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February 1928
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
seen this done time and again. It is not a theory but a fact that has been demonstrated in the laboratory :of human life in tens of thousands of cases. It is really a wonderful and sensational thing, but the tragedy o f it is that even we Christians fail to appreciate the wonder of it. Éè Éè Another Blank Cartridge Fired O UR readers have no doubt seen the newspaper reports o f recent weeks',announcing that thé Biblical story of the manna had been exploded, as the result of an expe dition o f entomologists connected with the Hebrew Uni versity o f Jerusalem. A London despatch announced that the expedition went to Sinai Peninsula to investigate the problem of the so-called manna, hitherto assumed to be the exudation o f a species o f Tamarisk tree. The Arabs have long collected this manna and sold it to pilgrims. This Jewish expedition reports that this1substance is not a natural vegetable secretion from portions of the Tamarisk tree, pierced by sucking insects, but an excre tion from the bodies o f various coccids which live on this tree. Clear, syrup-like drops exude from the abdomens of these insects. If the excretion is abundant, the drops fall to the ground forming hard, whitish, sugar-like grains ranging in size from a pinhead to a pea, the amount vary ing according to the abundance of the winter rains. Dur ing a good season, the Bedouins assert, it is possible for a man to collect nearly three and one-half pounds in a day. •Many newspaper and magazine editors seem to have jumped to the conclusion that this discovery explodes another Bible story. One writer, for instance, says : “ The story o f the heaven-sent manna (so-called by Israel be cause they wist not what it was), is one of the most charm ing of Scriptural legends, the circumstantial detail being admirably vivid and direct without falling into crude real ism. It is., a question whether Israel would have been quite so delighted had they wist the physical machinery by whose means the manna was delivered to them.” But, gentlemen! Don’t be in such a hurry! Has this expedition shown that the manna described in the Bible came from the abdomens o f insects ? It is true that Arabs and monks have been passing off this stuff to pil grims as the manna of Biblical times. Those fellows will pass off anything for a few shining coins. It is true they have claimed that it was a vegetable product. These investigators find that this product comes from an insect instead. W e are ready to accept that. But who has ever proven that this stuff is, the manna described in the Bible ? The fact is that the substance is not a food at all and could not sustain life. It is a powerful purgative, and to take it regularly would be fatal. In no particular does it satisfy the requirements of the Scripture account. If some pilgrims are so easily taken in as to let the Arabs palm off this fake on them as manna, that is their own lookout. Urquhart in “ The New Biblical Guide” (a set o f vol umes which has been on the market for over a quarter of a century) says: “ An attempt to explain the miracle of the manna has been made by the monks of Sinai. Many have imagined that it takes away a huge difficulty. It is that the bread rained down from heaven was the gum shed by a plant that has always had its home in the wilderness o f Sinai. The Tamarisk, of Tarfa is very frequently met with in the peninsula of Sinai. An insect pierces the leaves, and from the puncture a sweet, honey-like gum pours out during two months of the year. This the monks of St. Catherine gather, put into jars, and sell as the
“ All things are yours,” the Father said, And so it must be true. Then why ant I so poor in Faith, And poor in Patience too? Again Fie says in His holy Book, “ All that I have is thine And yet from out God’s treasure house How little have I made mine. Of, love there is a boundless store; Then there’s no room for hate. O f joy He speaks to me o’er and o’e r ;
And sorrow is such a weight. “ My peace I give unto you,” The dear Lord Jesus said— And yet I am often troubled As the. path of life I tread. . Help me, dear Lord, by faith ,:
T o make Thy: priceless gifts my own That I be an inheritance rich for Thee When Thou: comest to claim thine own. ‘ —G. .C. A.
persons may be personally changed by the use of chemical compounds. There is nothing new or startling about this simple fact. W e have all known for many years that alcohol in the blood will change a kind and silent man into an active and talkative one. It will also turn a gentleman into a brute. ,Opium will lift the clouds and dispel the darkness from gloomy minds and bring visions of day into the midnight, but it will also make sneaks and thieves o f honest and true men. These commonplaces of expe rience are full o f interest but are a problem rather than a hope. No chemist has yet coficocted a pellet that changes a thief into an honest man or an unclean woman into a clean one. The 'fact is that every one of these com pounds that change men, as far as we know, are physically and morally deteriorating. In order to make men good we must get to the source o f life—the springs of desires and motives from which thought and activities flow. This is why Jesus, who knows men as no one else has ever known them, said, “ Ye must be born again.” It is in this miracle o f re-creation that the springs of the motives and desires are cleansed and the will is energized so that men are able to realize the higher standards, o f life. Dr. Slosson is talking of what he hopes to d'o, but he presents no proof to show that he can do it.: Our problem, as the poet reminded us a long time ago, is not to imagine what were fair provided it could be, but first find what may be and then make it fair up to our means. W e know that God can touch life and make men good. We have
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