Connecticut western news., 1892-12-22
.- -------- THE DIVINE SCIENCE.
TIE HEAVENS DO INDEED DECLARE
 THE GLORY OF GOD.

TSE HEAVENS DO INDEED DECLARE
 THE GLORY OF GOD.
 Dr. TalmAgc Begins a Series of Sermons
 on the Lessons Taught by the Wonders
 of Nature-"The Undevout Astronomer
 h Mad"
 BROOKLYN, Dec. 18.-Rev. Dr. Tal- mage to-day preached the first of the promised series of sermons on God in the natural world as disclosed in the Bible. The subject chosen for the initial sermon was, 1.-The Astronomy of the Bible, or God Among the Stars" the text being from Amos ix, 6, Ut is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven" Preceding the sermon the great congregation sang Isaac Watts hymn:
 The heavens declare thy glory, Lord,
 In every star thy wisdom shines.
 That is first rate poetry from Amos the herdsman. While guarding his focks at night he got watching the heavens. He saw stars above stars, and the uni verse seemed to him like a great mansion many stories high, silver room above nilver room, silver pillars beside silver pillars, and windows of silver and doors of silver, and turrets and domes of sil- yer rising into the immensities, and the prophets sanctifed imagination walks through that great silver palace of the universe, through the first story, through the second story, through the third story, through the twentieth story, through the hundredth story, through the thousandth story, and realizing that God is the architect and carpenter and mason of all that upheaved splendor, he cries out in the words of the text, "It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven"
 THE ELEvATING SCIENCES.
 My hearers, it is time that we widened out and heightened our religious thoughts. In our pulpits and Sabbath classes and Christian work of all sorts we ring the changes on few verses of Scripture until they excite no interest. Many of the best parts of the Bible have never yet been preached from or indeed . even noticed. Hence today begin se- bath mornings, but as often as think it best for variety's sake, on the astronomy of the Bible, or God among the stars; the geology of the Bible, or God among the rocks; the ornithology of the Bible, or God among the birds; the ichthyology of the Bible, or God among the fishes; the pomology of the Bible or God among the orchards; the precious stones of the Bible, or God among the amethysts; the conchology of the Bible, or God among the shells; the botany of>the Bible, or God among the flowers; the chronology of the Bible, or God among the centuries. The fact is that we have all spent too much time on one story of the great mansion of Gods universe. We need occasionally to go up stairs or down stairs in this mansion; down stairs and in the cellar study the rocks, or up stairs and see God in some of the higher sto- ries aud learn the meaning or the text when it says, ''It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven"
 Astronomy was born in Chaldea. Its mother was astrology, or the science of foretelling events by juxtaposition of stars. The orientals, living much out of doors and in very clear atmosphere, through which the stars shone especially lustrous, got the habit of studying the night heavens In the hot seasons cara vans journeyed chiefly at night, and that gave travellers much opportunity of stel- lar information. On the first page of the Bible the sun and mooni and stars roll in. The sun. body nearly three million miles in circumference and more than twelve thousand times as large as our earth; the moon, more than two thousand miles in diameter.
 But God is used to doing things on such an omnipotent scale that he takes only one verse to tell of this stellar and lunar manufacture. Yea, in three words all the other worlds are thrown in. The record says, 1.-The stars alsol'' It takes whole pages for 8 man to extol the mak- ing of Q telescope or microscope, or magnetic telegraph or threshing ma chine, or to describe fine painting or statue, but it was so easy for God to hang the celestial upholstery that the story is composed in one verse: "God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. The stars also!'
 Astronomers have been trying to call the roll of them ever since, and they have counted multitudes of them pass ing in review before the observatories built at vast expense, and the size and number of those heavenly bodies have taxed to the utmost the scientists of all ages. But God finishes all he has to say about them in three words, "The stars alsop That is Mars with it's mora than fifty-fve million square miles, and Venus with its more than one hundred and ninety-one million square miles, and Saturn with its more than nine- teen billion square miles, and Jupi- ter with its more than twenty-four bil- lion square miles, and all the planets of our system of more than seventy eight billion square miles, and these stars of our system, when compared with the stars of the other systems, as handful of sand compared with all the Rocky mountains and all the Alps. "The stars alsor' For brevity, for ponderosity, for spiendor, for suggestiveness, for sublim- ity piled on sublimity, these words excel all that human speech ever uttered or human imagination ever scared after. ''The stars alsor' It is put in as you write postscript = something you thought of afterward, as hardly worth putting into the body of letter. 1.-The stars also!'
 JOB AND ISAIAH KNEW.
 Read on in your Bibles, and after awhile the Bible flashes with the aurora borealis or northern lights, that strange illumination, as mysterious and unde- fined now as when in the book of Job 1t was written: "Men see not the bright light which is in the clouds. Fair weath- CT cometh out of the north" While all the nations supposed that the earth was built on foundation of some sort, and mapv euppocad that if stood 0n a huoe