School days!

First off, the parents are home again safely! We all gave thanks that they had a safe return and a beneficial, enjoyable trip.

I'm not going to finish Hodge by Sunday. I was more ambitious than I took the time for apparently.
As I read, I like to share certain passages and sections or ideas which strike me as interesting or really good. So here is some more from Hodge as I read through the section on the seventh commandment:

"Marriage is not a sacrament in the sense in which in baptism and the Lord's Supper are sacraments, nor in the sense of the Romish Chruch; but it is none the less a sacred institution. Its solemnization is an office of religion. It should, therefore, be entered upon with due solemnity and in the fear of God; and should be celebrated, i.e., the ceremony should be ferformed by a minister of Christ. He alone is authorized to see to it that the law of God is adhered to; and he alone can receive and register the marriage vows as made to God. The civil magistrate can only witness it as a civil contract, and it is consequently to ignore its religious character and sanction to have it celebrated by a civil officer. As the essence of the marriage contract is the mutual compact of the parties in the sight of God and in the presence of witnesses, it is not absolutely necessary that it should be celebrated by a minister of religion or even by a civil magistrate. It may be lawfully solemnized, as among the Quakers, without the intervention of either. Nevertheless as it is of the greates importance that the religious nature of the institution should be kept in view, it is incumbent on Christians, so far as they themselves are concerned, to insist that it should be solemnized as a religious service."

Which I thought was a good point, one which I "knew" per se, but hadn't really thought about. It is primarily a religious institution, sanctioned by God. The world (as is evident with what is happened recently), when left to itself, could care less if a person is "legally" married or not. But the whole idea isn't just to have an official slip of paper, but to recognize that you are making vows in the sight of God to be faithful to one another as Christ is faithful to the church. It was refreshing to see it in that light as opposed to the controversies that go on in political circles.

Another thing which I thought was kind of interesting, is Hodge was speaking about polygamy and said that if it was supposed to be a common practice, then one would think that there would be far more women in the world than men, when in fact the reverse is the case and that there are far more men, to which he concluded that this was because of the nature of danger into which men are often called to face and has been provided for by God. I think I remember reading a while back that statistically, now there were more women than men, 51% to 49% or something like that. I'm assuming they used the American census for their data. I think it could be that there are more women than men because men generally tend to die younger, something I've speculated will probably happen to me. But that's neither here nor there. Just something that I thought was interesting.


Under the eigth commandment, Hodge speaks of Communism and says that "if Communism is the product of materialistic Atheism, its cure is to be found in Theism; in bringing the people to know and believe that there is a God on whom they are dependent and to whom they are responsible; in teaching them that this is not the only life, that the soul is immortal, and that men will be rewarded or punished in the world to come according to their character and conduct in this present life; that consequently well-being here is not the highest end of existence; that the poor here may hereafter be far more blessed than their rich neighbours; and that it is better to be Lazarus than Dives."

Aside from being a dreadfully long sentence, I thought it was very true, though is not the Love and Fear of God a great cure to all societal problems?

There are also some great sections on the ten commandments. He speaks about dueling under murder, and relics and saints under the ninth commandment. Did you know that Mary's house was transported in the 14th century from Nazareth to Italy? And then moved twice after that even! He says (dripping sarcasm):

"It is obvious that such a frail building could not, without a miracle, have been preserved thirteen hundred years; another miracle would be required to identify it after so long a period; another stupendous miracle to account for its transportation to Dalmatia; and two more nearly as great to explain its reaching its present location. The only conceivable design of all these miracles, must be to sustain the doctrines and authority of the Romish Church, and to pour money into its treasury. Both these objects they have accomplished to a wonderful degree."

And you know how it is said that there is enough fragments of the "true cross" to create a large building from? Well, St. Paulinas is quoted as a witness in defence of this as saying "that a portion of the cross kept at Jerusalem gave off fragments of itself without diminishing." It's astounding that these men who claim to be "holy men of God" could tell such bald-faced lies!

Since today I'm finishing up this post I started a while back, a couple of days have progressed until it was my first day of school here!

I got up early because I have a 7:30 Calculus class. I enjoyed the instructor, he's new, from India, but I think he's going to do pretty well. He may have higher expectations of our previous knowledge than we actually have though.

My next class was Statics. The instructor was an older gentleman who had been teaching it for t=30 years (that was an accident, but since it's mathematically correct I left it). He didn't use the microphone in the large auditorium, I think because he wanted to encourage those students who hang out at the back, to move up to the front. I was in the third or fourth row back and I could hardly hear him when he turned away. He said that it's been his experience that the people in the very back rows end up back in his class the next year. I did like him, I hope his teaching is good though, we just went over the syllabus today.

As class was ending I could hear the thunder clapping loudly outside and students came pouring into the building (along with a lot of water). They were drenched, as in, completely wet. I ran outside because my next class was across campus and I didn't want to miss it. I ran all the way over yet was still soaked when I arrived, shoes, pants (front and back), the water was very nearly running off of my clothes! And... it turns out that I was so eager to get to that next class, that I was an hour early. I sat down in the classroom, getting my notebook out and the instructor (a very young man with a sad, sleepy face) started getting his things ready once he came in. Then he said "okay, so, all of you are in the right classroom right? You're in here for Psych?" I laughed at the joke. Ha! A math class being called a psychology course! Then he got a chair and sat down among the students and I realized he wasn't joking. I scooped up my notebook and backpack in one fluid motion and exited the room without saying a word. On further thought though, I wondered if it wouldn't have been fun to hang behind and *cough* "join" the discussion. My grade obviously wouldn't depend on what I said and that in itself could be fun!

So I waited around for an hour reading my book, wandering the halls (while listening to lectures on Worship) and also noticed that the rain had subsided at different points. If only I had remembered my schedule better, I could have come over in between bursts of rain and not become wet at all! As the air-conditioning was going in the building, my legs and feet began to grow cold, as my wet clothes slowly began to dry.

The final class was my Electrical Science course, with Dr Bunting whom I have heard great things about and have spoken to before. I've also heard the Fishers mention him before. He was asking about how electronics impact us and asked for a show of hands as to who had brought a cell-phone that day. Then he asked for a show of hands for those who had not brought a cell phone, I was one of only a couple of people in the auditorium, and somewhat.... proud of it?

It was interesting though, my first class was in HES, the second in ES, the third back in HES, and the fourth in EN! Which meant I was going back from one side of campus to the other. Not really that far, and I'm glad for the time to listen to the sermons, though I feel really funny with an iPod on campus. I do NOT like looking like everyone else!

Well, that was pretty much the day, there isn't much to do as far as assignments go yet, that will come Wednesday as people get settled in. I'm definitely going to have to work a lot of math problems because I have a terrible memory for that sort of thing and was struggling to review last semester's material.