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

Of To! on. He plowel the earth and
threshold the grain by l. new thresh!ng ma
chine just invented, as formerly the cattle
trod out the grain. He gathered the fruit Of
the Sycamore tree and scarified it with an
iron omb just before it was getting ripe, as
it was necessary and customary in that way
to take from it the bitterness. He was the
SOB Of a poor shepherd and suffered, but be-
fore this stanlmering rustic the PhiliStines
and Syrians, and Fhnnicians, and Moabites,
and Ammonites and Edomites and lsraelites
trembled. Moses was a law-giver, Daniel
was a prince, Isaiah a courtier and David q
king, but Amos, the author Of my text, was
a peasant, and. as might be supposed, nearly
all his parallelisms are pastoral, his prophecy
full of the odor of hay, and the
rattle of locusts and the rumble Of carts
with ~sleaves, and the roar Of wild beasts
devouring the flock, while the shepperd came
out in their defence. He watched the herds
by day and by night, inhabited a booth
made out Of bushes 50 that through these
branches he could see the stars all night long
and was more familiar with them than we
who have tight roofs to OR houses AMI
hardly ever see the stars except among the
But at seasons OF the year when
the herds were in especial danger
he would stay out in the open field
all through the darkness, his only shelter the
curtain Of the night heavens, with its stellar
embroideries and silvered tassels OF lunar
light. What a life of solitude all alone with
his herdsl Poor Amos! And at twelve
o'clock at night bark to the wolves bark and
the lions roar and tho bears grow! and the
owls te-whit-te-wh and the ser2cnts 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 50 much OF tina
time spread out before him. He noticed
some stars advancing and others receling.
He associated thoir dawn and sitting with
certain seasons Of the year. He had q poetic
nature, and he read night by night and
month by month and year by year tine poem
of the consultations divinely 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.
night heavens-the Pleiades or Seven Stars
and Orion. Tie former group this rustic
prophet associated with the spring as it rises
about the first Of May. The latter he asso-
cia'ed with the winter as it comes to the
meridian in January. The Plciades Or Seven
Stars connected with all sweetness and Joy,
Orion the herald Of the tempest. The an
clients were tho moro apt to study the physi-
ognomy and juxtaposi.ion of the heavenly
bodio; because they though: they had a spec
q 4llltnClSo upol VilO Ohi III anu PC. hthp
they wcro right. If the moon every few hours
lifts and let's down tho tides Of the Atlantic
ocean and the electric storms Of last year in
the sun by all scientific admission affected the
earth, why not tho stars have proportiOnate
effect? And there are some things which
make mo think that it may not have been all
superstition which connected the movements
and appearance Of the heavenly bodies with
great moral events on earth. Did not n me-
teor run OF cvangelistic errand on the first
Christmas night and designate the rough
courses fight against Sisera? Was it merely
coincidental that before the destruction of
Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for twelve
consecutive nights2 Did 1t merely happen so
that a new star appeared in constellation
Cassiopeia and then disappeared just before
King Charles TX, of France, who was re-
sponsible for st. Bartholomew massacre,
died? Was it without significance that i'll the
day tho Roman Emperor Justinian war and
famine were preceded by tho dinlness OF the
sun, which for nearly a year gave no moro
clouds to obscure it? Astrology, after all,
may have been something more than a bril-.
liant heathenism. No wonder that Amos OF
the text, having heard these two anthems OF
the stars, put dow the stout, rough stan OF
the herdsman and took into his brown hand
and cut and knotted fingers the pen OF q
prophet and advised the recreant people OF
his time to return to God, saying: tSeek him
that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
This command which Amos gave 7S5 b. G.
is just as appropriate for us 1855 A. D.
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. It was not
so much q star here and a star there that m
pressed the inspired herdsmen, 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 ono in its own place,
a sisterhood never clashing, n never con-
testing precedence. From the time Heslod
called the Pleiades the 'tseven daughters OF
Atlas and Virgil wrote in his Eneid Of
s'Stormy Orion until now, they have OBJ
served the order established for their coming
and going; orler 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 Rad it. Order. Fer.
sistent order! Sublime order. Omnipotent
whom communities and nations sometimes
seem going pell-mell and the world ruled by
some demon of hap-hazard, and in oil direc-
tions NAL administration! The God who
keeps seven worlds in right circuit for 6, 900
years can certainly keep all the affairs OF IN
dlviluals and nations and continents IN ad-
iustment. We had not better fret much,
for the peasants implied 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 tho one world we inhabit. So l feel
very much as my father felt one day when
we were going to the country mill to get q
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 ana
along a labyrinthine road t~hroughthe woods,
so that I thought every moment we would oe
dashed to pieces, and l made q terrible out
cry of fright and my father turned to me,
with a face perfectly calm, and said, Dewitt,
what arc you crying about! guess we can
ride as fast Us the oxen can rum" And, my
hearers, why should we be affrightei and lose
our equilibrium in the swift movement OF
worldly events, especially when we are as
sured that it is not a yoke of unbroken steers
that is drawing us on, but that order and
wise government are IN tho 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 ons
to 60 out with you into the starlight and
point out to you tina Pleiades, or. better than
that, get into some observatory and through
the telescope see further than Amos with the
naked eye could, namely, 200 stars in tho
Pleiades, and that in what is called tho Sword
Of Orion there is a nebula computed to be two
triIlion, Gwo hundred thousand billions of
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 turn.
ing 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