The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-11-20
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
An Imaginative Discourse On the
Heavenly Consultations.

an Im62m0ClV0 Ol6COuI90 Ou V0O
Heavenly Consultations.
Pleiades and Orion"--Each World
Room In tho "Many Mansiens'
Provided fer the Redeemed.
The subject of the following sermon, re-
GENTLY delivered in the Brooklyn Taber-
nacie by Rev. I. Dewitt Talmage, was
"The Pleiades OF Crion," the text being:
Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and
Orion.-iAmos. VS.
A country farmer wrote this text-Amos,
of Tekoa. He plowea the earth and
threshed the grain bya new threshing-
machine justinvented, as formerly the cat.
tie troi ont the grain. He gathered the
fruit o. the sycamore tree and sacrificed it
with an iron comb just before it was
getting ripe, as it was necessary in that
way TO tale from it fhe bitterness. He was
son OF poor shepherd and suffered, but
before The stammering rustic the Phillis-
tiees and Syrians and Phenicians and
Neabitcs and Ammonites and Edemites
and israelites trembled. Moses was law
giver. Daniel was prince, Isaiah a cour-
tier and David a King; but Amos, the
author of my text, was peasant, and as
might be supposed, nearly all his parallel
isrIs are pastoral, his prophecy full
ef 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 i'm their defense. He
watched the herds by day and night, in
habited a booth made out of bushes, SO that
through these branches he could see the
stars;al night long, and was more familiar
whit hem 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
wear when the herds were in special dan
ger, he would stay out in the open fold all
through the darkness, his only shelter the
curtain of the night, heaven with the stel-
lar embroideries and silvered tassels of
lunar light. What life of solitude, all
alone with his herds! Poor Amos and at
twelve o'clock at night, bark to the VOLTS
bark and the lions roar and the bears growl
Snd the owls te-whit-te- who's, and the SER
pent's hiss as he unwittingly steps too
near while moving through the thickets
So Amos, like other herdsmen, got the
habit 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 asso-
ciatcd their dawn and setting with certain
seasons of the year. He had a poetic nature
md lie read night by night and month by
month and year by year the poem of the
consultations, divinelv rhythmic. But two
rosettes Of stars especially attracted his
attention while seated on the ground or
lying on his back under the open scroll of
the mid aight heavens-the Pleiates, or
seven stars, and Orion. The former group
this rustic prophet associated with the
spring. as it rises about the first of May.
The latter he associated with the winter, as
it comes to the meridian in January. The
PleiadeS, or seven stars, connected with all
sweetness and joy; Orion the herald of the
tempest. The ancients were the more apt
to study the physiognomy and juxtaposi-
ton of the heavenly bodies, because they
thought they had a special influence upon
the Garth, and perhaps they were right.
Ii tHt iucon every lt" hOuiS Illus lelS
down the tides OF The Atlantic Ocean, and
tie ciecUric storms of last year in the sun,
by all scientific admission, affected the
earth, Why not the stars have proportion
ate effe.t? And there are some things
which make me think that it may not have
been all superstition which connected
the movements and appearance of
the heavenly bodies with great moral
events of earth. Did not a meteor run on
evangelist errand on the first Christmas
night and designate the rough cradle of
our Lord? Did not the stars in their course
fight against Sisera: Was it merely COIN
cidental that before the destruction of
Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for
twelve consecutive nights? Did it merely
happen so that new star appeared in con-
steilation Cassiopia.and then disappeared
just before King Charles TX. of France,
who was responsible for the st. Bartholo-
new massacre, died? Was it without sig
nificance that in the days Of the Roman
Emperor Justinian war and famine were
preceded by the dimness of the sun, which
for nearly year gave no more light than
the moon, although there were no clouds
to obscure it? Astro,ogy 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 !,notted fingers the pen
of q prophet, and advised the recreant peo-
pie OF his time to return to God, saying:
~'Seek him that maketh the seven stars and
Orion"
This command, which Amos gave 7S5
years before Christ, is just as appropriate
for us, A. D. 1885.
In the first place Amos saw, rs we must
see, that the God who made the Pleiades
and Orion must be the God of order. It
was not SO much a star here and o star
there that impressed the inspired herds
man, 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 kept step Of light,
each one in its own place, a sisterhood
never clashing and never coatesting pre-
cedence. From the time Hesiod called the
Pieiades 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-holedi 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. Omnip-
otent order. What a sedatiye to you and
me, to whom communities and nations
sometimes seem going pell-mell and the
world ruled by some fiend at hap-hazard,
and in all directions DISQUALIFICATION!
The God who keeps seven worlds in right