Show I 1 REV T it I 1 S I 1 SUN SUNDAY ly T a A y I 1 S E K DELIVERED AT THE FIRST PRES CHURCH I 1 I 1 text lu luke ke 1940 19 40 if these should hold their peace the stones would cry out 1 I 1 the services in the first presbyterian church last evening were of exceptional interest rendered a olo eolo of great merit and the evening series of sermons upon biblical troth in the light of present day knowl knowledge edgo was continued speaking from luke 19 1940 40 if these should hold their peace the stones would cry out thet the theme lieme being the effect of recent archaeological discoveries eries upon the bible as a trustworthy historical book rev carver said in part when in tho the triumphal entry of jesus into jerusalem the master in answer to the pharisees Pharis ees demand that the disciples desist from their hoan ho an nab naf said it if these should hold their peace the stones would cry out words hare been literally ful filled today the very stones of palestine and the surrounding countries have cried out in testimony to the truth of this book if it Is not many years since renan gave rise to the theory that writing was unknown in tho the time of moses and therefore theredo re any contemporaneous record of or bis ills life was impossible recent excavations have shown however that a well developed literature was in existence even before the days of abraham the site of hla his ancestral homo home ur of the Chal dees has been excavated and poetry and songs used by his forefathers discovered chiseled in the rock recent excavations in egypt have bave revealed several hundreds of clay tab lets these date from 1500 B C and are therefore before the day of moses they contain official communications from the surrounding nations to the rulers of egypt and are inscribed with babylonian characters that being the court language of the time the characters were stai stamped nned on tablets of clay after which ay iy y were burned to the hardness of te these archaeological discoveries not only corroborate the historical statements of the early biblical writings but also utterly sweep away a great mass of learned infidel argument arguments directed against the authenticity and trustworthiness of the mosaic books it has long been a favorite theme with many to scoff at the idea of the flood but last year yar a scientific work was published which lends much proof to that biblical statement for come some years it has been known that the egyptian chaldean greek eythl and celtic folklore folk lore contain a narrative similar to that of tho the biblical account of the flood in 1904 an expedition of geologists was sent to palestine and tho far east cast to ascer lian if any geological traces of a deluge since the time of man could be discovered they believed that traces of a deluge might be found superimposed upon the relics of mans work professor wright of oberlin ln 9 a leading Ame american ricart geologist has this year published results of their two year search the they v did find evidences of mans work beneath the markings of a deluge not only was this true in palestine but such proofs were more or leaa less prevalent in all that eastern country the chapter of genesis contains the record of a war waged in that dim past this has hus long been derided as a fiction of some later day but dr schell has in the past few yeara years unearthed tablets which lot not only name the very leaders spoken of in genesis but also peak of the bame war as tho the great war of that period many luany other instances can a be mentioned which testify to the th historicity of the bibles early books masseros Ma speros recent history of egypt stated that menes I enes reputed founder of united egypt was nothing more than a a myth but in that same year 1899 al ie de Is morgan lorgan discovered menes tomb in the rueni of on old city 20 miles north of th thebes in this tomb were many relics together with the record of menes life carved upon ivory la in ancient hier hieroglyphics in the bibla bible there are several references to a people called the hittites Hitt ites objectors to the historicity of the old testament denied that such people ever existed and newman a higher critic in a recent book openly claimed that tho tha references to the Hitt itea clearly showed tae 00 old testament to he be mythological in origin more recently however hittite monument monuments have been disinterred and are now to be seen in the leading museums of the world this lost kingdom baa haa been reclaimed and we now know that before tho the days of abraham the hit aites were the equals 0 of assyria and egypt in civilization and military prowess hargons Sar gons name occurs but I 1 once in the old testament no other reference to him could be found and he was called a fabulous cliar character acter by th those se who disbelieved the bible but recent re cent tablets exhumed on the site of ninevah ninevah yi nevah prove him to have been one 0 of ut the gr greatest ea t e s m monarchs 0 n ar c h s that tha t rev ever e r abe tia r ruled le in A assyria s s y r a and d t that h a t bis s reign ig t L lasted seventeen years there aro are of archaeology to the reliability of the rations of the rapidly growing wing science of archaeology to the 4 reliability to the old testament statements ea each year brings new discoveries and they all testify that thil old book is true so firmly has its truth been established that archaeologists use it as a guide the statement in isaiah 19 that alv alvo 3 cities of egypt speak the language of canaan and swear to jehovah and that an altar to jehovah was in the midst of egypt has long been laughed at it has been called an interpolation by the higher critics critler but last year vear at the site of an old city by the first cataract of the nile river a great mass of old pottery was unearth edIn some of or it is written records of a number of jewish settlements about the time of xerxes and show that to them the egyptian government had bad made concessions as settlers the decree of cyrus permitting the jews to return from captivity has been long iong questioned this bo however wever was in im 1905 established when J R metheny Methe nv discovered an hittite copy of it engraved ei 9 raved upon a high rock near the border land of the old kingdom so the work goes on and the old book la Is receiving new proofs each year the and not the pen is the great defender of the bible today the president of the institute of 0 france recently when presenting a prize of francs to tho the assyrian scholar apol spoke e of the a astonishment astonish stonish ish ment of the wild bedouins Bedou ins when n they saw raw one after another of the these so ancient records dist interred our fathers said bald they have tor for hundreds of years pitched their heir tents in these regions without knowing that anything remarkable was entombed beneath but no sooner have you francs franes come here with your measuring roda rods than you have traced out the plans of our city and brought to light magnificent temples and numer ous treasures tell us Is it your book or your prophets that has revealed to you these there secrets yes said tho the president of the great scientific institute of france we may well reply it Is to by our book our bible that we have these things it has told us of these ancient cities BO so long buried and which now in turn bear testimony ta to the truth of this book |