribune, Decemvirate, Dictatorial, Imperial, and Kingly. It was at length divided into the Eastern and Western empires; Rome proper being in the Western empire.

2. The ten horns. Between the years A. D. 356 and 483, the Roman empire was divided into ten kingdoms as noticed in remarks on chapter 2. Thus, the “ten horns” are “ten kings” [kingdoms] that arose out of this empire.

3. The little horn. The characteristics of this horn are, first, it speaks great words against the Most High, and, second, it makes war with, and wears out the saints. The same character is described in Rev. 13: 6, 7: “And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in Heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.” Daniel says, he “prevailed against them.” Paul says, “That day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” Daniel’s “little horn,” Paul’s “man of sin,” and John’s blasphemous beast, are clearly identical.

It must be admitted that such a power has arisen, and that it is the Papacy. The titles the popes have assumed, of “Most Holy Lord,” and their pretensions to pardon sin, even before its commission, if we had nothing else, sufficiently establish the blasphemous character of that power. Pope Innocent III writes:

“He [Christ] hath set one man over the world, him whom he hath appointed his vicar on earth; and as to Christ is bent every knee in Heaven, in earth, and under the earth, so shall obedience and service be paid to his vicar by all, that there may be one fold and one shepherd.”

Again, Pope Gregory VII says:

“The Roman pontiff alone is by right universal. In him alone is the right of making laws. Let all kings kiss the feet of the pope. His name alone shall be heard in the churches. It is the only name in the world. It is his right to depose kings. His word is not to be repealed by any one. It is to be repealed by himself alone. He is to be judged by none. The church of Rome has never erred, and the Scriptures testify it never shall err.”

Surely, here is a power diverse from all others, and proud and blasphemous enough to answer the character of the little horn.

It is said of this horn that he shall “think to change times and laws.” It is evident that the laws here spoken of are the laws of the Most High; for his work is to oppose God. The changing of human laws would not be here noted as a characteristic of the man of sin, for his distinguishing acts are against God and his saints. In fulfillment of this part of the prophecy, the Roman apostasy has practically removed the second commandment from the decalogue, has changed the Sabbath of the fourth, from the seventh to the first day of the week, and has divided the tenth to make up the number of ten commandments. See Catholic Catechism.

4. The time when the little horn, or the papacy, arose. It did not arise before the ten horns, hence it did not arise prior to 483, when the tenth horn came up. Three of the first horns must be plucked up before it in its rise. It came up among the ten horns, and three of those horns fell before it. It must have been established at the very point where the third horn fell.

In the year of our Lord 493, the Heruli in Rome and Italy were conquered by the Ostrogoths. In 534, the Vandals, who were under an Arian influence, were conquered by the Greeks, for the purpose of establishing the supremacy of the Catholics. The Ostrogoths, who held possession of Rome, were under an Arian monarch, who was an enemy to the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. Hence before the decree of Justinian (a Greek emperor at Constantinople) could be carried into effect, by which he had constituted the bishop of Rome head of all the churches, the Ostrogoths must be plucked up. This conquest was effected by Justinian’s army in the month of March, 538; at which time the Ostrogoths, who had retired without the city, and besieged it in their turn, raised the siege, and retired, leaving the Greeks in possession of the city. Thus the third horn was plucked up before the papacy, and for the express purpose too of establishing that power. See Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The facts answer well to the prophecy. Here is the letter of Justinian to the bishop of Rome, A. D. 533:

“Justinian, pious, fortunate, renowned, triumphant, emperor, consul, &c., to John, the Most Holy Archbishop of our city of Rome, and Patriarch.

“Rendering honor to the apostolic see, and to your holiness (as always was and is our desire), and as it becomes us, honoring your blessedness as a father, we have laid without delay before the notice of your holiness all things pertaining to the state of the church. Since it has always been our earnest study to preserve the unity of your holy see, and the state of the holy churches of God, which has hitherto obtained, and will remain, without any interfering opposition; therefore we hasten to subject, and to unite to your holiness, all the priests of the whole East. As to the matters which are presently agitated, although clear and undoubted, and, according to the doctrine of your apostolic see, held assuredly, resolved and decided by all priests, we have yet deemed it necessary to lay them before your holiness. Nor do we suffer anything which belongs to the state of the church, however manifest and undoubted, that is agitated, to pass without the knowledge of your holiness, who are the head of all the churches. For in all things (as had been said or resolved) we are prompt to increase the honor and authority of your see.”

“The authenticity of the title,” says Mr. Croley, “receives unanswerable proof from the edicts of the Novellæ of the Justinian code. The preamble of the 9th, states, ‘that as the elder Rome was the founder of the laws, so was it not to be questioned, that in her was the supremacy of the pontificate.’ The 131st, on the Ecclesiastical Titles and Privileges, chap. ii, states: ‘We therefore decree that the most holy pope of the elder Rome, is the first of all the priesthood; and that the most blessed archbishop of Constantinople, the new Rome, shall hold the second rank, after the holy apostolic chair of the elder Rome.’”—Croley, pp. 114, 115.

Imperial Rome fell about A. D. 475, and was in the hands of the barbarians. Thus it continued till the conquest of Rome by Belisarius, Justinian’s general, 536 to 538, when the Ostrogoths left it in possession of the Greek emperor, March, 538. Thus the way was open for the dragon to give the beast his power, and his seat, and great authority. Rev. 13: 2.

5. The length of time this power was to continue. Daniel says, “A time, times, and the dividing of time.” John says, Rev. 13: 5: “Power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” He was to make war upon the saints, the church; and in Rev. 12: 6, we are told, the woman, the church, fled into the wilderness 1260 days; and in the 14th verse, that it was for “a time, and times, and half a time.” Here, then, we have the period of the continuance of this power, given us in three forms of expression, which settles the point that the time, times, and dividing of time, are 42 months, or 1260 prophetic days, or years.

6. The termination of the 1260 years. From 538, 1260 years would extend to 1798. Did anything transpire that year to justify the belief that the dominion of papacy ended at that time? It is a historical fact, that, on Feb. 10, 1798, Berthier, a French general, entered the city of Rome and took it. On the 16th of the same month, the pope was taken prisoner and shut up in the Vatican. The Papal government, which had continued from the time of Justinian, was abolished, and a republican form of government given to Rome. The pope was carried captive to France, where he died in 1799. Thus, “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity; he that killeth with the sword must be killed [subdued] with the sword.” Rev. 13: 10. His dominion was taken away by war.

Verse 26: “But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it unto the end.” See 2 Thess. 2: 8: “Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.”

That the pope was restored, or a new one chosen, is admitted. But that he has power to depose kings and

put to death the saints now, is denied. Before his dominion was wrested from him, he deposed kings at pleasure, for centuries, and silenced heretics by the flame, the rack, the prison, and the sword. This he cannot do now, nor has he been able to do it since 1798. Papacy is compelled to tolerate Protestantism. Hear the pope himself on that subject. Here is his letter, dated Sept., 1840, at Rome.

“ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR MOST HOLY LORD GREGORY XVI, by Divine Providence Pope, to all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops.

“Venerable Brethren,—Health and the apostolic Benediction. You well know, Venerable Brethren, how great are the calamities with which the Catholic church is beset on all sides in this most sorrowful age, and how pitifully she is afflicted. . . . Indeed, are we not (oh, how shameful!) compelled to see the most crafty enemies of the truth, ranging far and wide with impunity; not only attacking religion with ridicule, the church with contumely, and Catholics with insults and slander, but even entering into cities and towns, establishing schools of error and impiety, publishing in print the poison of their doctrines, skillfully concealed under the deceitful veil of the natural sciences and new discoveries, and even penetrating into the cottages of the poor, traveling through rural districts, and insinuating themselves into familiar acquaintance with the lowest of the people and with the farmers! Thus they leave no means unattempted, whether by corrupt Bibles in the language of the people, or pestiferous newspapers and other like publications, or caviling conversation, or pretended charity, or, finally, by the gift of money, to allure ignorant people, and especially youth, into their nets, and induce them to desert the Catholic faith.

“We refer to facts, Venerable Brethren, which not only are known to you, but of which you are witnesses; even you, who, though you mourn, and, as your pastoral duty requires, are by no means silent, are yet compelled to tolerate in your dioceses these aforesaid propagators of heresy and infidelity. . . . Hence it is easy to conceive the state of anguish into which our soul is plunged day and night, as we, being charged with the superintendence of the whole fold of Jesus Christ, and the care of all the churches, must give account for his sheep to the Divine Prince of Pastors. And we have thought fit, Venerable Brethren, to recall to your minds by our present letter the causes of those troubles which are common to us and you, that you may more attentively consider how important it is to the church, that all holy priests should endeavor, with redoubled zeal, and with united labors, and with every kind of efforts, to repel the attacks of the raging foes of religion, to turn back their weapons, and to forewarn and fortify against the subtle blandishments which they often use. This, as you know, we have been careful to do at every opportunity; nor shall we cease to do it; as we also are not ignorant that you have always done it hitherto, and confidently trust that you will do hereafter with still more earnest zeal.

“Given at Rome, at St. Mary the Greater, on the 18th of the Kalends of September, of the year 1840, the tenth of our pontificate.

“GREGORY XVI, POPE.”

Verses 27: “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.”

Thus the immortal kingdom of the Most High is located under, not above, the whole heaven. It will therefore embrace the whole earth when it shall be purified by fire and made new. Rev. 21: 5. Then will be fulfilled the word of the Lord by his prophets: “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Num. 14: 21. “But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” Ps. 37: 11. “For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Isa. 11: 9. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Hab. 2: 14.

Now let us see whereabouts we are in the prophetic chain. We have passed the lion, Babylon. We have gone by the bear with three ribs in his mouth. The sign of the leopard with four wings of a fowl and four heads has been passed. The dreadful and terrible beast with ten horns has been seen. We have passed the little horn having eyes like the eyes of a man. That is among the things numbered with the past. What comes next? The judgment, and God’s everlasting kingdom.

Geological Chronology.

REV. R. PATTERSON, D. D., has been giving to the public a series of excellent articles, in which the extravagant pretensions of geology are criticised with just severity, and their absurdity made manifest to the common reader. We give extracts from his last article in the Family Treasury:

“Leading geologists, indeed, are becoming ashamed of the extravagant demands of their brethren upon time, or rather upon eternity; perceiving plainly enough that their inflated figures must speedily fall by their own bulk, if they escape the torches of the witty critics who argue that to judge of the formative period of our earth by its observed rate of present progress, is much as if one should measure a youth of six feet high, and finding that he grew half an inch last year, should conclude thence that he was a hundred and forty-four years old. Phillips, in his address to the Geological Society, therefore begs them to moderate their millions somewhat, as it is unpleasant to become the world’s laughing-stock.

“The rapidity of many geological formations, formerly assumed to have been very slow, is now demonstrated. Peat bogs, in which human remains have been found at the depth of twelve feet, whence an immense antiquity was inferred, have been found to grow a foot in five years. In thirty-six hours a green tree is converted into a fossil in California; and into lignite in a week; while before your eyes you behold the hardest porphyry converted into potter’s clay, and the hardest granite so softened by the acidulated atmosphere that you can crush it with your hand, or cut it with a knife, as easily as unbaked bread. I have seen this metamorphic action affecting all the strata of the Napa Valley.

“On the coast of England, flints have been found, the stony covering of which has so completely the aspect of ancient rock as to warrant the conclusion that they were the growth of countless ages, but on removing the flinty matrix, you find a coin bearing the head of an Edward, a James, or even a George; or a bolt or an anchor, bearing the mark of some existing firm. We have had men counting the successive thin layers of delta and sedimentary deposits as indications of so many ages; but we know now that these give no such traces, as a mass of fine clay deposited in quiet water will stratify, in a few hours, into dozens of layers.

“Colonel Foster, in a lecture before the Chicago Academy of Sciences, reported for the benefit of the three hundred thousand readers of the Chicago daily papers—informs us that in excavating the ground for the New-Orleans Gas Works, the laborers discovered the skeleton of a man at the depth of sixteen feet; and that scientific men have pronounced it fifty thousand years old, basing their assertions upon the known deposits of the delta of the Mississippi. But the actual survey of the United States engineers proves that the whole ground on which New-Orleans stands to the depth of forty feet has been deposited within four thousand years. Indeed, one may see cotton-wood saplings of six or seven inches diameter, with two or three feet of sediment above their original roots. The process of constructing the deltas of rivers has also been wonderfully accelerated by simply taking notice of a number of facts which the Lyell school conveniently ignore. Yet, in the face of repeated corrections, they go on publishing their blunders, year after year, as scientific facts. Dr. Andrews thus exposes Lyell’s enormous blunders about the age of the delta of the Mississippi:

“Sir Charles Lyell has repeatedly published his famous calculation of the age of the delta and alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi river, notwithstanding that almost every datum of his estimates has been proved to be false by the United States Army engineers, in their laborious and careful survey. Sir Charles concluded, as the result of his hasty visit to the Mississippi many years ago, that the delta and bottom lands had an age of above one hundred thousand years. From information picked up here and there, he adopted the following false data:


Area of the delta	13,600 sq. miles.
“ “ alluvial plain above, about	16,000 “
Depth of the delta	568 feet.
Annual amount of sediment brought down by the river	3,702,758,400 cubic feet.
Time required to bring earth enough for the whole delta and alluvial plain above	100,500 years.

“Almost every item here is a huge blunder. Brigadier-General Humphrey, Chief of the United States Army Engineers, with all the resources of the war Department to sustain him, has made a most thorough and exhaustive survey of the Mississippi, a work of years of toil. It will suffice to put the results of the two men beside each other for comparison:

According to Lyell.	According to Gen. Humphrey.
Time spent in the survey	A few years.
Area of the delta, square miles	13,600
Depth of the delta, feet	568
Average annual amount of sediment brought down by the Mississippi, cubic feet	3,702,758,400
Rate at which the delta is now advancing into the great gulf per year, feet	60
Age of the delta and alluvial plain, years	100,500

“It will be seen that General Humphrey’s survey shows the annual amount of sediment brought down by the river to be above five thousand times greater than Lyell stated it. It is curious to observe that the age of the delta, as calculated by the United States survey, corresponds pretty closely with the age which we calculated for the peat beds of the Somme and other contemporaneous deposits of Europe.

“Thus we might go on assaulting in detail, almost every geological computation of time, and proving the error of the computation. In some cases, these calculations prove so preposterously absurd that they become standing jests. Lyell, and a score of other savans, gravely cite the researches of Herner, who bored down seventy feet into the soil of Egypt for bits of brick and pottery, and calculated that the Nile had been depositing that seventy feet of mud over them during the last thirty thousand years. The matter was solemnly reported to the British Association, the French Institute, and not one of these learned men had common sense enough to put the question in its proper form; viz., how long will a brick-bat require to sink seventy feet into a mud-bank? All Egypt is only a vast mud-bank every year during the inundation; and the brick-bats probably reached their bed in one season. At any rate, bricks of the reign of Mohammed Ali have been found deeper than Herner’s.”

Proud Hearts and Lofty Mountains

Proud hearts and lofty mountains are always barren.

A TEST APPLIED.

A correspondent of one of our religious exchanges says: “I once heard a conversation between a church member and an infidel. After arguments were urged at some length on both sides, the infidel observed to his friend that he might as well drop the subject of conversation, “for,” said he, “I do not believe a single word you say, and more than this, I am satisfied that you do not really believe it yourself, for to my certain knowledge you have not given, for the last twenty years, for the spread of Christianity,—such as the building of churches, foreign and domestic missions,—as much as your last Durham cow cost. Why, sir, if I believed one-half what you say you believe, I would make the church my rule for giving, and the farm the exception.

The Most Perfect Man

“If an angel were sent to find the most perfect man, he would probably not find him composing a body of divinity; but perhaps a cripple in a poor-house, whom the parish wish dead; but humbled before God, with far lower thoughts of himself than others think of him.”

Continue reading: The Order of Events in the Judgment