The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-09
THE PLEIADES AND ORION.
How Amos Studied the Heavens, and
the Lessons He Drew Therefrom.
AGod of Order. Light and Kindness, Unchang-
ing and lpscrutable-A Bible that Tells
Us to Look to Other Worlds.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.

Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
BRooKLYN N Y, Nov. S.-The music at the
Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning by Professor
Henry Eyre Brown, was more than usually ex
ceent. 1t consisted of the organ solo Satz, No.
l, in Minor, by Thiele The Rev. T. De Witt
Tamage, D. D., expounded the twentieth chap
how David's wife deceived her husbands enemies
by an effigy. The preacher showed that the
poorest way to get out of trou BILE was to lie out
The opening hymn was:
Sun of my soul thou Savo~ dear.
1t is not night if thou art near"
The subject of the sermon was: ''The Pei
AIDES and Orion" and the text was from Amosv.
8: "Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and
Orion" Following is DR.. Talmage's sermon in
full:
A country farmer wrote this text-Amos Of
Tekoa. He ploughed the earth and threshed the
grain by new threshing machine just invented.
as formerly the cattle trod out the grain. He
gathered the fruit of the sycamore tree and scar
flied it with an iron comb just before it was get
ting ripe, as it was necessary and customary in
that way to take from it the bitterness. He was
the son of poor shepherd, and suffered; but be-
fore the stammering rustic, the Philistines and
Syrians and Phenicians, and Moabites, and
Ammonites and Edomites. and Israeites trem-
bled. Moses was a law-giver Daniel was a
prince, Isaiah a courtier and David a
king but Amos, the author of my
text, was a peasant. and, as might
be supposed, nearly all his paralleisms are pas
toral, his prophecy full of the odor of new-mown
hay. and the rattle of locusts, and the rumble of
carts with sheaves and the roar of wild beasts
devouring the flock, while the shepherd came
out in their defense. He watched the herds by
day and by night, inhabited booth made out of
bushes, so that through these branches he could
See the stars all night long. and was more famil
lar with them than we who have tight roofs to
our houses and hardly ever see the stars except
among the tall brick chimneys of the great
towns But at seasons of the year when the
herds were in special danger he would stay out
in the open field all through the darkness his
only shelter the curtain of the night--heaven,
with the stellar embroideries, and silvered tas
sells of lunar light. What life of solitude, all
alone with his herds! Poor Amos And at II
o'clock at night bark to the VOLTS bark and the
lions roar and the bears growl. and the owls
te-whitte who's. and the serpent's hiss IS he
Willingly steps too near while moving through
the thickets. So Amos. like other herdsmen,
got the ha bit of studying the map of the heavens,
because it was so much of the time spread out
before him. He noticed some stars advancing
and others receding. He associated their dawn
and setting with certain seasons of the year.
He had poetic nature; and he read, night by
night, and month by month. and year by year,
the poem Of the consultations, diviney rhyth-
mic. But two rosettes of stars especially at
tracted his attention while seated on the ground
or lying on his back under the open scroll Of the
midnight heavens-the Pleiades, or Seven Stars,
and Orion. The former group this rustic
prophet associated with the spring as
it rises about the 1st of May The
latter he associated with the winter as it come
tc the meridian in January. The Pleiades, or
Seven Stars, he connected with all sweetness and
joy; Orion the herald of the tempest The an
clients were the more apt to study the physiog-
nomy and juxtaposition Of the heavenly bodies
because they thought they had a special infu-
ence upon the earth, and perhaps they were
right Ii the moon every few hours lifts and
lets down the tides of the Atlantic ocean, and
the electric storms of last year in the sun, by
all scientific admission, affected the earth, why
not the stars have proportionate effect? And
there are some things which make me think that
it may not have been all superstition which con-
nected the movements and appearance of the
heavenly bodies with great moral events on
earth. Did not meteor run on evangelist tic er
rand on the first Christmas night and designate
tho rough cradle of our Lordl Did not the stars
in their courses fight against Ssera2 Was it
merely concidental that before the destruction
of Jerusalem the moon was cclipsed for twelve
consecutive nights? Did it merely happen so,
that a new star appeared in constellation Cassie
peia and then disappeared, just before King
Charles TX, of France who responsible for
St Bartholomew massacre, diedF Was it with
out significance that in the days of the Roman
emperor Justnian war and famine were pre-
coded by the dimness of the sun, which for near
lv year gave no more light than the moon. al
though there were no clouds to obscure itl
Astroiogy after all, may have been something
more than a brilliant heathenism. No wonder
that Amos, of the text, having heard these two
anthems of the stars put down the stout. rough
staff of the herdsman. and took into his brown
hand and cut and knotted fingers the pen of
prophet and advised the recreant people of his
time to return to God, saying Seek Him that
maketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
This command, which Amos gave 785 years B.
c., is just as appropriate for us, 1885. A. D.
WORLD OF ORDER.
In the first place, Amos saw as we must see
that the God who made the Pleiades and Orion
must be the God of order 1t was not so much
a star here and star there that impressed the
inspired herdsman but seven in one group and
four in the other group He saw that night after
night, and season after season, and decade after
decade, they had leept step of light each one in
its own place. sisterhood never clashng and
never contestng precedence. From the time
Hesod called the Pleades the ''seven daughters
of Atlas" and Virgil wrote in his Eneid of
Stormy Orion, until now they have observed
the order established for their coming and going:
order written, not in manuscript that may
be pigeon-holed, but with the hand of the
Almighty on the dome of the sky so that all
nations may read it. Order. Persistent
order. Sublime order. Omnipotent order
What a sedatve to you and me, to
whom communities and nations some.
times seem going pell nell. and the world ruled
by some fend at hap-hazard, and in all directions
administration! The God who keeps seven
worlds in right circuit for six thousand years
certainly keep all the affairs of individuals
and nations and continents in adjustment We
mad not better fret much, for the peasants ar
gument of the text was right. If God can take
of the seven worlds of the Pleiades and the
four chief worlds of Orion, he can
probably take care of the one world we
irhahit So faal xsa,,nh