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

brilliant 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
Ihe 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 a thousand years from now, so
they can calculate backward; and even
infidei astronomers have been com.
PEELED to testify that about the wear 1
there was a 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
strange and unaccountable appearance
in the heavens.
But 1t may have been Il meteor such
as you and l have seen flash to the
horizon. | saw few years ago in the
northern sky star shoot and fall with
such brlllancy and precision that if I
had been on hill as high as that of
Bethlehem, on which the shepherds
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 a fiery trail on the sky. So
that 1T is not me 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 OF HOPE.
Not black cloud of threat, but a
cleaning star of hope, is our glorious
Christianity. One glimpse Of that
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 Oh the nightly plain
The glttering hosts bestud the sky,
One star alone of all the train
Can fiX the sinners wandering eye.
Hark, hark to Godl 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
foundering bark.
Deep horror then my Yitals 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 other
worlds seemed to honor our Lord and
master. Bright star of the night
wheel on in thine orbit. NO." said the
star, 81 must come nearer, and | must
bend and l must watch and see what
you do with NY Jesus" Another
world that night Joined our world in
worship. That star made bow of
obeisance. | sometimes hear people
talk of Christ's dominion as though it
were to be merely the few thousand
miles Of the worlds circumference; but
| believe the millions and the bill
lions and the quadrillions OF worlds are
all lnhablted-lf not by such creatures
as we are, still such creatures as God
designed to make, and that all these
worlds are apart Of Christ's dominion
Isaac Newton and Kepler and Herschel
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 We're the alchemiSts, or they
were tho astrologists, and we say it
w inf NJ
they Wer3 the most splendid and mag
nilicent 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, and
they had calculated the orbit and the
return Of the comets. Professor Smith
declares that he thinks they under.
stood the distance of the sun from the
earth. We find in the book of Jol
that the men of olden time did not sup
pose the world was fiat, as some have
said, but that he knew, and the men of
his time knew, the world was globular
The pyramids were built for astrolou.
lcal and astronomical study. Then
the alchemists spent their lives in tho
study of metals and gases and liuuids
and solids. and in filing the worlds
library with their wonderful discover.
les. They were vastly wise men who
came from the east, and tradition saws
the three Wisest came-Caspar, a young
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 was
born to show that this is a Christ OF
people in sharp blast, for people under
clouded sky, for people with frosted
hopes, for people with thermometer be.
low zero. That is the reason he is sc
often found among the destitute. You
can find him on any night coming of
the moors. You can see him any night
coming through the dark lanes of the
CITY, You can see him putting his
hand under the fainting head in the
paupers cabin. He remembers how
the wind whistled around the caravan