The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1892-05-26
HEAVENLY INFLUENCES.
Sermon by Few. T. Dewitt Tal-
mage in Brooklyn Tabernacle.
Peasant Shepherd Supplies the Theme
for Many Useful Less ons-God's
Order In Everything
Made Manifest.

lie IOIOWlng discourse by Kew. L,
Dewitt Talmage was delivered in the
Brooklyn tabernacle from the text:
Seek Him that inaketh the seven stars and
OEion.-Amos ", s.
country farmer wrote this text
Amos of IoiSoa. He plowed the earth
and threshed the grain by new thresh-
ing machine last invented, as formerly
tho cattle trod out the grain. He gath
cred the fruit of the sycamore tree, and
sacrificed it with an iron comb Just be-
fore it was getting ripe, as it was nee
essary and customary in that way to
take from it the bitterness. He was
the son of a poor shepherd, and slut
tered; but before the stammering rus
tic the Philistines and Syrians, and
Ph9nicians, and Moabites, and Ammon-
ties, and Edomites, and 1sraelites
trembled.
Moses was a lawgiver. 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 new-mown
hay, and the rattle of locusts, and
the rumble of carts with sheaves, and
the roar of wild beasts devouring the
Hook, while the shepherd came out in
their defense. He watched the herd
by day, and by night inha bited booth
made out of bushes, SO that through
these branches he could see the stars
nll night long, and was more familiar
with them than we who have tight
roofs to our houses, and hardly ever
fee the stars, except among the tall
black 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 cur
tain of the night-heaven, with the stel-
lar embroideries and silvered tassels of
lunar light.
What a life of solitude, all alone with
his herds! Poor Amos! And at twelve
o'clock at night, bark tc the VOLTS
bark, and the lions roar, and the bears
growl, and the owls te-whit-te-who,
and the serpents hiss, as he unwilling
iY 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 be-
fore him. He noticed some stars adj
vancing and others receding. He asso-
ciated their dawn and setting with GER
tain seasons of the year. He had a
poetic nature, and he read night by
night, and month by month, and year
by year, the 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. The former group
this rustic prophet associated with the
spring, as it rises about the LIST of Nav
The latter he associated with the win
ter, rs it comes to the meridian in Jan
uary. The Pleiades, or Seven Stars
connected with all sweetness and ioy;
Orion, the herald Of the tempest. The
anclents were the more apt to study
the physiognomy and juxtaposition of
the heavenly bodies, because they
thought they had a special influence
upon the earth, and perhaps they were
right. 1t the moon every few hours
lifts and let's down the tides of the At
lantic ocean, and the electric storms
of the sun, by all scientific admission,
affect the earth. why not the stars
have proportionate effect?
And there are something's which
make me think that it may not have
been all superstition which connected
the movements and appearance of the
heavenly bodies with great moral
events en- earth. Did not a meteor RIM
on evangelistic errand On the first
Christmas night, and designate the
rough cradle of our Lord? Did not the
stars in their courses fight against
S1sera? Was it merely coincidental.
that before the destruction of fern
salem, the moon was eclipsed for
twelve consecutive nights? Did it.
merely happen SO that a new star an
peared in constellation Cassiopeia. and
then disappeared just before King
Charles TX. of France, who was respon- |
slble for st. Bartholomew Emassacre,
died? Was it without significance that
in the days of the Roman Emperor
Justinian, war ana famine were pre-
coded by the dmness 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
something more than a brilliant heath
enism. No wonder that Amos of the
text, having heard these two anthems
OF the stars, put down the stout rourh
staff of the herdsman and took into his
brown hand and cut and knottea T
fingers the pen of prophet. and adj
vised the recreant people of his time to
return to God, saying: Seek Him that
maketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
This command which Amos gave seven
hundred and eighty-fve- years B. c., is
just as appropriate for 1892, A. D.
In the first place, Amos saw, as we
must see, that the God who made the
Pleiades and Orion is the God of order
Is was not so much star here and n /
star there. that impressed the inspired ,
ierdsman, but seven in one group and .
seven in the other group. He saw that
hight after night, and season after sea.
on, and decade after decade. they had /,