JONAH AND THE WHALE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 302, 15 September 1908, Page 4

JONAH AND THE WHALE.

...» Zi At tho of Christ, Riddiford Street, on Sunday evening, Mr. 1 'A'. F. Turner, discoursing oil the story of Jonah and tho whale, dealt witli'.tho objections urged by some of tho of; the .incidents in l tho narrative. Mr. ','i'urirer contended that- there was abundant evidenco their.- having - actually .occurred. "wThoiCfactV!that7Christ referred' to' Jonah's <Sporifii}cb'»sjl b'ding analogous to tho about to take place in His own and spoke of the repentonc'o"'bf tliaiNihovites as a condemnation! was altogether story 'being ■ more--allegory under which it was-'spoken'.'wore? taken into consideration. Tho .of tho facts was, also borne by; Dr. H. C. Trumbull, who; 'in a dittle pamphlet which' was tho result of' his examinationi-pf.the subject from the standpoint',r6f,T, Assyrian archaeology, stated that tlio destruction of tlio' City of Nineveh-' (which took' placo about 200 years after Jonah's day) was so complete that for two thousand years oven,its sito was unknown,. but during this long pqriod there was a mound on tho banks of tho Tigris which was,-called by tho Arabic term which moans ,','Thoi Prophet Jonah." Strange to say, this .very mound had been identified by modern research as the sito of Nineveh. Tlio fact that this name had clung to theso ruins during the two thousand years the sito of tho city'was; unknown was'proof that Jonah had in some way mado a deep and powerful impression upon its history, and so led to the conclusion that the incidents recorded in the''Book of Jonah'were actual occurrences. After urging that the narrative really contained two important sealed prophecies, that is, prophecies" which were not understood until tho advent of tho Son of Qod, for ,thoy concerned (1) His death, burial, period in' the grave, and rosurroction; and (2) tho inclusiou of the Gentiles in tho covenanted morcies,' Mr. Turner concluded by drawing and impressing sonic of tho practi- , cal lessons whicli tho story suggests. ! ■