The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-11-19


The God who keeps seven worlds in right
circuit for 5000 years can certainly keep
all the affairs of individuals and nations
and continents in adjustment. We had
better not fret much, for the peasants
argument of the text was right. If God
can take care of the seven worlds of the
Pleiades and the four chief worlds of
Orion, He can probably take care of the one
world we inhabit. So l feel very much as
my father felt one day when we were GO
ing to the country mill to get grist
ground, and I, a boy of seven years. sat in
the back part of the wagon and our yoke
of oxen ran away with US and along the lab
i yrinthiae road through the woods, so that
l thought every moment we would be
dashed to pieces, and made a terrible
cutlery of fright, and my father turned to
me with a face perfectly calm and said ::
de Witt, what are you crying about? 1
guess we can ride as fast as the oxen can
run" And my hearers, why should we
be affrighted and lose our equilibrium in
the swift movement Of worldly events,
especially when we are assured that it is
not a yoke of unbroken steers that are
drawing us on, but that order and wise
government are in the yoke? In your
occupation, your mission, your sphere, do
the best you can and then trust God, and
if things are all mixed and disquieting,
and your brain is hot and your heart sick,
get some one to go out with you into the
starlight and point out to you the Pleiades
or. better than that, get into some obser-
| vatory and through the telescope see fur
Their than Amos with the naked eye could
namely, 200 stars in the Pleiades, and
| that in what is called the sword of Orion
there is a nebula computed to be 2.200,-
100000. 100000 times larger than the sun.
| Oh be at peace with the God who made
all that and controls all that the wheel
of the consultations turning in the wheel
of galaxies for thousands of years without
the breaking of a cog or the slipping of a
band or the snap of an axle. For your
placidity and comfort through the Lord
Jesus Christ charge you, "Seek him that
maketh the Seven Stars and Orion.
Again Amos saw, as we must see, that
the God who made these two groups Of
the text was the God of light. Amos saw
that God was not satisfied with making
one star or two Oh three stars, but He
makes seven, and having finished that
group of worlds makes another group,
group after group. To the Pleiades He
adds Orion. 1t seems that God likes light
so well that He keeps making it. Only
one being in the universe knows the stat
tlstics of solar, lunar, stellar, meteoric
creations, and that is the Creator Him.
SELF And they have all been lovingly
christened, each one name as distinct as
the names Of your children. He teleth
the number of the stars, He calleth them
all by their names The seven Pleiades
had name given to them, and they are
Alcyone, Merope, Celana, Electra, Ste
rope, Taygete 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 beamfng bsow and
lustrous robe. So fond is God of light,
natural light, moral light, spiritual light
Again and again is light harnessed for
symbolization- Christ, the bright and
morning star; eyangelization, the day.
break; 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 par
don, light of goodness, III 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 two archipelagoes
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 shepherd. reported to
him that there had been 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 Chaldeaas calculated the eclipses, the
same as when Elihu. according to the
Book of Job, went out to study the aurora
borealis, the same under Prolemic system
and Copernican system, the same from
Callisthenes to Pythagoras. and from Py-
thagoras to Herschel. Surely changeless
God must have fashioned the Pleiades and
Orion. Oh what an aDodyne amid the
ups and dowa Of life, and the flux and re-
flux Of the tides of prosperity, to know
that we have changeless God, the same
yesterday, to-day and forever! Xerxes
garlanded and knighted the sherman of
his boat in the morning and hanged him
the evening of tie same day.
Again Amos saw, as we must see, that
the God who made these two beacons of
the Oriental night sky must be a God of
love and kindly warning, The Pleiades
rising in midsky said to all the herdsmen
and shepherds aud husbandmen: Come
out and enjoy the mid weather and culti-
vate your gardens and fields" Orion,
coming in winter, warned them to pre-
pare for tempest. All navigation was
regulated by these two consultations.
The one said to shipmaster and crew :
Hoist sail for the sea and gather mer-
chandize from other lands But Orion
was the storm signal and said Reef sail,
make things snug or put into hartor, for
thehurricanesa are getting their wings out. "
AS the Pleiades were the sweet evangels
Of the spring, Orion was the warning
prophet Of the winter. O, now get the
best view Of God ever had There are
two kinds of sermons l never want to
preach-the one thatl presents God SO
kind, SO indulgent, so lenient, so imbecile,
that men may do what they will against
Him and fracture His every law and put
the cry OF their impertinence and rebellion
under His throne, and while they are spit
, ting in His face and 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. =
5 The other kind Of sermon | never want to
{ preach is the one that represents God as
r all fire and torture and thunder-cloud, and
: with red-hot pitchfork tossing the human