Can one believe the Bible without being a scientist or an ‘expert’ in languages or some other related field? Yes they can. In John 20:29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. I have never seen personally the Lord Jesus but I believe what the Scriptures say.
However, it is good to read about men who are very knowledgeable in certain fields and who have come to faith in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Brian Thomas is such a man. He writes that ‘A student recently asked what I believe about the age of the earth. I replied that at one time I felt absolutely certain that the world was billions of years old. I even wrote a song that mentioned “the age of dinosaurs.” Now, however, I believe the dinosaurs that got fossilized lived when (but not where) Noah lived. They got locked in rocks through Noah’s Flood only 4,500 or so years ago. Four specific facts helped change my mind.
The change began when a Christian friend challenged me to debunk creation-believing scientists. The information he gave me revealed key facts my college professors and textbooks never noted.
For example, I had never heard that the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens deposited debris partly in layers. Or that in two short years those layers hardened enough to form steep-sided canyon walls. I’d always taken for granted what my teachers told me—forming rock layers needs lots of time. When I learned that instead sedimentary rocks form from lots of water, I started to doubt deep time.
Another fact that raised my eyebrows was the small 1982 eruption that carved a huge gorge through those fresh Mount St. Helens layers and through some lava rock beneath them. I always thought it took millions of years of gradual erosion to excavate canyons one grain at a time. But, just like the new rock layers, this canyon formed in one catastrophic day.
The third fact that shook my faith in Earth’s supposedly great age involved radioisotopes. After Mount St. Helens’ 1980 eruption, smaller lava burps built a dome of rock in the new crater atop the mountain. According to standard thinking, radioisotope “clocks” can reveal the exact time lava hardened. This fresh rock offered a chance to test a common radioisotope dating method.
Scientists who believed in biblical creation—which holds that Earth is only thousands of years old—got permission to collect the lava rocks for testing. They already doubted the millions of years so often pinned to radioisotope counts, but the lab technicians they sent their rock samples to had no such disbelief. The technicians’ radioisotope-based “age” for the one-decade-old rock was half a million years!1 Other tests of historical lava flows with known ages haven’t shown accurate ages either.2
Probably the rock’s molten state never wound the isotopic clocks back to zero like the theory suggests. For the first time I began to ask how anybody can know the true isotope ratios of these rocks. And which other published results could be completely wrong like these?
I realized I needed to find a more reliable source of Earth history. That’s where the fourth fact led me. I found in the pages of the Bible a collection of reliable eyewitness accounts that list the number of years since the beginning of the world—about 6,000. In a law court, reliable eyewitness testimony would trump circumstantial evidence such as isotope ratios. The prophets who wrote Scripture lived through the events they described. Secular scientists who taught me about billions of years never saw those supposed years. Science can’t even measure them.
John Jasper was a preacher that made the Bible literally come alive!
‘IN the circle of Jasper’s gifts his imagination was preëminent. It was the mammoth lamp in the tower of his being. A matchless painter was he. He could flash out a scene, colouring every feature, defining every incident and unveiling every detail. Time played no part in the performance,–it was done before you knew it. Language itself was of second moment. His vocabulary was poverty itself, his grammar a riot of errors, his pronunciation a dialectic wreck, his gestures wild and unmeaning, his grunts and heavings terrible to hear. At times he hardly talked but simply emitted; his pictures were simply himself in flame. His entire frame seemed to glow with living light, and almost wordlessly he wrought his miracles. But do not misunderstand. Some insisted on saying that education would have stripped John of his genius by subduing the riot of his power and chastening the fierceness of his imagination. I think not, for John in a good sense was educated. He was a reverential and laborious student for half-a-century. He worked on his sermons with a marked assiduity and acquired the skill and mastership of faithful struggle. Even his imagination had to work, and its products were the fruit of toil. There was no mark of the abnormal or disproportionate in his sky, but all the stars were big and bright. He was well ballasted in his mental make-up, and in his most radiant pictures there was an ethical regard for facts, and an instinctive respect for the truth. Moreover, his ministrations fairly covered the theological field, were strongly doctrinal, and he grappled with honest vigour the deepest principles of the Gospel. He was also intensely practical, scourging sin, lashing neglect, and with lofty authority demanding high and faithful living.
Think not of Jasper merely as a pictorial preacher. There were wrought into his pictures great principles and rich lessons. But now and then he would present a sermon which was largely a series of pictures from beginning to end. His imagination would be on duty all the time and yet never flag. I cannot forget his sermon on Joseph and his Brethren. It was a stirring presentation of the varied scenes in that memorable piece of history. He opened on the favouritism of Jacob, and was exceedingly strong in condemning partiality, as unhappily expressed in the coat of many colours. That brief part was a sermon itself for parents. From that he passed quickly to the envy of his brothers.
Jealousy was a demon creeping in among them, inflicting poisonous stings, and spreading his malignant power, until murder rankled in every heart. Then came Joseph, innocent and ignorant of offending, to fall a victim to their conspiracy, with the casting of him into the pit, the selling of him to the travelling tradesmen, the showing to Jacob of the blood-stained coat, with scene after scene until the happy meeting at last between Jacob and his long lost son.
One almost lived a lifetime under the spell of that sermon. It was eloquent, pathetic, terrific in its denunications, rich in homely piety, and with strains of sweetness that was as balm to sorrowing souls. The effects were as varied as human thoughts and sentiments. The audience went through all moods. Now they were bent down as if crushed with burdens; now they were laughing in tumults at the surprises and charms of heavenly truth; anon they were sobbing as if all hearts were broken, and in a moment hundreds were on their feet shaking hands, shouting, and giving forth snatches of jubilant song. This all seems extravagant, without sobriety entirely, but those that were there, perhaps without an exception, felt that it was the veritable house of God and the gate of heaven.
At other times, Jasper’s sermons were sober and deliberate, sometimes even dull; but rarely did the end come without a burst of eloquence or an attractive, entertaining picture. But, remember, that his pictures were never foreign to his theme. They were not lugged in to fill up. They had in them the might of destiny and fitted their places, and fitted them well. Often they came unheralded, but they were evidently born for their part. On one occasion his sermon was on Enoch. It started out at a plodding gait and seemed for a time doomed to dullness, for Jasper could be dull sometimes. At one time he brought a smile to the faces of the audience, in speaking of Enoch’s age, by the remark: “Dem ole folks back dar cud beat de presunt ginerashun livin’ all ter pieces.”
As he approached the end of his sermon, his face lighted up and took on a new grace and passion, and he went out with Enoch on his last walk. That walk bore him away to the border of things visible; earthly scenes were lost to view; light from the higher hills gilded the plains. Enoch caught sight of the face of God, heard the music and the shouting of a great host, and saw the Lamb of God seated on the throne. The scene was too fair to lose, and Enoch’s walk quickened into a run which landed him in his father’s house. It was a quick, short story, told in soft and mellow tones, and lifted the audience up so far that the people shouted and sang as if they were themselves entering the gates of heaven.
One of his more elaborate descriptions, far too rich to be reproduced, celebrated the ascension of Elijah. There was the oppressive unworldliness of the old prophet, his efforts to shake off Elisha, and Elisha’s wise persistence in clamouring for a blessing from his spiritual father. But it was when the old prophet began to ascend that Jasper, standing off like one apart from the scene, described it so thrillingly that everything was as plain as open day. To the people, the prophet was actually and visibly going away. They saw him quit the earth, saw him rise above the mountain tops, sweeping grandly over the vast fields of space, and finally saw him as he passed the moon and stars. Then something happened. In the fraction of a second Jasper was transmuted into Elijah and was actually in the chariot and singing with extraordinary power the old chorus: “Going up to heaven in a chariot of fire.” The scene was overmastering! For a time I thought that Jasper was the real Elijah, and my distinct feeling was that the song which he sang could be heard around the world. Of course, it was not so; but there was something in the experience of the moment that has abided with me ever since.
At a funeral one Sunday I saw Jasper attempt a dialogue with death, himself speaking for both. The line of thought brought him face to face with death and the grave. The scene was solemnized by a dead body in a coffin. He put his hands over his mouth and stooped down and addressed death. Oh, death–death, speak to me. Where is thy sting? And then with the effect of a clairvoyant he made reply: “Once my sting was keen and bitter, but now it is gone. Christ Jesus has plucked it out, and I have no more power to hurt His children. I am only the gatekeeper to open the gateway to let His children pass.” In closing this chapter an incident will largely justify my seemingly extraordinary statements as to the platform power of this unschooled negro preacher in Virginia.
In company with a friend I went very often Sunday afternoons to hear Jasper and the fact was bruited about quite extensively, and somewhat to the chagrin of some of my church-members. Two of them, a professor in Richmond College and a lawyer well-known in the city, took me to task about it They told me in somewhat decided tones that my action was advertising a man to his injury, and other things of a similar sort. I cared but little for their criticism, but told them that if they would go to hear him when he was at his best, and if afterwards they felt about him as they then felt, I would consider their complaints. They went the next Sunday. The house was overflowing, and Jasper walked the mountain tops that day. His theme was “The raising of Lazarus” and by steps majestic he took us along until he began to describe the act of raising Lazarus from the dead. It happened that the good professor was accompanied by his son, a sprightly lad of about ten, who was sitting between his father and myself. Suddenly the boy, evidently agitated, turned to me and begged that we go home at once. I sought to soothe him, but all in vain, for as he proceeded the boy urgently renewed his request to go home. His father observed his disquietude and putting an arm around him restored him to calmness. After the service ended and we had reached the street, I said to him: “Look here, boy, what put you into such a fidget to quit the church before the end of the service?” “Oh, doctor, I thought he had a dead man under the pulpit and was going to take him out,” he said. My lawyer brother heard the sermon and with profound feeling said, “Hear that, and let me say to you that in a lifetime I have heard nothing like it, and you ought to hear that man whenever you can.”
I heard no later criticisms from any man concerning my conduct in evincing such cordial interest in this eloquent son of Fluvanna.
The politicians in Australia in particular and the West in general have gone crazy in seeking to save the Earth! While they throw tax dollars at wind and solar energy prices continue to rise. These people are modern day crooks and should be made to answer for their actions. For example, ‘To call Australia’s energy debacle a ‘crisis’ is mastery in understatement: its obsession with wind and solar means its economy now operates around the vagaries of mother nature. The availability of sunshine and suitably beneficial breezes dictates when and where electricity gets delivered to power consumers.
New South Wales State Politicians at a Government subsidized Solar Farm
The cause of Australia’s power pricing and supply calamity is so simple and obvious it can be laid out in a handful of pictures.
Depicted above – courtesy of Aneroid Energy – is the output delivered by Australian wind power outfits to the Eastern Grid so far this month.
Spread from Far North Queensland, across the ranges of NSW, all over Victoria, Northern Tasmania and across South Australia its entire capacity routinely delivers just a trickle of its combined notional capacity of 7,728MW.
Collapses of over 3,000 MW or more that occur over the space of a couple of hours are routine, as are rapid surges of equal magnitude, which make the grid manager’s life a living hell, and provide the perfect set up for power market price gouging by the owners of conventional generators, who cash in on the chaos.
Set out below are a few examples of daily output figures showing some of those staggering collapses, and lengthy periods when the combined output of every wind turbine connected to the Eastern Grid struggled to top 400 MW (5.1% of total capacity). Occasions like:
11 June when output collapsed to a trifling 86 MW (1.1% of total notional capacity);
17 June when total output fell to 134 MW (1.7% of total notional capacity);
26 June when, after a 1,200 MW slide, output was between 300-400 MW (3.8% to 5.1% of total notional capacity); and
27 June when output dropped over 900 MW to bottom out at 96 MW (1.2% of total notional capacity) .
So, what does all that daily power delivery chaos mean for Australian business?
We’ll cross to the team at JoNova for an insight into the prospects for enterprise in a country where power rationing is dressed up as solid economic policy. [Note to Ed: did you mean to refer to the old Soviet Union here?]
Desperate signs: Australian companies will be paid to use less electricity JoNova Blog JoNova 11 June 2020
Another hidden renewables tax buried in complexity Here in Renewables World we now have to pay companies to make less of the products we want. It’s a sign of how fragile and dysfunctional the Australian grid is.
“Big energy users like factories and farms will be able to earn money by saving energy during heatwaves and at other times when electricity prices are high,” the Australia Institute’s energy lead Dan Cass said.
They call it “wholesale demand response”. We call it planned blackouts. All over the country equipment will be switched off when its needed most so that our green grid doesn’t fall over, or create billion dollar price spikes.
With some of the most expensive electricity in the world, there is already a strong price signal driving companies to use electricity efficiently. This new “price signal” drives them to be less efficient. Because the grid is now incapable of providing regular reliable electricity whenever it’s most useful to companies, the government is adding a whole new layer of complexity to try to squeeze out the spikes they can’t handle.
This move will mean more people will have to be employed in account-management, but the products made will shrink, so the price of those products will rise. It’s not possible that this change would increase the Australian GDP.
It’s all being rushed in to start in October 2021*, presumably because no one has the confidence that the Australian Grid will survive the next two summers without either price bonfires or a major blackout.
Electricity users will get paid to cut energy use under historic new market reform By Stephen Long, ABC
Electricity consumers will be paid for reducing their power demands under a radical change to the market that will be introduced next year.
The historic rule change announced today will allow what’s known as “wholesale demand response” — where the wholesale market can pay users for cutting electricity consumption, rather than paying electricity generators to increase supply, when the system is under strain.
Big conglomerate generators and retailers don’t want this change, because it’s partly aimed at them. They like the price spikes and this threatens their profits:
The shift, which will begin in October 2021, has been adopted by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) despite opposition from big energy generators and retailers, who were using the COVID-19 crisis to pressure for delaying the rule changes.
Instead of making the market fairer and more transparent by removing all renewable subsidies, and asking renewable generators to pay fair prices for transmission costs, stability costs and back up of their unreliable product, this is a desperate workaround that leaves former agreements in place but adds a new layer of complexity to try to get rid of the spikes so the generators can’t game the system.
This is a change to enable the forced transition to renewables.
Head of energy policy at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre Craig Memery said it was “a critical reform that will bring much-needed benefits to consumers, and a key part of a secure, zero-carbon energy system”.
The propaganda makes out this is a win for all: [AMEC] argues it will reduce electricity prices for consumers and improve reliability on the network, by allowing demand response to compete with “peaking” electricity generators that typically receive very high prices for supplying additional electricity during times of heavy demand.
“The benefits of wholesale demand response will flow through to all households and businesses through lower electricity bills and improved network reliability.
Obviously, the ABC repeats the propaganda and doesn’t ask any hard questions about how Australian citizens get richer by doing less.
Nobody mention the real costs: Instead of “earning money” consumers will pay via their shareholding and superannuation losses, and via the increased prices of products. Some consumers will gain jobs, but more will lose their jobs as the net efficiency of a Greener economy means companies produce less, move overseas, generate less profit and thus employ fewer Australians. Less profitable companies will also pay less tax. Meaning that individual taxpayers will have to make up for lost tax income or the government will have to offer less services.
And so yet again, the cost of a green economy is buried so deep not even a PhD can unravel “who pays”.
They call it a win for environmental groups, which tells us it’s there to prop up the renewables industry, but of course, the only parts of the “environment” that will benefit from this are the unintended parts. Wind Turbines are the new top predator in the ecosystem. So lizards living under wind farms will be happy because predatory birds will be killed off.
Complexity breeds corruption: Somehow we have to estimate what customers would have used to pay them for what they didn’t. This is a market of nullities again.
Under the change, large electricity users (such as big farms, factories and commercial enterprises) will be able to bid reductions in demand into the wholesale market and get paid for taking their demand out of the system.
Over time, demand response is expected to be extended to households and smaller businesses who sign up with companies that “sell” power reductions from thousands of customers into the market at times when wholesale prices are high.
When a person gets saved he is going from one master (Satan) to another Master (the Lord Jesus Christ). So, it was with John Jasper.
‘ IT is as a preacher that John Jasper is most interesting. His personality was notable and full of force anywhere, but the pulpit was the stage of his chief performance. It is worth while to bear in mind that he began to preach in 1839 and that was twenty-five years before the coming of freedom. For a quarter of a century, therefore, he was a preacher while yet a slave. His time, of course, under the law belonged to his master, and under the laws of the period, he could preach only under very serious limitations. He could go only when his master said he might, and he could preach only when some white minister or committee was present to see that things were conducted in an orderly way. This is the hard way of stating the case, but there are many ways of getting around such regulations. The man who could preach, though a negro, rarely failed of an opportunity to preach. The man who was fit for the work had friends who enabled him to “shy around” his limitations.
There was one thing which the negro greatly insisted upon, and which not even the most hard-hearted masters were ever quite willing to deny them. They could never bear that their dead should be put away without a funeral. Not that they expected, at the time of the burial, to have the funeral service. Indeed, they did not desire it, and it was never according to their notions. A funeral to them was a pageant. It was a thing to be arranged for a long time ahead. It was to be marked by the gathering of the kindred and friends from far and wide. It was not satisfactory unless there was a vast and excitable crowd. It usually meant an all-day meeting, and often a meeting in a grove, and it drew white and black alike, sometimes almost in equal numbers. Another demand in the case,–for the slaves knew how to make their demands,–was that the negro preacher “should preach the funeral,” as they called it. In things like this, the wishes of the slaves generally prevailed. “The funeral” loomed up weeks in advance, and although marked by sable garments, mournful manners and sorrowful outcries, it had about it hints of an elaborate social function with festive accompaniments. There was much staked on the fame of the officiating brother. He must be one of their own colour, and a man of reputation. They must have a man to plough up their emotional depths, and they must have freedom to indulge in the extravagancies of their sorrow. These demonstrations were their tribute to their dead and were expected to be fully adequate to do honour to the family.
It was in this way that Jasper’s fame began. At first, his tempestuous, ungrammatical eloquence was restricted to Richmond, and there it was hedged in with many humbling limitations. But gradually the news concerning this fiery and thrilling orator sifted itself into the country, and many invitations came for him to officiate at country funerals.
He was preëminently a funeral preacher. A negro funeral without an uproar, without shouts and groans, without fainting women and shouting men, without pictures of triumphant deathbeds and the judgment day, and without the gates of heaven wide open and the subjects of the funeral dressed in white and rejoicing around the throne of the Lamb, was no funeral at all. Jasper was a master from the outset at this work. One of his favourite texts, as a young preacher, was that which was recorded in Revelations, sixth chapter, and second verse: “And I saw and beheld a white horse; and he that sat upon him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.” Before the torrent of his florid and spectacular eloquence the people were swept down to the ground, and sometimes for hours many seemed to be in trances, not a few lying as if they were dead.
Jasper’s first visit to the country as a preacher of which we have any account was to Hanover County. A prominent and wealthy slaveholder had the custom of allowing his servants to have imposing funerals, when their kindred and friends died; but those services were always conducted by a white minister. In some way the fame of Jasper had penetrated that community, and one of the slaves asked his master to let Jasper come and attend the funeral. But to this the master made an objection. He knew nothing about Jasper, and did not believe that any negro was capable of preaching the Gospel with good effect. This negro was not discouraged by the refusal of the proprietor of the great plantation to grant his request. He went out and collected a number of most trustworthy and influential negro men and they came in a body to his master and renewed the plea. They told him in their way about what a great man Jasper was, how anxious they were to hear him, what a comfort his presence would be to the afflicted family, and how thankful they would be to have their request honoured. They won their point in part. He said to them, as if yielding reluctantly, “very well, let him come.” They however had something more to say. They knew Jasper would need to have a good reason in order to get his master’s consent for him to come, and they knew that Jasper would not come unless he came under the invitation and protection of the white people, and therefore they asked the gentleman if he would not write a letter inviting him to come. Accordingly, in a spirit of compromise and courtesy very pleasing to the coloured people, the letter was written and Jasper came.
The news of his expected coming spread like a flame. Not only the country people in large numbers, but quite a few of the Richmond people, made ready to attend the great occasion. Jasper went out in a private conveyance, the distance not being great, and, in his kind wish to take along as many friends as possible, he overloaded the wagon and had a breakdown. The delay in his arrival was very long and unexplained; but still the people lingered and beguiled the time with informal religious services.
At length the Richmond celebrity appeared on the scene late in the day. The desire to hear him was imperative, and John Jasper was equal to the occasion. Late as the hour was, and wearied as were the people, he spoke with overmastering power. The owner of the great company of slaves on that plantation was among his hearers, and he could not resist the spell of devout eloquence which poured from the lips of the unscholared Jasper. It was a sermon from the heart, full of personal passion and hot with gospel fervour, and the heart of the lord of the plantation was powerfully moved. He undertook to engage Jasper to preach on the succeeding Sunday and handed the blushing preacher quite a substantial monetary token of his appreciation.
The day was accounted memorable by reason of the impression which Jasper made. Indeed, Jasper was a master of assemblies. No politician could handle a crowd with more consummate tact than he. He was the king of hearts and could sway throngs as the wind shakes the trees.
There is a facetious story abroad among the negroes that in those days Jasper went to Farmville to officiate on a funeral occasion where quite a number of the dead were to have their virtues commemorated and where their “mouming friends,” as Jasper in time came to call them, were to be comforted. The news that Jasper was to be there went out on the wings of the wind and vast throngs attended. Of course, a white minister was present and understood that he was the master of ceremonies. The story is, that he felt that it would not be safe to entrust an occasion so vastly interesting to the hands of Jasper, and he decided that he would quiet Jasper and satisfy the public demands by calling on Jasper to pray. As a fact, Jasper was about as much of an orator in speaking to heaven as he was in speaking to mortal men. His prayer had such contagious and irresistible eloquence that whatever the Lord did about it, it surely brought quite a resistless response from the crowd. When the white preacher ended his tame and sapless address, the multitude cried out for Jasper. Inspired by the occasion and emboldened by the evident disposition to shut him out, Jasper took fire and on eagle wings he mounted into the heavens and gave such a brilliant and captivating address that the vast crowd went wild with joy and enthusiasm
There is yet another story of a time when Jasper was called into the country where he and a white minister were to take part in one of the combined funerals so common at that time. Upon arriving at the church the white minister was unutterably shocked to find that his associate in the services was a negro. That was too much for him, and he decided on the spot that if he went in, Jasper would have to stay out, and he decided that he would go in and would stay in until the time was over and leave Jasper to his reflections on the outside. For two hours the white brother beat the air, killed time, and quite wearied the crowd by his lumbering and tiresome discourse. After he had arrived at the point where it seemed that no more could be said, the exhausted and exhausting brother closed his sermon and was arranging to end the service. But the people would not have it so. Tumultuously they cried out for Jasper,–a cry in which the whites outdid the blacks. It was not in Jasper to ignore such appreciation. Of all men, he had the least desire or idea of being snubbed or side-tracked. With that mischievous smile which was born of the jubilant courage of his soul, Jasper came forth. He knew well the boundaries of his rights, and needed no danger signals to warn him off hostile ground. For fifteen or twenty minutes he poured forth a torrent of passionate oratory,–not empty and frivolous words, but a message rich with comfort and help, and uttered only as he could utter it. The effect was electrical. The white people crowded around him to congratulate and thank him, and went away telling the story of his greatness.
Tradition has failed to give us the name of the ill-fated brother who in seeking to kill time, seemed to have got knocked into oblivion. It is worth while to say that the white ministers were within the law in attending occasions like those described above and felt the necessity of care and discretion in managing the exercises, lest the hostilities of irreligious people should be excited against the negroes. It is due to the white people, and especially to that denomination to which John Jasper was associated, to say that under their influence the negroes, who were practically barbarians when they were brought into the South, were civilized and Christianized. A large proportion of them were well-mannered and nobly-behaved Christians at the time their slavery ended. The church buildings were always constructed so that the white people and the negroes could worship in the same house. They were baptized by the same minister, they sat down together at the communion table, they heard the same sermons, sang the same songs, were converted at the same meetings, and were baptized at the same time. Ofttimes, and in almost all places, they were allowed to have services to themselves. In this, of course, they enjoyed a larger freedom than when they met in the same house with the white people.
They know little of the facts who imagine that there was estrangement and alienation between the negroes and the whites in the matter of religion. Far from it. There was much of good fellowship between the whites and negroes in the churches, and the white ministers took notable interest in the religious welfare of the slaves. They often visited them pastorally and gladly talked with them about their salvation. These chapters are not intended either to defend or to condemn slavery; but in picturing the condition of things which encompassed Jasper during the days of slavery, it is worth while to let it be understood that it was during their bondage and under the Christian influence of Southern people, that the negroes of the South were made a Christian people. It was the best piece of missionary work ever yet done upon the face of the earth.
Another fact should be referred to here. Jasper was a pastor in the City of Petersburg even before the breaking out of the Civil War. He had charge of one of the less prominent negro churches and went over from Richmond for two Sundays in each month. This, of course, showed the enlargement of his liberty, that he could take the time to leave the city so often in pursuance of his ministerial work.
It need hardly be mentioned that his presence in Petersburg brought unusual agitation. He fairly depopulated the other negro churches and drew crowds that could not be accommodated. When it was rumoured that Jasper was to preach for the first time on Sunday afternoon, the Rev. Dr. Keene, of the First Baptist Church, and many other white people attended. They were much concerned lest his coming should produce a disturbance, and they went with the idea of preventing any undue excitement. Jasper, flaming with fervid zeal and exhilarated with the freedom of the truth, carried everything before him. He had not preached long before the critical white people were stirred to the depths of their souls and their emotion showed in their weeping.
They beheld and felt the wonderful power of the man. It is said that Dr. Keene was completely captivated, and recognized in Jasper a man whom God had called.’ https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/hatcher/hatcher.html
The world is going or has gone NUTS. Here in Australia the politicians are going stark raving mad over solar and wind power. Well, the truth is that solar only works when the sun shines and turbines only turn when the wind blows. One doesn’t have to be a scientist in any field to know that! However, when the public throws money into a public purse where elected officials have the seemingly freedom to spend it however they want then stupid things happen. Near where I live the supposedly conservative state government of New South Wales is throwing another ‘$31.6 million’ into a solar panel farm https://dugaldsaunders.com.au/renewable-energy-zone-sparking-investment-boom/#comment-115. Oh, and the same day I read this news concerning the solar farm I received a letter from the electricity company saying their rates were going up in July. Anyway, the article below outlines the result of a state that has gone crazy over renewable energy.
The Pollies that are pushing renewable energy in NSW
‘In South Australia – Australia’s wind and solar capital – the situation is out of control and has reached the point of high farce, with the grid manager begging for legislated powers to shut down domestic rooftop solar panels in the hope of preventing another total ‘system black’ taking South Australians back to the Dark Ages, once again.
AEMO report says solar surge leaves SA at risk of major blackouts The Advertiser Matt Smith 18 June 2020
SA’s leading uptake of rooftop solar systems leaves the state at risk of mass blackouts, a new report says, triggering a multimillion-dollar push for the power to cut them off as needed.
Household solar panel systems could be turned on and off under State Government instructions in a bid to avert statewide blackouts predicted as early as this spring, a new report shows.
The unprecedented move is being triggered by concerns from the national energy market operator that South Australia’s world-leading take-up of solar panels is making the grid unstable.
The concerns, raised in an Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) report obtained by The Advertiser, include that solar systems can stop working after voltage disturbances – or sudden losses of power – which was one of the triggers for the 2016 statewide blackout.
The findings will prompt a $10 million state government investment to fund measures that will allow it to switch household solar on and off to stabilise the grid.
The measure would shore up stability of the grid to help avoid mass blackouts but would also cut revenue earned by the household feeding electricity back into the grid.
The report says that solar panel systems can fail in response to sudden changes in the power grid’s operation.
The concerns are raised even further because AEMO predicts household solar panels in SA could provide 100 per cent of the state’s energy needs on certain days within a few years.
But it says there is “considerable evidence that many distributed PV inverters (solar panel systems) disconnect in response to voltage disturbances” – similar to challenges faced by wind turbines during the 2016 statewide blackout.
It has raised concerns within government that if SA was cut off from the national electricity grid and large numbers of solar panel systems failed, the state could be again plunged into a blackout.
The statewide grid relies on a mix of reliable energy sources, more volatile intermittent renewable energy including solar, and baseload gas.
New rules, which The Advertiser understands will be announced Friday, mean the market operator will have the ability to reduce solar panel outputs – stopping households pushing power back into the grid. New solar panel systems would also be able to be controlled by the market operator via smart meters.
“Analysis in this report demonstrates that a severe but credible fault (in the grid) near the Adelaide metropolitan area could cause disconnection of up to half the distributed PV (solar panels) in the South Australian region,” the report says. Government sources said the issue was incredibly serious, echoing the problems that led to the statewide blackout in 2016.
A loss of power from wind farms and tripping of the interconnector to Victoria combined to collapse the stability of SA’s network and deliver the statewide blackout, a 2017 AEMO report found. The government sources said commissioning of the report had probably saved a repeat of that incident.
There is already so much rooftop solar in South Australia that, at times AEMO struggles to securely manage the system. Figures from the Clean Energy Regulator show there are about 276,000 solar panel systems on SA homes – representing about 35 per cent of all dwellings in the state.
An estimated 11 per cent of small business and 24 per cent of large businesses have solar. Last year, there were times when 64 per cent of SA’s power use was from rooftop solar. The report said SA has already experienced dangerously low operational demand that is required to maintain a stable electricity grid.
One doesn’t have to be a scientist of any kind to know the sun does not produce as much heat in the winter as the summer. Duh! All this solar and wind renewable talk is lies. For instance there is an ad for solar that tells the viewer that the solar panels will be paid for by the savings. Nah, for most average homes this is an out and out lie. Sadly, governments contribute to this lie sometimes by millions of taxpayer dollars https://www.theland.com.au/story/6781773/solar-farm-at-goulburn/?src=rss&utm_email=1ec342a17f.
‘When energy policy sounds like something from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass it’s because lunatics have overrun of the asylum.
Sure, those with skin in the game will say and do anything that needs to be said and done to profit from the most obscene subsidy rort in history. But, their licence to operate comes from the great unwashed proletariat, plenty of whom are convinced that we’re well on our way to an all wind and sun powered future. It is, of course, just another example of mass delusion and the madness of crowds.
As the adage goes, people go mad in herds and regain their senses, slowly, and one by one.
Films like Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans may herald just such a turning point, where logic and reason re-enter the fray to do battle with the unhinged emotions and irrational ideology of those who would readily drive us all back to the Dark Ages.
Norman Rogers delivers a neat little essay on the current state of energy insanity and how we landed where we are.
Green Electricity Delusions American Thinker Norman Rogers 22 May 2020
With global warming the alleged science is so complicated that nobody, including the global warming scientists, can really understand what is going on. Green electricity, mostly solar and wind, is different. It’s relatively clear cut. No supercomputers spewing out terabytes of confusing data are needed.
Green electricity is quite useless. The latest trend in green electricity is wind or solar with battery backup. This green electricity costs about nine times more than the fossil fuel electricity it displaces. The true cost is hidden from the public by hidden subsidies and fake accounting. (My book, Dumb Energy, goes into great analytical detail.)
Green electricity is ineffective for preventing climate change. The climate change alarmists James Hansen and Michael Shellenberger make the case forcefully in this video. Hansen is the most important and most famous scientist warning against climate change. His followers consider him to be the greatest authority on the dangers of climate change. He calls wind and solar energy a “grotesque idea” and a “fantasy.”
It’s true that we won’t run out of wind or sunshine. That doesn’t mean that wind and sunshine are effective tools for making electricity. They aren’t. The exhaustion of fossil fuels has been predicted many times. The current situation is that fossil fuels are in great over supply and the prices have crashed to low levels. Natural gas, currently the most economical fossil fuel for generating electricity, is painfully cheap and is being extensively exported from the United States to other countries.
Natural gas from wells, not served by pipelines to take it to market, is burned or flared to get rid of it. Only the more valuable oil is kept. Thanks to fracking, we have plenty of natural gas for the next 100-years.
Promoters of quack medicine sell various pills guaranteed to improve your memory or your sex life. Green energy is quackery too. It is promoted by green organizations like the Sierra Club. At one time the Sierra Club was a harmless club of backpackers and bird watchers. But it was taken over by ideologues driven by the delusion that modern society is a destructive fraud that must be rescued by the adoption of green principles. These armchair green commandos are math handicapped. They regularly propose policies that make no sense. The green commandos pontificate confidently without real understanding.
Coal is an excellent fuel for generating electricity. Unlike natural gas or oil, coal has limited uses other than generating electricity. The Sierra Club hates coal because it competes successfully against their beloved green wind and solar.
No lie is too outrageous as long as it is useful for discrediting coal. The Sierra Club uses trick photography to make it look like coal plants emit clouds of black smoke. The trick is to photograph clean white clouds of “steam” with the sun behind the plant. That makes the harmless white clouds look black. The exhaust products are composed of water vapor and carbon dioxide with very little pollution. As the exhaust mixes with the cool air, it condenses into a white cloud of clean water droplets commonly called steam.
In modern coal plants, almost all pollution is scrubbed away before the exhaust goes into the smokestack.
Residential rooftop solar energy is an uneconomic method for generating electricity but it sounds convincing to the naïve. Rooftop solar panels lack economy of scale. These small installations generate electricity for about three times more per kilowatt hour than the large-scale utility installations. The homeowner reduces his consumption of grid electricity, reducing his electric bill. Excess solar electricity is sold back to the utility, often at a price far higher than the cost of wholesale electricity.
The beauty of this scheme is that if the rules are sufficiently rigged in favor of the homeowner, it is possible for the homeowner to save money. No one could complain if the homeowner disconnected from the electric utility. But no one is disconnecting unless they live off grid. The utility is expected to maintain a power line to the home and maintain excess generating capacity to take over supplying electricity if it is cloudy or it is nighttime.
The true cost of maintaining this backup service, exclusive of any electricity sales, is around $100 per month, but utilities commonly charge only around $10 or $15 a month for a connection before the first kilowatt hour is sold. Every kilowatt hour of utility electricity displaced by solar costs the utility gross profit. If the utility is forced to buy the homeowner’s electricity at retail rates the utility may end up paying much more than the reasonable wholesale cost of the electricity.
In some places the homeowner is even allowed to bank excess solar electricity and draw it at a later time. The utility doesn’t have a bank where it can store electricity. In short, rooftop solar is a scheme of making everyone else subsidize the homeowner. The homeowner is under the delusion that he has discovered cheaper electricity. It is cheaper only because everyone else bears the cost.
The crippling weakness of wind or solar electricity is their intermittent and erratic nature. A fossil-fuel generating plant can be fired up as needed and throttled up and down as the consumption of electricity changes. Wind or solar generates electricity according to the vagaries of the weather. The grid operators, except in extreme circumstances, are required to accept all the green electricity presented. In order to do this, fossil-fuel plants have to seesaw their output to compensate for the erratic wind or solar.
Wind and solar plants can’t replace fossil-fuel plants for the simple reason that at times the wind and solar plants are not generating electricity. You must have enough fossil fuel along with hydro and nuclear to carry the full load. The consequence is that the system has to continue to maintain and pay for its traditional plants regardless of how much wind and solar is added to the grid. The only economic contribution of wind or solar is to reduce fuel consumption in the fossil-fuel plants during times when wind or solar electricity is being generated.
The proper cost comparison is to compare the cost of green electricity versus the marginal cost (fuel) of operating the fossil-fuel plants. Natural-gas plants have a fuel cost of about $15 per megawatt hour. Wind or solar with battery backup costs about $130 per megawatt hour.
For grid stability reasons new wind and solar plants are being equipped with battery storage, greatly increasing the cost. Without the battery backup wind or solar electricity costs around $75 per megawatt hour. To be clear, the electricity supplied by wind or solar at $75 to $130 per megawatt hour (not counting subsidies) could be generated in existing fossil fuel plants for $15 per megawatt hour.
A University education is not always the best education!
HOW JASPER GOT HIS SCHOOLING
THESE chapters disclaim outright any pretension to biography. They deal with a weird, indescribable and mysterious genius, standing out in gloomy grandeur, and not needing the setting forth of ordinary incidents. At the same time, when an extraordinary man comes along and does masterful things, there be some who are ready to ask questions. Was he educated? Well, yes, he was. He had rare educational advantages, not in the schools; but what of that? A genius has no use for a school, except so far as it teaches him the art of thinking. If we run back to the boyhood of Jasper and look him over we find that he had, after all, distinct educational advantages.
It is another case of a good mother. We know that her name was Nina, and that she was the wife of Philip Jasper, and if tradition tells the truth she was the mother of twenty-four children–a premature applicant for the Rooseveltian prize. John was the last, and was not born until two months after his father’s death. Truly grace as well as genius was needed in his case, or he would have struck the wrong road.
That mother was the head of the working women on the Fluvanna farm and learned to govern by reason of the position she held. Her appointment bespoke her character, and her work improved it. Later on, she became in another home the chief of the servant force in a rich family. It was quite a good place. It brought her in contact with cultivated people and the imitative quality in the negro helped her to learn the manners and to imbibe the spirit of the lady. Later on still, she became a nurse to look after the sick at the Negro Quarters. There she had to do with doctors, medicines and counsellors and helpers. Add to all this, she was a sober, thoughtful, godly woman, and you will quite soon reach the conclusion that she was a very excellent teacher for John; and John coming latest in the domestic procession found her rich in experience, matured in motherliness, and enlarged in her outlook of life.
John’s father was a preacher. Harsh things, and some of them needlessly false, are said of the fact that there were no negro preachers in the times of the slaveholding. It is true, that the laws of the country did not allow independent organizations of negroes, and negro preachers were not allowed, except by the consent of their masters, to go abroad preaching the Gospel. They could not accept pastoral charges, and were hampered, as all must admit, by grievous restrictions, but there were negro preachers in that day just the same,–scores of them, and in one way and another they had many privileges and did good and effective service. One thing about the negro preacher of the ante bellum era was his high character. It is true that the owner of slaves was not in all cases adapted to determine the moral character of the slave who wanted to preach, and too often, it may be admitted, his prejudices and self-interest may have ruled out some men who ought to have been allowed to preach. It is a pity if this were true. But this strictness had one advantage. When the master of a negro man allowed him to preach it was an endorsement, acceptable and satisfactory, wherever the man went. If they thought he was all right at home, he could pass muster elsewhere.
Now, concerning John’s father, tradition has proved exceedingly partial. It has glorified Tina the mother with fine extravagance, but it has cut Philip unmercifully. John could get little out of his father, for they were not contemporaries, and as his brothers and sisters seemed to have been born for oblivion, we can trace little of his distinction to the old household in Fluvanna.
But we dare say that Philip, the preacher, remembered chiefly because he was a preacher, had something to do in a subtle way with John’s training. Nor must we fail to remember that Jasper himself grew up in contact with a fine old Virginia family. Fools there be many who love to talk of the shattering of the old aristocracy of Virginia. The First Families of Virginia have been the sport of the vulgar, and their downfall has been a tragedy which the envious greedily turned into a comedy. But people ought to have some sense. They ought to see things in their proper relation. They ought to know that in the atmosphere of the old Virginia home the negroes, and especially those who served in person the heads of the family, caught the cue of the gentleman and the lady. I can stand on the streets of Richmond to-day and pick out the coloured men and women who grew up in homes of refinement, and who still bear about them the signs of it. Bent by age, and many of them tortured by infirmity, they still bear the marks of their old masters. They constitute a class quite apart from those of later times and are unequalled by them. I rejoice in all the comforts and advantages which have come to the negroes,–most heartily I thank heaven for their freedom and for all that freedom has brought them; but I do not hesitate to say that one of the losses was that contact with courtly, dignified, and royal people which many of them had before the Civil War. And even those on the plantations, while removed farther from the lights of the great castles in which their masters lived, walked not in darkness entirely, but unconsciously felt the transforming power of those times.
John Jasper was himself an aristocrat. His mode of dress, his manner of walking, his lofty dignity, all told the story. He received an aristocratic education, and he never lost it. Besides this, he had a most varied experience as a slave. He grew up on the farm, and knew what it was to be a plantation hand. He learned to work in the tobacco factory. He worked also in the foundries, and also served around the houses of the families with whom he lived; for it must be understood that after the breaking up of the Peachy family he changed owners and lived in different places. These things enlarged his scope, and with that keen desire to know things he learned at every turn of life.
After his conversion he became a passionate student. He acknowledges one who sought to teach him to read, and after he became a preacher he spelled out the Bible for himself. He was eager to hear other men preach and to talk with those who were wiser than he. And so he kept on learning as long as he lived, though of course he missed the help of the schools, and never crossed the threshold of worldly science in his pursuit of knowledge.
It may be well to say here that Jasper never lost his pride in white people. He delighted to be with them. Thousands upon thousands went to hear him, and while there was a strain of curiosity in many of them there was an under-note of respect and kindliness which always thrilled his heart and did him good. Time and again he spoke to me personally of white people, and always with a beautiful appreciation. It is noteworthy that the old man rode his high horse when his house was partly filled with white people, and it would be no exaggeration to say that not since the end of the war has any negro been so much loved or so thoroughly believed in as John Jasper. https://docsouth.unc.edu/church/hatcher/hatcher.html
‘Does science rule out the possibility of miracles? Or does science – with its predictable physical laws – define miracles when one of these laws is seemingly broken? That is the intriguing topic of our “Science and Miracles” video.’ https://creationmoments.com/
It doesn’t take many smarts to know biologically that there are ONLY two sexes. However, the result of this belief that a boy may be a girl or vice versa is that ‘Keira Bell can never get her childhood back. And her body, a scarred and mangled reminder, tells her every day. “I am living in a world where I don’t fit in as male or as female. I am stuck between two sexes.” Now 23, she’s dedicated her life to stop teenagers from making the same mistake. And suing the clinic responsible is step number one. Keira was just a child when she walked into England’s Tavistock clinic and declared she wanted to be a boy. The staff didn’t blink. Despite just starting her periods and having no other real psychological evaluation or therapy, Tavistock prescribed her the puberty blockers that ultimately ruined her life. “I should have been challenged on the claims that I was making for myself,” Keira told the judges. “And I think that would have made a big difference as well. If I was just challenged on the things I was saying.” If an adult had taken her aside, talked to her about her feelings, maybe none of this would have happened. As soon as she started taking the drugs, Keira said “it was like turning off a tap.” Her development as a young woman just stopped. And nobody warned her. “I had symptoms similar to the menopause when a woman’s hormones drop. I had hot flushes, I found it difficult to sleep, my sex drive disappeared. I was given calcium tablets because my bones weakened. My female hormones had been flushing through my body and, suddenly, a curtain came down on them.” It felt awful she says. Three years later, after having her breasts removed free of charge (courtesy of the government), she was filled with crushing regret. She stumbled on charities and advocates that help young people reverse the damage. Now that she’s gone public, trying to hold Tavistock accountable, Keira says she’s been contacted by “hundreds of young adults” who wish they’d never walked down this path. “The treatment has not solved their problems.”
Here in the U.S., the battle over puberty blockers and transgender advocacy is just as intense. Eight states are trying to impose age limits on the drugs — which would have spared teens like Keira years of horrible agony. But the reason lawmakers have had to step in, the Wall Street Journal’s Abigail Shrier says, is because “scientists aren’t engaging in honesty.” In a powerful conversation with FRC’s Sarah Perry, she told the listeners of “Washington Watch,” “Look, I’m a journalist. I’m not an activist. My job is not to stop people from using puberty blockers on their children. My job is to tell the truth — and on this issue, not enough people are telling the truth. And the truth is… we have no idea what the long-term effects of these drugs will be.” In the Left’s rush to medicalize kids and trap them into this lifestyle, there’s been an explosion of these prescriptions without any thought to the permanent consequences. “We’re going to see a lot of lawsuits,” Abigail predicted. “And the reason is — the doctors are being activists rather than being doctors. I’ve interviewed a lot of doctors on this topic, and they’ll tell you that when they go to conferences, [whenever there’s] a new heart medicine or any other kind of medicine, there’s an open discussion of risks and benefits — because all medications have risks and benefits. But when it comes to transgender medicine… one researcher I interviewed said it was like an infomercial for trans. In other words, no discussion of risks were ever assessed.” That’s a terrifying thought, she says when you consider how profoundly these puberty blockers affect the human body. “They shut down the part of the pituitary that stimulates puberty, so that eight-, nine-, and 10-year-olds will not go through the normal puberty. The sexual organs will remain the size… and the capacity of a small child. They will not have the potential for orgasm, and they may … be permanently infertile.” Not to mention, Abigail goes on, that these hormones flood the brain. “So what’s we’re doing is an experiment that we don’t know the long term effects of. And patients aren’t being advised of that.” And what if there are underlying mental health issues that no one knows about? When you attack the brain with these cross-sex hormones for a child struggling with conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, even high-functioning autism, which is sometimes the case for these girls, “one can only wonder,” Sarah pointed out, “what that kind of medical intervention does.” And yet no one in the medical community seems to have the nerve to call everyone together and demand scientific research on this — something that would be routine on any other treatment. Even more worrisome, Abigail says, America has gone from two gender clinics in the last decade to well over 50. But that doesn’t include groups like Planned Parenthood, who, believe it or not, are now one of the biggest dispensers of cross-sex hormones in the country. So along with killing unborn children, they’re also embracing a separate track to make generations completely infertile. All the while keeping parents — as they usually do — in the dark. Yet, thanks to Obamacare, these pricey drugs and gender transitions are, in some cases, completely free for young people. Or, at the very least, of minimal cost. “So, all of the sudden, these were readily available. You could get these fancy surgeries, and it costs you almost nothing. So, unsurprisingly, you’re seeing a lot greater demand for it.” But that demand must be met by a different demand from parents, citizens, and doctors: for safety, accountability, and caution. It’s time to stop the radical Left from experimenting on our children before, as Keria found out, it’s too late.’ https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4118
1 Corinthians 3:19 …For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
With all the chaos that has been created around the world with the BLM it is good to read about a Black man that was truly a slave to another man but came to be ‘a servant of Jesus Christ’ . This is the story of John Jasper from the book John Jasper, the unmatched Negro philosopher and preacher. The following is just the Introduction to the book that tells of a more contemporary Onesimus in the life of John Jasper. In the days to come more of the book will be given here. To God be the Glory!
'INTRODUCTION
READER ; stay a moment. A word with you before you begin to sample this book. We will tell you some things in advance, which may help you to decide whether it is worth while to read
any further. These pages deal with a negro, and are not designed either to help or to hurt the negro race. They have only to do with one man. He was one of a class, without pedigree,
and really without successors, except that he was so dominant and infectious that numbers of people affected his ways and dreamed that they were one of his sort. As a fact, they were simply of
another and of a baser sort.
The man in question was a negro, and if you cannot appreciate greatness in a black skin you would do well to turn your thoughts into some other channel. Moreover, he was a negro covered over with ante bellum habits and ways of doing. He lived forty years before the war and for about forty years after it. He grew wonder-fully as a freeman ; but he never grew away from
the tastes, dialects, and manners of the bondage times. He was a man left over from the old regime and never got infected with the new order. The air of the educated negro preacher didn't set well upon him. The raw scholarship of the new " ish," as he called it, was sounding brass to him. As a fact, the new generation of
negro preachers sent out by the schools drew back from this man. They branded him as an anachronism, and felt that his presence in the pulpit was a shock to religion and an offense to the ministry ; and yet not one of them ever attained the celebrity or achieved the results which came to this unlettered and grievously ungram-
matical son of Africa.
But do not be afraid that you are to be fooled into the fanatical camp. This story comes from the pen of a Virginian who claims no exemption from Southern prejudices and feels no call to
sound the praises of the negro race. Indeed, he never intended to write what is contained within the covers of this book. It grew up spontaneously and most of the contents were written before the
book was thought of.
It is, perhaps, too much to expect that the meddlers with books will take the ipse dixit of an unaccredited stranger. They ought not to do it : they are not asked to do it. They can go on about their business, if they prefer ; but if they do, they will miss the story of the incomparable negro of the South. This is said with sobriety and after a half century spent in close observa-
tion of the negro race.
More than that, the writer of this never had any intention of bothering with this man when he first loomed up into notoriety. He got drawn in unexpectedly. He heard that there was a
marvel of a man "over in Africa," a not too savoury portion of Richmond, Virginia, and one Sunday afternoon in company with a Scot- Irishman, who was a scholar and a critic, with a strong leaning towards ridicule, he went to hear him preach. Shades of our Anglo-Saxon fathers!
Did mortal lips ever gush with such torrents of horrible English ! Hardly a word came out clothed and in its right mind. And gestures !
He circled around the pulpit with his ankle in his hand ; and laughed and sang and shouted and acted about a dozen characters within the space of three minutes. Meanwhile, in spite of these
things, he was pouring out a gospel sermon, red hot, full of love, full of invective, full of tenderness, full of bitterness, full of tears, full of every passion that ever flamed in the human breast.
He was a theatre within himself, with the stage crowded with actors. He was a battle-field ; himself the general, the staff, the officers, the common soldiery, the thundering artillery and the rattling musketry. He was the preacher ; likewise the church and the choir and the deacons and the congregation. The Scot-Irishman surrendered in fifteen minutes after the affair commenced, but the other man was hard-hearted and stubborn and refused to commit himself. He preferred to wait until he got out of doors and let the wind blow on him and see what was left. He determined to go again ; and he went and kept going, off and on,
for twenty years. That was before the negro became a national figure. It was before he startled his race with his philosophy as to the rotation of the sun. It was before he became a lecturer and a sensation, sought after from all parts of the country. Then it was that he captured the Scot-Irish and the other man also.
What is written here constitutes the gatherings of nearly a quarter of a century, and, frankly speaking, is a tribute to the brother in black, the one unmatched, unapproachable, and wonderful brother.
But possibly the reader is of the practical sort. He would like to get the worldly view of this African genius and to find out of what stuff he was made. Very well ; he will be gratified !
Newspapers are heartlessly practical. They are grudging of editorial commendation, and in Richmond, at the period, they were sparing of references of any kind to negroes. You could hardly expect them to say anything commendatory of a negro, if he was a negro, with odd and impossible notions. Now this man was of that
very sort. He got it into his big skull that the earth was flat, and that the sun rotated ; a scientific absurdity ! But you see he proved it by the Bible. He ransacked the whole book and
got up ever so many passages. He took them just as he found them. It never occurred to him that the Bible was not dealing with natural science, and that it was written in an age and
country when astronomy was unknown and therefore written in the language of the time. Intelligent people understand this very well, but this miracle of his race was behind his era. He
took the Bible literally, and, with it in hand, he fought his battles about the sun. Literally, but not scientifically, he proved his position, and he gave some of his devout antagonists a world of botheration by the tenacity with which he held
to his views and the power with which he stated his case. Scientifically, he was one of the ancients, but that did not interfere with his piety and did not at all eclipse his views. His perfect honesty was most apparent in all of his contentions ; and, while some laughed at what they called his vagaries, those who knew him best respected him none the less, but rather the more, for his astronomical combat. There was something in his
love of the Bible, his faith in every letter of it, and his courage, that drew to him the good will and lofty respect of uncounted thousands and, probably, it might be said, of uncounted millions. Now when this man died it was as the fall of a
tower. It was a crash, heard and felt farther than was the collapse of the famous tower at Venice. If the dubious, undecided reader has not broken down on the road but has come this far, he is invited to look at the subjoined editorial from Tke Richmond Dispatch, the leading morning paper of Richmond, Va., which published at the time an article on this lofty figure, now national in its proportions and imperishable in its fame,
when it bowed to the solemn edict of death.
(From The Richmond Dispatch}
" It is a sad coincidence that the destruction of the Jefferson Hotel and the death of the Rev. John Jasper should have fallen upon the same day. John Jasper was a Richmond Institution, as surely so as was Major Ginter's fine hotel. He was a national character, and he and his philosophy were known from one end of the land to the other. Some people have the impression that John Jasper was famous simply because he flew in the face of the scientists and declared that the sun moved. In one sense, that is
true, but it is also true that his fame was due, in great measure, to a strong personality, to a deep, earnest conviction, as well as to a devout Christian character. Some preachers might have made this assertion about the sun's motion without having attracted any special attention. The people would have laughed over it, and the incident would have passed by as a summer breeze.
But John Jasper made an impression upon his generation, because he was sincerely and deeply in earnest in all that he said. No man could talk with him in private, or listen to him from
the pulpit, without being thoroughly convinced of that fact. His implicit trust in the Bible and everything in it, was beautiful and impressive.
He had no other lamp by which his feet were guided. He had no other science, no other philosophy. He took the Bible in its literal significance ; he accepted it as the inspired word of
God ; he trusted it with all his heart and soul and mind ; he believed nothing that was in conflict with the teachings of the Bible scientists and philosophers and theologians to the contrary
notwithstanding.
" ' They tried to make it appear,' said he, in the last talk we had with him on the subject, ' that John Jasper was a fool and a liar when he said that the sun moved. I paid no attention to it at first, because I did not believe that the so-called scientists were in earnest. I did not think that there was any man in the world fool enough to believe that the sun did not move, for everybody had seen it move. But when I found that these so-called scientists were in earnest I took down my old Bible and proved that they, and not John Jasper, were the fools and the liars.' And there was no more doubt in his mind on that subject
than there was of his existence. John Jasper had the faith that removed mountains. He knew the literal Bible as well as Bible scholars did. He did not understand it from the scientific point of view, but he knew its teachings and understood its spirit, and he believed in it. He accepted it as the true word of God, and he preached it with unction and with power.
" John Jasper became famous by accident, but he was a most interesting man apart from his solar theory. He was a man of deep convictions, a man with a purpose in life, a man who earnestly
desired to save souls for heaven. He followed his divine calling with faithfulness, with a determination, as far as he could, to make the ways of his God known unto men, His saving health
among all nations. And the Lord poured upon His servant, Jasper, ' the continual dew of His blessing.' "'
whatyareckon 