The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1891-01-08

opened? a star! That means defense,
Tor did not the stars fight in their
courses against Sisera and for the
Lords people? A star! That means
Drllllant continuance, for are not the
righteous to shine as the stars forever
and everp A star! That means the
opening of eternal Joy. The day star
In the heart. The morning star of the
Redeemer.
WHAT WAS THE STARr
The unusual appearance that night
may have been a strange conjunction
OF worlds. AS the transit of Venus in
our time was foretold many years ago
by astronomers, and astronomers can
tell what will be the conjunctions of
worlds Thousand years from now, so
they can calculate backward; and even
iniidei astronomers have been com.
PEELED to testify that about the year
there was very unusual appearance
in the heavens. The Chinese record,
OF course entirely independent of the
WORD OF God, gives as q matter of his
tory that about the year there was a
strange and unaccountable appearance
In the heavens.
But 1T may have been Il meteor such
as you and L haV" seen flash to the
horizon. ! saw few years ago in the
northern sky star shoot and fall with
such briliiancy and precision that if
had been on hill as high as that of
Bethlehem, on which the shepherds
stood, l could have marked within a.
short distance the place of the alight-
ing. The University of Iowa and the
British museum have specimens of
meteoric stones picked up in the fields,
fragments flung off from other worlds,
leaving Il fiery trail on the sky. So
that it is not tome at all improbable
the stellar or the meteoric appearance
on that night of which we speak. |
only care to know that 1t was bright,
that it was silvery, that it flashed and
Swayed and swung and halted with
JOY celestial, as though Christ in haste
to save our world had rushed down
without his coronet, and the angels of
God had hurled it after him!
CHRISTIANITY A STAR or HOPE.
Not black cloud of threat, but a
cleaning star of hope, is our glorious
Christianity. One glimpse of that
steller appearance kindled up the soul
of the sick and dying college student
until the words flashed from his pale
fingers and the star seemed to pour its
light from his white lips as Kirke
White wrote these immortal words:
When marshalsd on tho nightly plain
The glttering hosts bcstud the sky,
One star alone of all the train
Can fix the sinners wandering eye
Hark, hark to God! the chorus breaks
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone, the Saviour, speaks
1t is the Star of Bethlehem.
Once on the raging seas l rode.
The storm was loud, the night was dark
And rudely blow the wind that tossed my
fOundcring bark
Deep horror then my Vitals froZe.
Death struck, l ceased the tide to stem
When suddenly star arose
1t was the Star of Bethlehem.
Notice also in this scene that othe,
worlds seemed to honor our Lord anC
master. Bright star of the night
wheel on in thine orbit. mo-" said tht
star, 81 must come nearer, and l must
bend and l must watch and see wha
you do with NY Jesus" Another
world that night Joined our world ir
worship. That star made bow OF
oDelsance. L sometimes hear people
talk Of ChristS dominion as though i
were to be merely the few Thousand
miles OF the worlds circumference; but
believe the millions and the bill
lions and the quadrillions otworlds ar,
all inhabited-if not by such creatures
as we are, still such creatures as Coo
designed to make, and that all these
worlds are apart Of Christ's dominion
Isaac Newton and Kepler and Hersche
only went on Columbus voyage to find
these continents OF our kings domain
THEY WE'RE WISE MEN OF THE EAST
But this scene also impresses me with
the fact that the wise men of the east
came to Christ. They were not fools
they were not imbeciles. The record
distinctly says that the wise men came
to Christ. We say they were the magi
or they were the alchemists, or they
were the astrologists, and we say it
with depreciating accentuation. Why
they wer9 the most splendid and mag,
nilcent men of the century. They
were the naturalists and the scientists
They knew all that was known. You
must remember that astrology was the
mother Of astronomy, and that alchemy
was the mother Of chemistry, and be-
cause children are brighter than the
mother you do not deSpiSe the mother
1t was lifelong business of these as
trologerS to study the stars. Twenty
two hundred and fifty years before
Christ was born the wise men knew
the procession Of the equinoxes, ant
they had calculated the orbit and tn,
return OF the comets. Professor Smith
declares that he thinks they under
stood the distance of the sun from tn,
earth. We find in the book of Jol
that the men of olden time did not sup
pose the world was fiat, as some hay
said, but that he knew, and the men O
his time knew, the world was globuIar
The pyramids were built for astrolov
lcal and astronomical study. Then
the alchemists spent their lives in tn,
study of metals and gases and liuuid
and solids. and in filing the world
library with their wonderful discover
les. They were vastly wise men wht
came from the east, and tradition saw
the three Wisest came-Caspar, a youn&
man; Balthazar, a man In mid-life, and
Melchior, an octogenarian. The three
wisest men of all the century. They
came to the manger.
CHRIST WILL HELP IN STORMY TIMES
1t was closing December that he wa
born to show that this is a Christ 0
people in sharp blast, for people unde
clouded sky, for people with frosted
hopes, for people with Thermometer be
low zero. That is the reason he is 8,
often found among the destitute. Yor
can find him on any night coming of
the mOOrS, NOll can spn hi m onv Diuh