The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1885-12-02

For your placidity and comfort through the
Lord Jesus Christ I charge You, Seek him
that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
Again Amos saw as we must sec that the
God who made these two groups Of the text
was the God Of light. Amos sow that God
was not satisfied with making one star or two
or three stars, but he makes seven, and hav-
ished that group of worlds makes another
group-group after group. To the PIeiadss
he adds Orion. 1t seems that God likes light
so vel that he keeps making it. Only ono
being in the universe knows the statistics of
solar. lunar, stellar, meteoric creations, and
that is the Creator himself. And they have
all been lovingly christened, each one.a name
as distinct as the names of your children.
"He telleth the number Of tho stars, he
calleth them all by their names" The seven
Pleiades had names given to them, and they
are Alcyone, Morope, Celanoe, Electra, Ste
rope, Taygate and Maia. But think of the
billions and ~trillions of daughters of starry
light that God calls by name as they sweep
by him with beaming brow and lustrous robe:
So fond is Cod of light, natural light, moral
light, spiritual light. Again and again is
light harnessed for symbolization-Christ,
the bright and morning star; evangelization,
the daybreak; the redemption Of nations, sun
Of Righteousness rising with healing in his
wings. Oh, men and women, with SO many
sorrows and sins and perplexities. if you
want light of comfort, light of pardon, light
Of goodness, in earnest prayer through Christ
seek him that maketh the Seven. Stars and
Orion.
Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that the
God who made these W archipelagos Of
stars must be an unchanging God. There
had been no change in the stellar appearance
in this herdsman's lifetime. and his father, a
o1o~1orl ~1~~r&al l., 1sr,k ho Slz.S L. 1~.z.
no change in his lifetime. And these two
clusters hang over the celestial arbor now
just as they were the first night that they
shone on Edenic bowers, the same. as when
the Egyptians built the pyramids, from
the top of which to watch them, the same as
when the Chaldeans calculated the eclipses,
the same as when. Elihu, according to
the Book of Job, went out to study the au-
rora borealis, the same under Ptolmaic sys-
tenn and Copernican system, the same from
Calisthenes to P~ythagoras, and from Pytha-
goras to Herschel.. Surely a chaugeless God
must have fashioned the Pleiades and Orion.
Oh, what an anodyne amid the ups and
downs Of life and the flux and reaux Of the
tides Of prosperity to know that We have a
%changeless God. the same yesterday, to-day
and forever. Xe7xes garlanded and knighted
the steersman Of his boat in the morning and
hangcl him ia the evening of the same day.
pllUy LlOuSdUU pcOplo oIOOo o1OllAu CAo
columns Of the national capitol shouting
themselves hoarse at the presidential inaug-
ural, and in four months so great were the
antipathies that a r%u(ian's pistol in a Wash
iugton depot expressed the sentiment Of a
great multitude. The world sits in its
chariot and drives tandem and the horse
ahead is huzza and the horse behind is an
athena. Lord Gotham, in King James,
time, was applaudsd and had S35, 900 a year,
but was afterward execrated and lived on
scraps stolen from the royal kitchen. Alex
ander the Great after death remained un-
buried for thirty days because no one would
do him the honor Of shoveling him under.
The Duke of wellington refused to have his
iron fence mended because it had been
broken by an Infatuated populace in some
hour Of political excitment and he left 1t in
ruins that men might learn what a tickle
thing is human favor. But "the mercy OF
the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting to
them that fear him and his Righteousness
unto the children's children OF such as keep
his covenant and to those who remember his
commandments to do them" This moment
s'seek him that maketh tho Seven Stars and
Orion"
Again Amos saw as we must see that the
God who made these two brackets Of the ori.
entail night sky must BE- O God Of love and
kindly warning. The Pleiades rising in May
said to all the herdsman and shepherds and
hu ;bandmen: 'Come out and enjoy the mild
weather and cultivate your gardens and
felds.n Orion coming in winter warned them
to prepare for tempest. All navigation was
regulated by these two consultations. The
one said to shipmaster an crew: Hoist sail
for the sea and gather merchandise from
other lands" But Orion was the storm Sig
nal and said: "Reef sail, make things snug or
put into harbor, for tho hurricanes are get
ting their. wings out" As the Pleiades were
the sweet evangels Of the spring, Orion was
tho warning prophet Of the winter; oh, now
1 get the best view Of God I ever had. There
are two kinds Of sermons l nevor want to
preach-the one that presents God 80 kind, so
indulgent, so ~lenient, 50 imbecile that men
may do what they will against him and frac-
ture His every law and put the pry Of their
importinence and rebellion under his throne,
stabbing at his heart he takes them up in his
arms and kisses their infuriated brow and
cheek, saying, "Of such is the kingdom Of
heaven" The other kind of sermon / never
want to preach is the one that represents God
as all fire and torture and thunder cloud and
with red-hot pitchfork tossing the human
race into paroxysm Of infinite agony. The
sermon that I want to preach and the sermon
I am now preaching believes in a God OF love
and kindly warning. the God OF spring
and winter, the God Of the Pieiades and ORR
on. You must remember that tina winter IS
lust as important as the spring. Letone winter
pass without frost to kill vegetation, and
Ice to bind the rivers, and snow to enrich our
fields, and then you will have to enlarge your
hospitals and cemeteries. ga green Christ.
mas makes q fat graveyard" was thu old
proverb. Storms to purify the air. Their
mometer at ten degrees above zero to tone up
the system. December and January just as
important as May and June. l tell you we
need the storms of life as much as we do the
sunshine. There are more men ruined by
prosperity than by adversely. If we had had
our own way in life, before this we would
have been representations Of s%elfishness, and
worldliness, and disgusting sin, and pulled
up until we would have been like Julius
Caesar, who was made by s%ycophants to be-
lievo that he was divine, and the freckles on
his face were as the stars Of the armament.
One OF the swiftest transatlantic voyages
made last summer by the Etrurla was be
cause she had a stormy wind abaft, CHASING
her from New York to Liverpool. But to
those going in opposite directions the storm
was a blffeting and a hindrance. 1t IS a bad
thing to nave q storm ahead pushing
US back, but if We are Gods children and
aiming toward heaven the storms OF life will
ONLY chase us the sooner into the harbor. Oh,
I am so glad to believe that the monsoons
and typhoons and misrrals and siroccos Of
land and sea are not unclaimed maniacs let
loose UPON the earth, but under divine super"
vision. am so glad that the God OF the
Seven Stars is also the God Of Orion. 1t was
out of Dante's suffering came the sublime
Divina Comedia. and out of John Millions
blindness came Paradise. Lost, and out of a
miserable infidel attack came the Bridge.
water Treatise in favor Of Christianity, and
out of David's exile came the songs Of conso-
la.ion, and out of the sulferings Of Christ
narna the nossihility of tha worlds redemp-