To the Editor of the "Norru-Cuina Darty News."
Sir,—Thank you for that hand-; some and generous leader om my bumble booklet.
Is the Bible a "gigantic eryptogram"? Yes, and No.
There are abstruse physical mysteries in the Sun, about which science as yet has arrived at no certain conclusions. But it shines all right, and the light it throws on our daily affairs is sure, ly, ard understandable. The powers, moreover, by which it holds our orb steady amid the fathomless abysses of space are reliable. Do we doubt whether it will rise to-morrow morning because we know that it is full of wwysterious problems barely understood 7 So with the Bible. In all matters pertaining to the common path in the essentials of salvation, the Bible is a gloriously simple and understandable Book, and -the light it gives cannot be mistake. But there have always been some matters which its -Divine Author of sob purpose indited in cryptic forms, and expressly directed the sealing of the cryptograms unt) vho time ordained in His wisdom for their unsealing: see; og. Daniel 12: 4, 9, John 16: 12, Rev I submit that the whole Book of the Revelation (spell without an 8, please) is either a child's book of monsters and heroes, as_ the modern critic in his simplicity would have us believe, or else most complex and amazing cryptogram, which of God's set purpose defied full unravelling for 18 centuries. For it was His intention io conceal the date of the great Event towards which it looks until that date should be very near.
Even what is usually deemed one of the plainest and most unambiguous of the parables of our Lord (the Ten Virgins, Matthew 25) uses a subtle cryptic term in its very title. The Virgins represent the waiting Church, but what, I think, has never been noticed in the literature of the subject, is that twelve Virgins are cryptically indicated in the passage. The num-hers in the parable are, of course, tropes, in keeping with the para-polic form of presentation, but as the Church number throughout Scripture is 12, we are hereby directed to look for two more Virgins. Now the ery, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh," is a part of the Church's testimony to mankind at the appropriate time, and since the ten Virgins are clearly asleep when the ery is first made, there are necessarily other, two, who are watchers and witnesses outside (two is the number for witness throughout Scripture). These two are outside, considered as of account in the counsels of the ten, in hopeless minority, regarded as_ visionaries, and therefore searcely more than hinted at in the parable, yet awake, vigilant, expectant. "To them, at the appoint. ed time, comes the solution of all the cryptograms. They announce what they see. At midnight their
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.