Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1892-03-24
OR. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
|DIVINE ASTRONOMY ACCORD
ING TO THE PROPHETS.
In the Exchanging Volume of the Skies
1t Is Written that God Is God of In
finite Order and without Varlabieness
or Shadow CT Turning.
At the Tabern acIe.

Amos V, s, "Seek Him that maketh the
Seven Stars and Orion"
a farmer wrote this teXt-Amos OF
Tekoa. He plowed the earth and
thrashed the grain by a new thrashing
machine just invented, as formerly the
cattle trod out the grain. He gathered
the fruit of the sycamore tree and sac
riticed it with an iron comb just before
it was getting ripe, as it was necessary
and customary in that way to take
from it the bitterness. He was the son
of a poor shepherd and suffered,
but before the stammering rustic the
Philistnes and Sprians and PhGniclans
and Moabites and Ammonites and
Edomites and Israelites trembled.
Moses was a lawgiver, Daniel was q
prince, Isaiah a courtier and David
a king; but Amos, the author OF my
text, was peasant, and, as might be
supposed, nearly all his parallelsms are
pastoral, his prophecy full of the odor
Of new mown hay, and the rattle OF To-
Gusts, and the rumble of carts with
sheaves, and the roar Of wild beasts de-
youring the flock while the shepherd
came out in their defense. He watched
the herds by day, and by night inhabited
q booth made out Of bushes, SO that
through these he could see the stars all
night long, and was more familiar with
them than we who have tight roofs to
our houses and hardly ever see the
stars, except among the brick 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 beng the curtain of the night
heaven, with the steiIer embroideries
and silvered tassels Of lunar light.
What a life OF solitude, all alone with
his herds! Poor Amos! And at ~
o'clock at night bark to the VOLTS
bark, and the lions roar and the BEARS
growl, and the OWLS te-whit-te-w
and the serpent's hiss, as he unwittingly
steps too near while moving through
the thickets! So Amos, like other herds
men, got the habit Of studying the map
of the heavens, because it was so much
of the time spread out before him. He
noticed some stars advancing, and
others receding. He associated their
dawn and setting with certain 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 at
tracted his attention while seated On the
ground or lying On his back unoer the
open scroll of the midnight heavens-the
Pleiades, or Seven Stars, and the Orion.
The former group this rustic prophet
associated with the spring, as it rises
about the first Of May. The latter he
associated with the winter. as it comes
to the meridian in January. The
Pleiades, or Seven Stars, connected with
sweetness and joy: Orion, the herald of
the tempest. The ancents were the
more apt to study the physiognomy and
juXtaposition of the heavenly bodies,
because they thought they had special
influence upon the earth, and perhaps
they were right. II the moon every few
hours lifts and let's down the tides
of the Atlantic Ocean, and the electric
st&'ms of the sun, by all scientific adj
mission. affect the earth, why not the
stars have proportionate effect?
And there are some things which make
me think that it may not have been all
superstition which connected the move
mentS and appearance of the heavenly
bodies with great moral events on earth.
Did not meteor run on 0vangelistic
errand on the first Christmas night and
designate the rough cradel of our Lord?
Did not the stars in their courses fight
against Sisera? Was it merely coin
cidental that before the destruction of
Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for
twelve consecutive nights? Did it merely
happen so that q new star appeared in
constellation Cassiopeia, and then disap-
peared just before King Charles TX of
France. who was responsible for the St.
Bartholomew massacre, died? Was it
without significance that iE the days of
the Roman Emperor Justinian war and
famine were preceded by the dimness 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 some
thing more than brilliant heathenism.
No wonder that Amos of the text, hav-
ing heard these two anthems OF the stars,
put down the stout rough staff of the
herdsman and took into his brown hand
and cut and knotted fingers the pen of
prophet and advised the recreant people
of his time to return to God, saving,
"Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars
and Orion.' This command, which
Amos gave 1856 years B. c., is just as ap-
propriate for us, 1892 A. ID.
In the first place, Amos saw, as we
Pleiades and Orion must be the God of
order. It was not SO much a star here
and star there that increased the in
spired herdsman, but seven in one group
and seven In the other group. He saw
that night after night and season after
season and decade after decade they had
kept step of light, each one in its own
place, a sisterhood never clashing and
never contesting precedence. From the
time Hesiod called the Pleiades the
"seven daughters of Atlas and Virgil
wrote in his Eneid of ''Stormy Orion
until now. they have observed the order
established tor their coming and going;
order written not in manuscript that
may be pigenholed, but with the hand of
the Almighty on the dome of the sky. so
that all nations may read it. Order.
Persistent order. Sublime order. Om-
nlpotent order.
What sedative to you and me, to
whom communities and nations some
times seem going pellmell, and world