Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-12-22
AT THE TABERNACLE.
Or. TALMAeE BEGINS A SERIES or
SERMONS ON DIVINE SCIENCE.

God in the Natural Worid-The Heavens |
Declare His Glory and the Earth Shows |
His Handiwork-It was Only Necessary |
That Christ should Die In This World. |
BROOKLYN, Dec. 1s.-Rev. DR.. Talmage |
today preached the first Of the promised
series Of sermons on God In the natural
world as disclosed in the Bible. The sub
ject chosen for the initial sermon was,
''The Astronomy Of the Bible, or God
Among the Stars" the text being from
Amos tx, Q, 'It 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 to watching the heavens. He
saw stars above stars, and the universe
seemed to him like great mansion many
stories high, silver room above silver room,
silver pillars beside silver pillars, and win
dows Of silver and doors Of silver, and tur-
rets and domes of silver rising into the
immensities, and the prophets sanctifed
imagination walks through that great sill
yer palace of the universe, through the
first story, through the second story,
through the third story, through the twen-
tieth story, through the hundredth story,
through the thousandth story, and realiz-
ing 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"
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 l today begin series of sermons,
not for consecutive Sabbath mornings, but
as often as I 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 ich-
thyology 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 stories and learn the meaning
of the text when it says, ut is he that
buildeth his stories in the heaven"
ORIGIN OF THE SCIENCE.
Astronomy was born in Chaldea. It's
mother was astrology, or the science Of
foretelling events by juxtaposition of stars.
The orientals, living much out of doors
and in a very clear atmosphere, through
which the stars shone especially lustrous.
got the habit of studying the night heav-
ems. In the hot seasons caravans jour
neyed chiefly at night, and THAT gave trav.
elers much opportunity Of stellar informa.
tion. On the first page of the Bible the
sun and moon and stars roll in-the sun
body nearly three million miles in cir
cumference and more than twelve thou.
sand 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 man
ufacture. Yea, in three words all the othel
worlds are thrown in. The record says
'The stars alsop'
1t takes whole pages for a man to eXto
the making of telescope or microscope
or a magnetic telegraph, or a thrashine
machine, or to describe fms painting ol
statue, but it was so easy for God to hang
the celestial upholstery that the story /!
compassed in one verse: "God made tive
great lights-the greater light to rule thu
day and the lesser light to rule the night
The stars alsop' Astronomers have beer
trying to call the roll of them ever since
and they have counted multitudes of then
passing in review before the observatorie
built at vast expense, and the size an(
number of those heavenly bodies hav
taxed to the utmost the scientists of al
ages. But God finishes all he has to sav
about them in three words, "The star
.alsop'
That is Mars, with its more than fifty
five million square miles, and Venus, witt
its more than one hundred and ninety -on
million square miles, and Saturn, with it
more than nineteen billion square miles
and Jupiter, with its more than twenty
four billion square miles, and all the plan
cts of our system of more than seventy
eight billion square miles, and these star
of our system, when compared with th
stars of the other systems, as handful
of sand compared with all the Rocky noun
tains and all the Alps. "The stars also!
For brevity, for ponderosity, for splendol
for suggestiveness, for sublimity piled O
LII de oil fHof h,-
man speech ever uttered or human imag
nation ever scared after, 1.-THE stars also!
1t is put in as you write postscript
something you thought of afterward q
hardly worth putting into the body of
letter. "The stars also"
SCIENCE IN THE BOOK OF JOB.
Read on in your Bibles, and after awhil
the Bible flashes with the aurora boreali
or northern lights, that strange illumini
ton as mysterious and underlined now 9
when in the book of Job it was writer
"Men see not the bright light which is l
the Clouds Fair weather cometh out {
the north" While all the nations SUI
posed that the earth was built on foundi
tion of some sort, and many supposed ths
it stood on huge turtle or some gres
marine creature, Job knew enough {
astronomy to say it had no foundation, br
was suspended on the invisible arm of th
Almighty, declaring that "he hangeth tt
earth upon nothing" While all natior
thought the earth was level, the sky sprea
over it like tent over a fiat surfac
Isaiah declared the world to be globula
circular, saying of God, "He sitteth upc
the circle of the earth" See them glittt
in the Scriptural sky--Arcturus, Oriol
the Pleiades and the 'bear with hi
young"
While running your fingers among IL
leaves of your Bible with the astronomic
thought in your mind you see two work.
stop-the sun and the moon. But VIII
does that Christian know about that mi
acla who does not understand somethiI