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“I Am The Way, The Truth, and The Life.” Mastered by a Master. Those scholars who are pleased to call them selves—and possibly pleased to be called—“higher critics,” are innocently inclined to leave the im pression that they have a sort of corner on re search and discovery. And too often those of ns who belong to the “common herd,” are inclined to ad mit their claim to scholarship while our hearts are far from them. And especially among the friends of unbelief; those who have themselves only “played with peb bles on the seashore” of real investigation, there is a cringing tendency to be hospitable to every “new thing” which claims discovery at the hands of those unhappy scholars and skeptics. It is, therefore, very refreshing to listen to a great scholar whose achievements have won him world-wide recognition, who plants himself with the Christian’s faith on the Book of books, and routs the unbelieving scholars in the house of their own investigation. Such a man is Prof. Robert Dick Wilson, of Princeton, filling the chair of As syriology and Old Testament in that great insti tution. In his three masterly lectures during the Taberna cle Bible Conference in Atlanta last week, he brought an avalanche of force and faith to the thou sands who listened to him with reverent eagerness. His first lecture on “The Fallacies of the Crit ics,” was designed to show from Palaography and Philology, that the methods of the critics in deter mining the meaning of words and the date of books was fallacious. His second lecture was “Abraham, a Man or a Myth?” proved that there is no insuper able objections to be derived from the records of the monuments to the correctness of the Biblical account of Abraham—that is that the information to be derived from the monuments of the period of Ramases II and Hammurabi agreed in every partic ular with the Bible account of Abraham with regard to the names of persons, places and countries, and also with regard to laws, institutions and customs. His third lecture, “Babylon and Israel, or Did the Hebrews Derive their Religion from the Baby lonians?” was the most powerfully convincing of all. The argument of the German professor to the contrary was positively annihilated. This lecture was an examination of the linguistic evidences of th a relations between Babylon and Israel. Summing up the proofs of antipathy between the races, and showing how utterly improbable and even impossible it would have been for the Hebrews to build their religion from Babylon, Prof. Wilson used these beautiful and stirring words: “Before closing I cannot refrain from calling the attention of this audience to that long line of opposition between the religions, and the policy of the Hebrews and Babylonians, which extends from the time when Abraham was called out from Ur of the Chaldees, to leave his country and his kindred, until in the Apocalypse and the later Jewish lit erature Babylon became the height and front of the offending nations against the kingdom of the 'God of Israel. All through that extended and ex tensive literature, of the ancient Hebrew, all through those long annals of the Assyrians and the Baby lonians, wherever the Hebrews and the Assyrio- Babylonians were brought into contact, it was by way of opposition. The only exceptions were in the cases of some weakling, Jehovah-distrusting kings. The light of The World The Golden Age for March 29, 1906. But these exceptions, prophets and kings and poets emphasize and reiterate the antagonism, essential and eternal, existing between the worship of Jeho vah, and the worship of the idols of Babylon. And when the children of' Israel had been carried away to the rich plain of Babylon, so beautiful, so vast, was it a Greek patriot to the Athens of his dreams, or a Scotsman to his “ain countrie?” Not thus. But they wept when “they remembered Zion.” “How shall we sing the Lord’s songs in a strange land?” Not thus does the Catholic pilgrim sing when he treads the streets of papal Rome and stands in awe beneath the dome of St. Peter’s. Not thus does the Arab Hadji pray when he bows with in the sacred precincts of the Kaaba. But thus has every Jew throughout the ages, the record of whose thoughts and feelings has been preserved to us; and thus does every child of Abraham, according to the promise, feel that not to Babylon, the golden city, the mother of science and arts and commerce and of idolatry and harlotries and sorceries, do we look for the springs of our religion and the hope of our salvation, but to “Jerusalem, the golden,” the city of the Great King.” A Worker Till the Last. A beautiful memorial tribute from a dutiful son to an honored father, has been issued from the Cumberland press by Rev. George Hyman, of Arabi, Georgia. / b \ / ; if \ • AHHeI V" “ \ i \ KiV REV. J. J. HYMAN. The publication of this little volume of one hun dred and fourteen pages, brings afresh to those who loved him, the useful life and recent death of one of the most remarkable men in Georgia. A teacher for twenty years; a preacher for forty-eight years; moderator of the Houston Assocition for fourteen years; president of the 'South Georgia Baptist Con vention four years; a trustee of Monroe College five years; a trustee of Houston High School ten years, J. J. Hyman was one of the trusted leaders of his denomination, and a great blessing to the cause of Christ. He was a brave Confederate sol dier and a chaplain in Lee’s army, preaching the thunders of Sinai and the pleadings of Calvary amid the shock of battle and the horrors of war. During his long and fruitful ministry he baptized over two thousand people. As founder of the Hous ton High School at Arabi, Ga., in 1895, he did a work for Christian education which cannot be over valued. One of the most remarkable things about this patriarch of God was the vigor with which he work ed in his old age. At the time when most men are superannuated because they are getting old, John J. Hyman, girding up his loins, and concentrating his energies around the venerable mile-post of his three score years and ten, preached his full time, blessing and leading forward every community where his stalwart personality touched the lives of men. He Would Not be Laid on the Shelf. The writer remembers a visit to Arabi some years ago. This busy old man was packing up some of his splendid library to move over to Abbeville where he was pastor for half his time. “Why are you moving your books to Abbeville, Brother Hy man?” was asked. And J. J. Hyman, gruff and gray, looked at his questioner, and said in his vig orous style. “See here; do you think I am going to let all these young fellows get ahead of me? Do you reckon I am going to be laid on the shelf? I must study to keep up, and if I spend half of my time in Abbeville, I must use part of it for study. I tell you, young man, I don’t propose to be laid on the shelf.” And this rugged purpose, wrapped in a spirit of deep consecration to God, made the grand old man “the Nestor of the South Georgia pulpit,” pre served to power in old age because a student and a worker till the last. Hope, Faith and Love. There are three lessons I would write— Three words, as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light Upon the hearts of men. ( Have Hope! Though clouds environ round, Ami gladness hides her face in scorn, Put off the shadow from thy brow— No night but hath its morn. Have Faith! Where’er thy bark is driven—- The calm’s disport, the tempest’s mirth— Know this: God rules the hosts of Heaven, The inhabitants of earth. Have Love! Not love alone for one; But man, as man, thy brother call; And scatter, like the circling sun, Thy charities on all! Thus grave these lessons on thy soul— Hope, F |ith and Love—and thou shalt find Strength when life’s surges rudest roll, Light, when thou else wert blind. —Schiller. Doing one’s duty may not always be pleasant but it leaves a sweet consciousness, and the perfect “peace that passeth understanding.” —Margaret Smith Graham. “The Entrance of Thy Woras Giveth Light.” 3