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centuries that would make possible the preservation of the undisturbed ruins of these ancient people and cities, through two or three millenniums; but such is the case. During the last century, when destructive criticism was about to make its vicious attack upon the Bible, God providentially sent men to discover and to excavate these ancient ruins; and out trooped a host of witnesses'— strange-appearing witnesses, I grant, but witnesses which marvelously confirm the accuracy and the historical trust worthiness of the Bible. Is this a series of accidents with which we are dealing? Was it an accident that men were inspired to write the Bible through that period of fifteen hundred years? No, it was not an accident that the Book of God came into existence. It was by means of divine, overruling provi dence that we have the Bible complete, although it took God, using frail agencies and instrumentalities, a long time to complete it. It was no accident that the Bible was preserved during the Dark Ages, for in order to do so, God had to outwit evil men and Satan. Otherwise the Bible, which came into existence providentially and by divine inspiration, would have been annihilated. Was it an accident that consecrated scholarship gave us the Bible in the English language, through sacrificial trans lation? I am sure that we would do no such irreverence to the memory of the great men, the good men, the schol arly men, the consecrated men who gave themselves—yea, their very lives—to give us the Bible. Such generous acts as these do not come by accident. P resent D iscoveries not t h e R esult of C hance What shall I say concerning the remarkable confirma tion of the Bible in the last century? Is this an accident? Is it by mere chance that the nations of the Bible Lands fell into decay? No, for such things do not come about by accident. These nations have gone the way of all other nations that have forgotten God. God has over ruled and has let the ruins of the peoples of the East remain undisturbed through the centuries, with the dust of hundreds of years accumulating over them. During these centuries, no one suspected that there lay beneath the debris such marvelous testimonies concerning the past. There is no accident there. Is it an accident that men began to discover some an tiquities in the Bible Lands, that they began to dig into the dust of centuries and to find these remarkable things? God has a way of doing things that you and I cannot al ways understand immediately. God does not always use only good men to achieve His ends. Sometimes He makes servants of men of the world. He called Cyrus His servant and used him to accomplish His purpose; and yet Cyrus was not a God-fearing man. God can make the wrath of men to praise Him. So, more recently, God sent men to the East. Some of them were consecrated scholars, some curiosity seekers. A great deal of sacri ficial work has been done during the last half-century, and is still being done by good men, consecrated men, scholarly men, who have been giving themselves to the task of excavation, and to the work of deciphering the wonderful records of the past. This is no accident, but a divine providence that now, while destructive criticism is waging its relentless warfare against the Holy Bible, there is trooping out from the dust heaps of the centuries a host of witnesses, testifying to the accuracy and the historical trustworthiness of the Book of God.
of God does not need any new confirmation. We know the Bible is true. Our own personal experiences attest to our satisfaction the dependability of the Book of God. But this is not the issue with all. I feel that it is incum bent upon every one who is certain of the genuineness and trustworthiness of the Book of God to confirm it to those who are inclined to be doubtful; to those who are tempted upon this point; to those who do not have the heritage that we have. The attack of today, which has been going on for almost a half-century, is directed against the historical trustworthiness and the accuracy of the Bible. Advantage has been taken of the fact that a part of the history of the Bible covers a period of which there is no contempo rary history or literature—that period prior to 550 B. C. This was a period in which there were no witnesses to testify in the vindication of the Bible. The Bible stood alone in its class, alone in the field of literature, alone in the field of geography, and alone in the field of history. The destructive critics, in their attacks upon the Bible, took advantage of this, denying the historical accuracy and trustworthiness of the Word of G°d- They took all sorts of liberties with it. They pronounced the Bible unhistorical. They pronounced some of it a “tale of oriental fiction.” They denied the existence of certain people and places of which the Bible speaks. Why not take such liberties if they desired? There was no one to dispute them. There was no one to vindicate and no one to answer their accusations. W itnesses to t h e T rustworthiness of th e B ible But the civilizations of Bible lands have fallen into decay. All one needs to do is to call the roll of the ancient nations to find that they have gone long ago. Are we able to see Providence, not simply in the fact that they went into decay, but also in the overruling of that fact? Their ruins, their monuments, their inscrip tions, and their libraries were providentially covered with the dust of centuries. It is true that things moye very slowly in the East, if they move at all. It seems almost inconceivable that conditions could obtain through the
The Will of God I worship Thee, sweet Will of God! And all Thy ways adore, And every day I live I seem To love Thee more and more. When obstacles and trials seem Like prison walls to be, I do the little I can do, And leave the rest to Thee. I have no cares, 0 blessed Will! For all my cares are Thine; I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou Hast made Thy triumphs mine. Ill that He blesses is our good, And unblessed good is ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, I f it be His sweet will. F aber .
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