The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-12-10
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
An Imaginative Discourse On tho
Heavenly Consultations.
The Divine Nature as illustrated by "The
Pleiades and Orion"-Each World q
Room In the "Many Mansions
Provided for the Redeemed.

nacle by Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, was
The Pleiades of Orion" the text being:
Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and
Orion-IAmos, ", 8.
A country farmer wrote this text-Amos,
of Tekoa. He plowed the earth and
threshed the grain by new threshing-
machine just invented, as formerly the cat.
Gle trod out the grain. He gathered the
fruit of the sycamore tree and sacrificed it
with an iron comb just before it was
getting ripe, as it was necessary in that
way to take from it the bitterness. He was
son of a poor shepherd and suffered, but
before the stammering rustic the Phillis-
tines and Syrians and Phenicians and
Moabites and Ammenites and Edomites
and Israelites trembled. Moses was law
giver, Daniel was a prince, Isaiah q cour-
tier and David King; but Amos, the
author of my text, was peasant, and as
might be supposed, nearly all his parallel
isms are pastoral, 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 night, in
habited booth made out of bushes, SO that
through these branches he could see the
stars all 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
year when the herds were in special dan
ger, he would stay out in the open field 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 grewl
and the OWLS te- whit -te- who's, and the SER
pent's hiss as he unwittingly steps too
near while moving through the thickets
80 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-
ciated 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, 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 midnight heavens-the Pleiades, or
seven stars, and Orion. The former group
this rustic prophet associated with the
spring, as it rises about the first of Nav.
The latter he associated with the winter, as
1t comes to the meridian in January. The
PIeiades, 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 juxtapesi-
ton of the heavenly bodies, because they
thought they had a special influence upon
the earth, and perhaps they were right.
Ii the moon every few hours lifts and let's
down the tides of the Atlantic Ocean, and
Cne electric storms Of last year in the sun,
oy all scientific admission, affected the
earth, why not the stars have proportion
ate effect? And there are some things
which make me think that it may not have
been all superstition which connected
tne movements and appearance of
the heavenly bodies with great moral
events OF earth. Did not 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
night against Sisera? Was it merely COIN
ecidental 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-
stellation Cassiopia'and then disappeared
gust before King Charles TX. Of France.
who was responsible for the st. Barthelp-
NEW massacre, died! Was it without sig
nlficance that in the days of the Roman
emperor Justinian war and famine were
preceded by the dimness of the sun, which
Tor nearly year gave no more light than
the moon, although there were no clouds
to obscure it? Astrology after all NAV
nave been something more than brilliant
neathenism. 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 peo-
pie OF his time to return to God, saving;
"Seek him that maketh the seven stars and
Orion"
This command, which Amos gave 7s5
years before Christ, is just as appropriate
tor US, A. d. 1885.
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. Tt
was not so much star here and a 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, sisterhood
never clashing and never contesting pre-
cedence. From the time Hesiod called the
Pieiades the "seven daughters of Atlas
and virgil wrote in his 4Eneid of .sStormy
orlon," 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. Omniu-
otent order. What a sedative to Won and
me 20 whom communities and nations
sometimes seem going pell-men and the
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