The Weekly banner-watchman. (Athens, Ga.) 1886-1889, March 26, 1889, Image 4
— w'-l MOTS IN THE BIBLE. DR. TALMAGE MAKES AN INGENI OUS DISSECTION OF THEM. It Zb Mot Necessary to Believe That the ( World is Only 0,000 Tears Old—Joshua’s ( Command to the San and Moon—The j Whale Swallowing Jonah. / Brooklyn, March 24. —At the Tab ernacle this monllng, after expound ing some passages of Scripture in re gard to the mysteries, the Rev. T' De Witt Talmage, D. D., gave out the Jjymn beginning: Bow firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word. The subject of his sermon was, •Tough Things in the Bible,” and liis text, II Peter iii, 16: “In which ere some things hard to be under stood.” Dr. Talmage said: The Bible is the most common sense book in all the world. But there are many things in it which require ex planation. It all depeudson the mood in which you come to this grand old book. You may take hold of the handle of the sword or its sharp edge. Tfou may employ on its mysteries the rule of multiplication,or subtraction. There are things, as my text suggests,, hard to be understood, but 1 shall solve some of them, hoping to leave upon all honest minded people the im pression that if four or €ve of them can be explained, perhaps they may all beexplained. Hard thing the first: The Bible says the world was created in six days, while geology says it was hundreds Of thousands of years in process of build ing. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” “In the beginning.” There you can roll in ten million years if you want to. There is no particular date given—no contest between science and revelar tion. Though the world may have been in process of creation for millions of years, suddenly and quickly, and in one week, it, may have been fitted up for man's residence. Just as a great mansion may have been many years in building, and yet in one week it may be curtained and chandeliered and cushioned and upholstered for a bride and groom. You are not compelled to believe that the world was made in our six days. It may not have been a day of twenty-four hours, the day spoken of in the first chapter; it may have been God’s day, and a thousand years with him are as one day. “And the even ing and the morning were the first day”—God’s day. “And the evening and the morning were the second day” —God’s day. “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day”— God’s day. You and I living in the seventh day, the Sabbath of tne world, the day of Gospel redemption, the grandest day of all the week, in which each day may have been made up of thousands of years. Can yon tell me bow a man can get his mind and soul into such a blasphemous twist as to scoff at that first chapter of Genesis, its verses, billows of light surging up from sapphire seas of glory? AN EXPLANATION-ON A BCIENTIFIO BASIS 4 The Bible represents that light was created on Monday, and .the sun was sot created until Thursday. Just think of it! a book declaring that light was created three days before the sun shone I Why don’t you know that heat and electricity emit light independent of the sun? Beside that, when the earth was in process of condensation, it was surrounded by thick vapors and the discharge of many volcanoes in jthe primary period, and all this obscura tion may have hindered the light of the sun from falling on the earth until that Thursday morning. Beside that, • David Brewster and Herschel, the as tronomer, and all the modern men of their class, agree in the fact that the sun is not light, that it is an opaque mass, that it is only the candlestick that holds the light, a phosphores cent atmosphere floating around it. changing and changing, so it is not to be at all wondered at that not un til that Thursda on the earth. _ Beside that, the rocks in crystallization emit light. There is rained eight hundred feet of water each day in order that it might be fif teen cubits above the hills. They say that the ark could not have been large enough to contain “two of every sort," for there would have been hun dreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of creatures. They say that these creatures would have come from all lands and all zones. They say there was only one small window in the ark, and that would not have given fresh air to keep-the animals in side the ark from suffocation. They say that the ark finally landed on a mountain seventeen thousand feet high. They say they do not believe the story, Neither do L There is no such story in the Bible. I will tell you wliat the Bible story is. 1 must say that I have changed my mind in regard to some matters which once were to me very mysterious. They are no more mysterious. This is the key to the facts. This is the story of an eye witness, Noah, his story incorporated afterward by Moses in the account Noah described the scene iust as it appeared to him. He saw tne flood and he fathomed its depth. As far as eye could reach everything was covered up, from ho rizon to horizon, or, as it says, “under the whole heaven.” He did not refer to the Sierra Nevadas, or to Mount Washington, for America had not been discovered, or, if it had been discov ered, he could- not have seen so far off. He is giving the testimony of an eye witness. God speaks af ter the manner of men when lye says everything went under, and Noah speaks after the man ner of men when he says everything did go under. . An eye witness. There is no need of thinking that the kanga roo leaped the ocean or that the polar bear came down from the ice. Why did the deluge come? It came for the purpose of destroying the out rageous inhabitants of the then thinly populated earth, nearly all the popula tion, probably very near tne ark before it was launched. What would have been the use of submerging North and South America, or Europe, or Africa, when they were not inhabited? And as to the skeptical suggestion that in order to have the water as deep as« the Bible states, it must have rained 800 feet every day, I reply, the Bible distinctly declares that the most of the flood rose instead of falling. Before the account where it says “the win dows of heaven were opened,”- it says, “all the fountains'of the great deep were brokon up. ” All geologists agree in saying that there are caverns in the earth filled with water, and thev rushed forth, and all the lakes d rivers forsook their bed. The 'MMVSVW tuuv AAVSU UU- iy morning its light fell Beside that, the rocks >n emit light. There is light from a thousand surfaces, the alkalies, for instance. The metallic bases emit light. There was a time in the history of the world when there were thousands of miles of liquid granite flaming with light Beside that, it has been found that there are burned out volcanoes in other worlds which, when they were in explosion and ac tivity, must have cast forth an insuf ferable light, throwing a glare all over pur earth. Beside that, there are the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora An clndis. A book on Physical Scienco says: I r “Capt. Bonnycastle, coming up the Gulf of St Lawrence on tho 17th of September, 1826, was aroused bv the , mate of the vessel in great alarm from an unusual appearance. It was a star light night, when suddenly the sky i became overcast In the direction of j the high land of Cornwallis county an instantaneous and intensely vivid ! light, resembling the aurora, shot out • ou tho hitherto gloomy and dark sea ■ on tho lee bow that was so brilliant it | lighted everything distinctly, even j to the masthead. The light spread over the whole sea between the two shores, and the waves, which before had been tranquil, became agitated. Capt. Bonnycastle de scribes the scene as that of a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light, —a. long and vivid line of light that showed the face of the high frowning land abreast. Thesky became lower ing and more intensely obscure. Long, tortuous lines of light showed immense numbers of large fish darting about as if in consternation. The top sail yard and mizzen boom were lighted by the glare as if gaslights had been burned directly below them, and Until just before daybreak, at 4 o’clock, the most minute objects were dis tinctly visible." My hearers, there are ten thousand sources of light besides the light of the sun. > A WRONG CONCEPTION ABOUT NOAH’S ARK. , Another hard tiling: The story of the deluge and Noah’s ark. They say that from the account there it must have And the evening aQl - fountains of the great deep broken up, and then the windows of heaven were opened. Is it a strange thing that we should be asked to be lieve in this flood of the Bible, when geologists tell us that again and again and again the dry earth has been drowned out? Just open yourgeol ogy and you will read of twenty floods. Is it not strange that infidel scientists wanting us tobelieve in the twenty floods of geological discovery, should, as soon as we believe in one flood of the Bible, pronounce us non compos mentis? THE BEASTS ON THE ARK OF NOAH. Well, then, another tiling, in re- E rd to the size of the ark. Instead of ing a mud scow, as some of these skeptics would have us understand, it was a magnificent ship, nearly as large as the Great Eastern, three times the size of an ordiucry man-of-war. At the time in the world when ship building was unknown, God had this vessel constructed, which turned out to be almost in the same proportions as our stanchest modern vessels. After thousands of years of experimenting in naval architecture and in ship car- jentery, we have at last got up to ! Noah’s ark, that ship leading all the fleets of the world on all the oceans. Well, Noah saw tfce animal creation going into this ark. He gave the ac count of an eye witness. They were the animals from the region where he lived; for the most part they were ani mals useful to man, ahd if noxious in sects or poisonous reptiles went in, it was only to discipline the patience and to keep alert the generations after the flood. He saw them going in. There were a great number of them, and he gives the account of an eye wit ness. They went in two and two of all flesh. Years ago I was on a steamer on the river Tay, and I came to Perth, Scot land. I got off, and I saw the most wonderful agricultural show that; I had ever witnessed. There were horses and cattle such as Rosa'Bonheur never sketched, and there were dogs such as the loving pencil of Edwin Landseer never portrayed, and there were sheep and fowl and creatures of all sorts. Suppose that “two and two” of all the creatures of that agricultural show were put upon the Tay steamer to be transported to Dundee, and the uext day I should . be writing home to America and giving an account of the occurrence, 1 would have used the same general phraseology that Noah used in regard to the embarkation of the brute creation in the ark—I would have said that they went in two and two of every sort. 1 would not have meant six hundred thousand. A com mon sense man myself, 1 would sup pose that the people who read the let ter were common sense people. “But hqw could you get them' into the ark ?” ask infidel scientists. 4 ‘How could they be induced to go into the ark? Ho would have to pick them out and drive them in, and coax them in.” Could not the same God who gave instinct to the animal inspire that instinct to seek for shelter from the storm? However, nothing more than ordinary animal instinct was neces sary. Have you never been in the country when an August thunder storm was coming up and heard the cattle moan at thebars to get in? and seen the affrighted fowl go upon the perch at noonday, and heard the af frighted dog and cat calling at the door, supplicating entrance? And are you surprised that in that age of the world, when there were fewer places of shelter for dumb beasts, at the mut tering and rumbling and flashing and quakmgand darkening of an approach ing deluge, the animal creation come moaning and bleating to the sloping embankment reaching up to the an cient Great Eastern and passed in? I have owued hoi ses ana cattle and sheep and dogs, but I never had a horse or a cow or a sheep or a dog that was so stupid it did not know enough to come in when it rained. And then, that one window in the ark which afforded such poor ventilation to the creatures there assembled—that small window in the ark which ex cites so much mirthfulncss on the part of infidels. If they knew as much Hebrew as you could nut on your little finger nail they would have known that that word translated win dow there means window course, a whole range of lights. Those igno- raut infidels do not know a window pane from twenty windows. So if there is any criticism of the ark, there seems to be too much window for such a long storm. And as to the # other charge that the windows of th*c ark must have been kept shut and conse quently all inside would have perished from suffocation, I have to say that there are people in this house today who," all the way from Liverpool to Barnegat lighthouse, and for two weeks, were kept under deck, the hatches battened down because of the storm. Some of you, in the old time sailing vessels, were kept nearly a month with the hatches down be cause of some long storm. Then infidels say that the ark land ed on a mountain seventeen thousand feet high, and that, of course, as soon as the animals came forth they would all bo frozen in the ice. That is geo graphical ignorance 1 Ararat is not merely the name for a mountain, but for a billy district, and it may have been a hill one hundred feet high, or five hundred, or a thousand feet high on which the ark alighted. Noah measured the depth of the water ubove the hill, and it is fifteen cubits, or twenty-seven feet. Alii my friends, this story of the ark is no more incredible than if you should say to me: “Last summer I was among the hills of New England, and there came on the most terrific storm I ever saw, and the whole country was flooded. The waters came up over the hills, and to save our lives we got in a boat on the river, and even the dumb creatures were so affrighted they came moaning and bleating until we let them in the same boat?’ We are not dependent upon the Bible for the story of the flood, en tirely. All ages and all literatures have traditions, broken traditions, in distinct traditions, but still traditions. The old books of the Persians tell about the flood at the rime of Ahri- man, who so polluted the earth that it had to be washed by a great storm. The traditions of the Chaldeans say that in tns time when Xisuthrus was king there was a great flood, and he f >ut his family and his friends, in a arge vessel and all outside of them were destroyed, and after a while the birds went forth and they came back and their claws were tinged with mud. Lucian and Ovid, celebrated writers, who had uever seen the Bible, de scribed a flood in the time of Deu calion. He took his friends into a boat, and the animals came running to him in pairs. So all lands, and all ages, and all literatures, seem to have a broken and indistinct tradition of a calamity which Moses, here incorpo rating Noah’s account, so grandly, so beautifully, so accurately, so solemnly records. My prayer is that the God who cre ated the world may create us anew in Christ Jesus; and that the God who made light three days before the sun shone may kindle in our hearts a light that will burn ou long after the sun has expired; and that the God who ordered the ark built and kept open more than one hundred years that the antediluviaus might enter it for shel ter, may graciously incline us to ac cept the Invitation which this morn ing rose in music from the Throne, saying: “Come thou and all thy house into tne ark.” AN EXPLANATION OF ANOTHER OLD TESTAMENT WONDER. Another hard thing to be under stood: The story that the sum and moon stood still to allow Joshua to complete his victory. Infidel scien tists . declare that an impossibility. But if a man have brain and strength enough to make a clock, can he not start it and stop it, and start it again and stop it again? If a machinist have strength and brain enough to make a corn thresher, can he n^ start it and stop it, and start it again and stop it again ? If God have strength and wisdom to make the clock of the universe, the great machinery of the worlds, lias he not strength enough and wisdom enough to start it and stop it, and start it again and stop it again? Or stop one wheel, or stop twenty wheels, or stop all tho wheels? Is the clock' stronger than the clock maker? Does the corn thresher know more than the machinist? Is the universe mightier than its God? But people ask how could the moon have been seen to stop in the daytime? Well, if you have never seen the. moon in the daytime, it is because you have not been a very diligent observer of the heavens. Be side that, it was not necessary for the world literally to stop. By unu sual reflection of the sun’s rays the day might have been prolonged. So that, while tho earth continued on its path in ^ the heavens, it figuratively stopped. You must remember that these Bible authors used the vernacu lar of their own day, just as you and 1 say the sun went down. The sun never goes down. "We simply de scribe what appears to the human tve. Besides that, the world, our world, could have literally stopped without throwing the universe out of balance. Our world has two motions—the one around the sun and the other on its own axis. It might have stopped ornts own axis, while at the same tune it kept on its path through the heavens, bo there was no need of stellar con fusion because our world slackened its speed or entirely stopped in its revolu tion on its own axis. That is none of the business of Jupiter, or Mars, or Mereury or Saturn, or the Dipper. Beside that, within tho memory of man there have been worlds that were born and that died. A few * years ago tical difference to you and to me who astronomers telegraphed, through the Junius was, whether Sir PhilipJb ran- Associated Press, to all the world—the astronomers from the city of Wash- j ington—that another world had been j discovered. Within a comparatively short space of time, astronomers, tell tin, thirteen worlds have ; burned down. From their observatory j they notice first that the worlds look . like other worlds, then they became a deep red, showing they were on fire; then they becamo ashen, showing they were burned down; then they entirely disappeared, showing that even the ashes-' were scattered. Now, I say, if God can start a world, and swing a world, and destroy a world, he could stop one or two of them without a great deal of exertion, or he could by unusual refraction of the sun’s rays continue the illumination. But infidel scientists say it would have been be littling for other worlds to stop on account of such a battle. Wliy, sirs, what Yorktowu was for revolu tionary times, and what Gettys burg was in our civil con test, and what Sedan was in the Franco-German war, and what Wat erloo was in the Napoleonic destiny— that was this battle of Joshua against the five allied armies of Gibeon. It was that battle that changed the entire course of history. It was a battle to Joshua as important as though a bat tle now should occur in which Eng land and the United States and France and Germany and Italy and Turkey and Russia should fight for victory or annihilation. However much any other world, solar, lunar or. stellar, might be hastened in its errand of light, it. would be excusable if it lin gered in tho heavens for a little while and put down its sheaf of beams and gazed on such an Armageddon. In the early part of this century there was what was called the Dark Day. Some of these aged men per haps may remember it. It is known in history as the “Dark Day.” Work men at noon went to their homes, and courts and legislatures adjourned. No astronomers have ever been able to explain that dark day. Now, if God can advance the night earlier Ilian its time, can he not adjourn the night until after its time? 1 often used to hear my father describe a night—1 think he said it was in 1833—when his neighbors aroused him in great alarm. All the heavenly bodies seemed to be in motion. People thought our earth was coming to its destruction. Tens of thousands of stare shooting. No astronomers have ever been able to explain that stfy shooting. Now, does not your common sense teach you that if God could start and stop tens of thousands of worlds or meteors, he could start and stop two worlds? If God can engineer a train of ten thou sand worlds or meteors, and stop them without accident or collision, cannot he control two carriages of light, and by putting down a golden brake stop tne sun, and by putting down a silver brake stop the moon? Under this ex planation, instead of being skeptical about this sublime passage of the Bible, you will, when you read it. feel more like going down ou your knees before God as you read: “Sun, stand thou still above Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon.” A POINT THAT IS MUCH DISCUSSED. Then there is the Bible statement that a whale swallowed Jonah and ejected him upon the dry ground in three days. If you will go to the museum at Nantucket, Mass., you will find the skeleton of a whale large enough to swallow a man. I said to the janitor, while I was standing in the museum, “Why it does not seem from the looks of this skeleton that that story in the Book of Jonah is so very improbable, does it?” “Oh, no," he replied, “it does not." There is a cavity in the mouth of the common whale large enough for a man to live in. There have been sharks found again and again with an entire human body in them. Beside that, the Bible says nothing about a whale. It says, “The Lord prepared a great fish;” and there are scientists who tell us that there were sea monsters in other days that make the modern whale seem very insignificant 1 know in one place in the New Testament it speaks of the whale-as appearing in the occurrence 1 have just mentioned, but the word may just as well be trans lated “sea monster"—any kiud of a sea monster. Procopius says, in the year 532, a sea monster was slain which had for fifty years destroyed ships. 1 suppose this sea. monster that took care of Jonah may have been one of the great sea monsters that could have easily takeu down a prophet, and ho could have dived there three days if he had kept in motion so as to keep the gastric juices from taking hold of him and destroying him, and at the end of three days the monster would naturally be-sick enough to regurgitate Jonah. Beside that, my friends, there is one word which ex plains the whole thing. It savs, “The Lord prepared a great -fish.” If a ship carpenter prepare a vessel to carry Texan beeves to Glasgow, I suppose it can carry Texan beeves; if a ship car penter prepare a vessel to carry coal to one of the northern ports, 1 suppose it can carry coal; if a ship carpenter pre pare a vessel to carry passengers to Liverpool, I suppose it can carry pas sengers to Liverpool; and if the Lord prepared a fish to carry one passenger, I suppose it could carry a passenger and the ventilation have been all right So all tho strange things m the Bi ble can be explained if you wish to have them explained. And you can build them into a beautiful and health ful fire for your hearth, or you with them put your immortal interests into conflagration. But you had bet ter decide about the veracity of the Bible very soon. 1 waut this morning to caution you against putting off making up your mind about this book. Ever since 1772 there has been great discussion as to who was the author of Junius’ Letters, those letters so full of sarcasm and vituperation and power. The whole English nation stirred up with it. More than a hun dred volumes written to discuss that question: “Who was Junius?” “Who wrote the letters of J unius?" Weil, it is an interesting question to discuss, but still, after all. it makes but little prac* DANIEL8V1LLE. CHAWFonj). Ckawfopd, March 22. cis, or Lord Chatham, or John Horne i Tooke, or Horace Walpole, or Henry ; Grattan, or any one of tho forty-four men who were seriously charged with the authorship. But it is an absorb ing question, it is a practical question, - . . ~ *«: it is an overwhelming question to you i P e msny da vs and to me, the authorship of this Willingham,*of Lextogt^w 1 } 1 of paralysis night before L. Q1 % ,sst »odj,j of k _ Mr. Luke Harper, 0 „ Holy "Bibie^-whether the Lord God of j dangerously sick with pncumJ heaven and earth or a pack of dupes, j homc^of Mrs. Holbert n scoundrels or impostors. We cannot , Mr. G. W. Whitehead * ■ * u > °tt9 to*„ t >tri eONSUMPION An old physician,retired f r „ m ' having had placed in his hands k East India missionary the f orm p ' simple vegetable remedy Tor the * ?1 and permanent cure of ConcJ f! ?" Brouchitis, Catarrh, Asthma HP throat and Lung Affections, also t ' iiive and radical cure tor v Debility and all Nervous Comnl • after having tested its wonderful* live powers in thousands of case/? felt it his duty to make it known suffering fellows. Actuated by motive and a desire to relieve j, DRIFTING ON THE SEA OF INFI- S ? 1 fter * nS : 1 W H l ae . nd free °f char/’ all who desire it, this recipe, i n G re „ Fren h or English, with full dire * or preeparing and using. Sent by and addressing with siamp, natnim paper. W. A. Noyse,149 Bower’s rochester, N. Y- 12.4., afford to adjourn that question a week or a day or an hour, any more than a sea captain can afford to say: “"Well, this is a very dark night. I have really lost my bearings; there is a light out there. 1 don’t Know whether it is a lighthouse or a false light on the shore, I don’t know what it is; but I’ll just go to sleep and in the morn ing I'll find out." In the morning the vessel might be on the rocks and the beach strewn with the white faces of the dead crew. The time for that sea captain to find out about the light house is before he goes to sleep. Oh, my friends, I want you to understand that in our deliberations about this Bible we are not at calm anchorage, but we are rapidly coming toward the coast, coming with all the furnaces ablaze, coining at the rate of seventy heart throbs a minute, and I must know whether it is going to be harbor or shipwreck. SOULS DEL1TY. I was so glad to read in the papers of the fact that the steamship Edam had come safely into harbor. A week before the Persian Monarch, plow ing its way toward the Narrows, a hundred miles out, saw signals of dis tress, bore down upon the vessel, and found it was the steamship Edam. She had lost her propeller. She had two hundred passengers on board. The merciful captain of the Persian Mon arch endeavored to bring her in, but the tow line broke. He fastened it again, but tho sea was rough and the tow line broke again. Then the night came on and the merciful captain of the Persian Monarch “lay to," think ing in the morning he could give res cue to the passengers. The morning came, but during the night the steamship Edam had disappeared, and the captain of the' Persian Monarch brought his vessel into harbor saying how sad he felt because he could not give complete rescue to that lost ship. I am glad that afterward another vessel saw her and brought her into safety. But when I saw the story of that steam ship Edam, drifting, drifting, drifting, I ao not know where, but with no rudder, no lighthouse, no harbor, no help, I said: “That is a skeptic, that is an infidel, drifting, drifting, drifting, not knowing where he drifts." And then, when I thought of the Persian Monarch anchored in harbor, I said: “That is a Christian, that is a man who (toes all he can on the way, cross ing the sea to help others, coming per haps through a very rough voyage into the harbor, there safe and sale for ever.” Would God that there might be some one today who would go forth and bring in these souls that are drift ing. In this assemblage, how many a score shall I say, or a hundred, or a thousand?—not quite certain about the truth of the Bible, not certain about anything. Drifting, drifting, drifting. Oh, how I would like to tow them in. I throw you this cable. Lay hold of that cable of the Gospel. Lay hold of it. 1 invite you all in. The narbor is wide enough, large enough for all thq shipping. Come in, O you wanderers on the deep. Drift no more, drift no more. Come into the harbor. See the glorious lighthouse of the Gospel. “Peace ou earth, good will to men.” Come into the harbor. God grant that it may be said of all of you who are now drifting in your unbelief as it might have been said of the passengers of the steamshipEdam, and as it was said centuries ago of the wrecked corn ship of Alexandria, “It came to pass that they all escaped safe to land.” As to Breathing. The following heretofore unheard of information in regard to breath and breathing was made public in Ken tucky recently by a school boy of 12 years, who wrote an essay on the sub ject: " _ We breath with our lungs, our lights, our kidneys and our livers. If it wasn’t for our breath we would die, when we slept. Our breath keeps the life agoing through the nose when we are asleep. Boys who stay in a room all day should not breathe. They should wait until they get out in ‘the fresh air. Boys in a room make bad air called carbonicide. Carbonicide is as poison as mad dogs. A lot of soldiers were once in a black hole in Calcutta and carbonicide got in there and killed them. Girls sometimes ruin the breath with corsets that squeeze the diagram. A big diagram is the best for the°right kind of breathing.—Youth’s Compan ion. Women Studying Rudimentary Surgery* The women who are the pupils of the St. John Ambulance association at Birkenhead, England, are not mere students of physiology and hygienic rules, but are practiced in the art of bandaging, removal of injured on stretchers and arrest of bleed ing. Most of the lady stu dents have joined the association from choice. Some of them are wealthy and independent, and a few,- like the Duchess of Westminster, are titled.—New York Telegram. Popes of tho Ninth Century. Pope Benedict HI was a native of Rome, and elected to the chair of St. Peter by the college of cardinals in 855. His pontificate, like that of most of the popes of the Ninth cen tury , was a brief one, lasting but three years. Benedict died ° n March 10, 858. He was succeeded by Nicholas I. Benedict’s pontificate succeeded the fabulous reign of the female Pope Joan. During the Ninth century there were twenty-one popes.—Philadelphia Times. county commissioi.ers, whn U i ° r m sick for several Wieks, U still i^ 8 criticalcondition. 1D »iJ ■The new church has b°en « :and the seals are t?ein R pi- Ct( i nn| sl " ill be held they" | j tion. day. S l*vices eo*l,| A LONG AND ASSIDUOUS LIFE. Mr. John H. Newton, though quite feeble, is able to ba out these! days. Mr. Newton has spent a and useful life in Athens. Thu nearly ninety years of age he has a most assiduous worker up to a weeks ago and, hut for the interpositL of kind friends, would be at his desk! day. In speaking to a youneer mu, cently, who referred to a holiday sion he was going to take, Mr. N e(f remarked, “I have bean hard at m ever since I was 15 years of age have never known what it was to* a holiday.’' ThiB remark is indiot of the character of the man. We t that he may enjoy many days yet am his devoted family and warm friends! Is Consumption Incurable? Read the following: Mr. C. II.M01 Newark, Ark., says: “Was down Abscess of Lungs, and friends and 1 sici-.ns pronounced me an IncurabltC sumptive. Began taking Dr. King’s xi Discovery for Consumption, am now| my third bottle, and able to oversea! work on my farm. It is the finest 1 icine ever made,” Jesse Middle wart,Decatur, Ohio, “Had it not been for Dr. King’s Ji!| Discovery for Consumption I wouldh died of Lung Troubles. Was giving^ by doctors. Am now in best of health Try it. Sample bottles free at Jo- Crawford & Co.’s or L.D.Sledge &•( Drugstores. t Highest market price paid in cashfj ' butter, eggs and chickens and all c conntry p-oduce. Jo C. BebsamJ d w- 4-18 STOCK FARM. M. 1. W. Neal, of Harmony Gi is thinking of going into the stock ing business, and raising none thoroughbreds. He has already of the Hambletonian breed, and will quite a number of fine horses to 1 stable during the summer. Mr.W- Goss will take an interest in the sts! and will put considerable money ini business. _ THE ATHENS AND KNOXVlU Judge W. B. Thomas left for * York last night to be gone about month. He is confident of closing rangements for the extention of road to Knoxville. The time for s ir»g the contract expires the 22d of A] and if the parties Judge Thomas is treating with, f«il to make the neceM deposit in bank by that time, there other parties who will do so at once. A fine Coldvfater Bo Cart, bran new, for cheap for cash. Apply this office. John F. Plummer. John F. Plummer, who has been® tioned as likelv to be preferred by Harrison, is the senior membdr of New York drygoods firm of Plummer & Co. In the late camp he was president of the Wholesale I goods Harrison and Morton club of • York, a position he recently resig* and he has fot many years tak® active part in politics and is a effective campaign speaker. twice declined the Republican no® tion for mayor of New York city in 1884,' as candidate for comp ran far ate his party » his gain b< due to b* 3 sonal pop among " chants and ness »en spectireoiP He was one® New YtfJ gates to m vention ** D0Tni na ^\j eon.andig liberal in helping his party. L ' politics and business be is best - a liberal patron of art, and “p feeling comes out in his P ref f.„^ American artiste and product^-v, his home on East Fifty-si^j 11 ,^ has a very large collection 0' rjj, paintings and etchings. B 0 .^! ber of the Union League cW®*. p , chants’ club and the New club, besides his business P C;K ; chamber of cpnaraqyo. -. - '-S' JOHN F. PLUMMER.