Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-04-01
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DTvINE's SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Divinity in the Stars"

: A country farmer wrote this text-Amos
Of Tekoa- He plowed the earth and thrashed
the grain by new thrashing machine just
invented as formerly the cattle trod out the
grain. He gathered the fruit of the syca-
more tree and scarified it with an iror comb
just before it was getting ripe, as it was
necessary and customary in that way to take
from it the bitterness. He was thu son of a
poor shepherd and suffered, but before the
stammerlng rustic the Philistines and Syr-
1ans and Pheuicians and Moabites and Am
tnon'tes and Edomites and Israelites trem-
bled
Moses was a law giver Daniel was a
prince, Isaiah cOurtier and David a king:
but Amos, the author Of my text was
peasant and, as might be supposed, nearly
all his parallelisms are pastoral. his proph-
ecy full OF the odor of new mown hay, and
the rattle of lOcustS, and the rumble or carts
with sheaves, and the roar of wild beasts
devouring the flock while the shepherd came
out In their defense. He watched the herds
by day, and by night inhabited a booth
made out of bushes, so that throu yh these he
could see the stars all night long, and was
more familiar with them than we VINO have
tight roofs to our houses and hardly eyer sea
the stars, except among the tall brick
chlmneys of the great towns. But at sea-
sons OF the years when the herds were in
special danger he would stay out in the open
field all through the darkness his only
shelter the curtain Of the night heaven. with
the stellar embroideries and silver tassels OF
lunar light
What life of solitude, all alone with MS
herds! Poor Amos. And at 70 o'clock at night
bark to the VOLTS bark, and the lions roar
and the bears growl, and the owls te-whit-
te-who and the serpent's hiss, as he unwit-
tlngly steps too near while moving through
the thickets! So Amos, like other herdsmen,
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
tod %H,0IV. a.
tain seasons of the year. Fl 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 eSpe-
cially attracted his attention while seated Oh
the ground or lying on his back under the
open scroll of the midnight heavens-the
Pleiades, Seven Stars, and 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 i'll Janu-
airy. The Pieades. or Seven Stars con-
nected with all sweetness and joy; Orion,
the herald of the tempest. The ancients
were the more apt to study the physiognomy
and JUxtapOSitlOn Of the heavenly bodies
because they thought they had a special in
huenca upon the earth, and perhaps they
were right. If the moon every few hours
lifts and let's down the tides of the Atlantic
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 some things which make
think that it may not have been all super
stition which connected the movements and
appearance Of the heavenly bodies with
great moral events on earth. Did not a me-
teor run 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 Siseca? Was it
merely coincidental that before the destruc-
ton of Jerusalem the moon eclipsed for
twelve consecutive nights? Did it merely
happen so that new star appeared in con-
stellation CassiOpeia, and then disappeared
Just before King Charles TX of France VINO
was responsible for the st. Bartholomew
massacre, died? Was it without significance
that in the days of the Roman emperor JUS
tinian 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?
Astroiogy, after all. may have been some
thing more than a brilliant heathenism. No
wonder that Amos Of the text having heard
these two anthems of the stars, put down
the stout rough staff of the herdsman ami
took into his brown hand and cut and
knotted fingers the pen of a prophet and
advised the recreant people Of his time to
return to God, saying. Seek Him that
maketh the the Seven Stars and Orion
This command, which Amos gave 7S5 years
B. c., is just as appropriate for US, 1872
A. D.
III the first place Amos saw, as we must
see that the God who made the Pleiade5
and Orion must be the God of order 1t
was not so much a star here and star
there that impressed the inspired herdSman,
but seven in one group and seven IN the
Other group. He saw that night after night
and season after seaEon and decade after de-
cade they had kept step Of light, each one III
its own place and sSterhOod never claShing
and never contesting precedence. From the
time AesOd called the PleiaGeS the seven
daughters of Atlas" aud Virgil wrote in his
.Eneid of stormy Orion until now, they
have observed the order established for their
coming and going; order written not IN man
uscript that may be plgeOnhOled, but with
the hand of the Almighty on the come OF the
sky so that all nations may read it. Order.
Persistent order. Sublime order. OmnIpo-
tent order.
What sedative to you and me, to whom
communities and nations sometimes seem
going pellmell and world ruled by some
fiend at haphazard and in all directions
maladministration The God who keeps
seven worlds in right circuit for six thous-
and years can certainly keep all the affairs
of individuals and nations and continents in
adjustment. We had not better fret much,
for the peasants argument of the text was
right. 1t God can take care of the seven
worlds of the Pleiades and the four chief
worlds of Orion, He can probably take care
of the one world we inhabit.
SO [ feel very much my father felt one
day when we were going TO the country mill
to get grist ground, and |. a boy Of seven
years sat in the back part of the wa gon, and
our yoke of oxen ran away with us and along
a laoyriEthine road through the woods, SO
that [ thought every moment we should be
dashed to pieces, and | made a terrible out
cry of fright, and my father turned to me
with a face perfectly calm, and said: ''De
hot OH