Correspondence

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42761, 15 August 1905, Page 2

Correspondence

do not hold ourselves responsible for the opiuions expressed by our correspondents. To the Editor

Sir, —It may seem rather late in thelday now to make remarks on the discourse I heard a week ago, i.e., on Sunday the 6th inst, but as I am an old fogey you must, if you will kindly, excuse me, as I have taken time to well consider the matter. In one of of your peaceful little places of worship, where a young preacher officiated, the subject of his discourse was “The victory of a small number of God’u ohosen people over an army of great multitude.” He signified (or so I understood it) that the soldiers of Israel marched round and round the oity l sounding their trumpets until at a given moment the trumpets sounded and the pitchers were broken and the city walls fell. Now if we turn to our Old testament pages we read—Joshua, chap. 6, v: 12: And Joshua rose early in toe morning, and toe priests took up the ark of toe Lord. And seven priests bearing seven trumpets of ram’s horns before the ark of toe Lord, went on continually, and blew with the trumpets, and toe armed men went before them; but the reward came after toe ark of toe Lord, toe priests going on and blowing with the trumpets. And bo through following verses no mention is made of pitchers. Now let us turn to toe 7to chap., Judges, and there we have pitchers and no walls. We see Gideon’s army of two hundred and thirty thousand is brought to three hundred. “ And Gideon divided them into three companies of one hundred each, and put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers and lamps within. And when the three companies blow the trumpets and broke the pitchers, the host of Midian (which we are before told lay in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude) ran, and cried, and fled. We can imagine the blare of three hundred trumpets, and the crash of three hundred pitchers simultaneously was rather a pandemonium. But evidently the young preacher got two sti iking episodes of old scripture mixed together instead of sticking to the trumpets and pitchers which he had chosen for the subject of his address. Perhaps he will kindly give an explanation through the medium of your paper, that we maj all read. Again I ask to be pardoned for the tardiness of my remarks, but not possessing the pen of a ready writer, must be the excuse of An Odd Fogey.