St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-09

III.
grain. He gathered the fruit of the syca-
more tree and scarifed it with an iron comb
Just before it was getting ripe, as it was
necessary and customary in that way to
take from it the bitterness. He was the
son of poor shepherd and suffered, but
before the stammering rustic the PhlliStlnes
and Syrians and Ph9nicians and MoablteS
and AmmoniteS and EdOmlteS and Israel
ties trembled. Moses was law-glver,
Daniel was a prince, Isaiah courtier and
David a king; but Amos, the author OF my
text, was peasant, and as might be sup
posed, nearly all his parallelisms are pas
toral, 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 by night, inhabited a booth
made out of bushes so 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 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 danger he would stay out in the
open field all through the darkness, his only
shelter the curtain of the night heaven with
stellar embroideries and silvered tassels of
lunar light What life of solitude. all
alone with his herds! Poor Amos! and at
IL o'clock at night; hark to the VOLTS bark
and the lions roar and the bears growl and
the OWLS te-whit-te-whos and the serpent's
hiss as he unwittingly steps too near while
moving through the thickets. SO Amos,
like other herdsmen, got the habit OF study
ing the map of the heavens, because it was
so much of the time spread out before him.
He noticed some stars advancing and 9TH
ers receding. He associated 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, di-
vinely 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.
ciated with the spring, as it rises about the
1st 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 juXtaposition of the
heavenly bodies, because they thought they
had special influence upon the earth, and
perhaps they were right. If the moon
every few hours lifts and lets down the
tides of the Atlantic ocean, and the electric
storms of last year in the sun, by all scien-
tific admission, affected the earth, why not
the stars have proportionate effect? And
there are some things which make me think
that it may not have been all superstition
which connected the movements and ap-
pearance of the heavenly bodies with great
moral events on earth. Did not a meteor
run on an evangelistic errand on the first
Christmas night and designate the rough
cradle of our Lord? Did not the stars in
their courses fight against Sisera? Was it
merely cOincidental that before the de-
struction OF Jerusalem the moon was
eclipsed for twelve consecutive nights?
Did it merely happen so that new star ap-
peared in constellation Cassiopea and then
disappeared beforeaKing Charles TX. of
France, who was responsible for St.
Bartholomew's massacre, died? Was it
without significance 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? Astrology after all
may have been som ething more than bril-
liant 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 knotted fingers the pen of
r,rorhat oIuico1 tho anf
of his time to return to God, saying: Seek
Him that maketh the Seven Stars and
Orion" This command, which Amos gave
7S5 years B. G. is just as appropriate for us,
1885 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. 1t was not so much star here and
star there that impressed the inspired
herdsman, but seven in one group and four
in the other group. He saw that night
after night and season after season, and de-
cade after decade they had kept step of
light, each one in its own place, sister,
hood never clashing and never contesting
precedence. From the time Hesiod called
the Pleiades the ''seven daughters of At
lass" and Virgil wrote in his Eneid of
"Stormy Orion" until now, they have OBJ
served 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 1T.
Order, persistent order. sublime order.
omnipotent order. What sedative to you
and me, to whom communities and nations
sometimes seem going pell-meIl, and the
world ruined by some fend at haphazard,
and in all directions maladministrationI
The God who keeps seven worlds in right
circuit for six thousand years can certainly
keep all the affairs of individuals and ma
tions and continents in adjustment. We
had not better 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 going to
the country mill to get a grist ground, and
|, boy of years, sat in the back part of
the wagon, and our yoke of oxen ran away
with us and along a labyrinthine road
through the woods, so that / thought every
moment we would be dashed to pieces, and
[ made terrible outcry of fright and my
father turned to me with face perfectly
calm and said: ''De Witt, what are you
crying about? 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 as
sured that it is not 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 dsquieting and your brain is hot
and your heart sick, get some one to go ont
with YOU into the starlight and point out to