Daily Alta California, Volume 42, Number 13772, 16 May 1887 — THE TESTIMONY OF SILENCE. [ARTICLE]

THE TESTIMONY OF SILENCE.

It FnrniMbe* tbe Strongest Evidence* of the

Train of tbe Bible.

Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Chicago, filled the pnlpitof the First Presbyterian Church last night, delivering a brief sermon on " The Testimony of Silence." It would ill-befit silence to call it "Sir Oracle," said the reverened speaker, and yet, it is silence that furnishes in some instances, the strongest testimony. It must not be the silence of ignorance. To be of value, it must M dumb for a reason; not of necessity. It mnst be intelligent, far-reaching and far-seeing. Time and his tory furnish proof of the value of silence. Of the multitude of people in the Bible let ns take two — Jesus Christ and his mother. Bee how silent the Bible is on many I points of interest here. Even the age of Christ is not given. The historians of the Bible say that when he began to preach, he was about thirty years of age. The day and the month are likewise shrouded in mystery, and that event is as likely to have happened on any other day as on that which we call Christmas. Nothin? is said of his early life. This silence is simply astonishing. Men do not write biographies in that way. The Bible is also silent as to his personal appearance. It gives no hints of his height, build, mien, color of hair or of eyes. All statnes sad paintings purporting to represent him are purely* imaginative likenesses. The same silence envelopes His mother. This silence demands an explanation. It cannot b« accounted for on the score of ignorance. The historians must have known of many experiences in His early life. If their story of the Bible was spurious, this silence wonld be a miracle. The silence, therefore, is the greatest proof of its truth. 1 • "

The Bible is also silent as to the pregnant truths concerning the existence of many of the scrrounding planets, a silence which the scientists have sought to nse as proof of the ignorance of the historians, and yet this silence is bnt another evidence of the proof of the genuineaess of the Scripturee. !; ".*-,