The Red Cloud chief., 1892-04-01
WARNING IN THE STARS.
d.. Talmage Draws Lessons From
the Heavenly Bodies.
geek Him That Maketh the Seven StaSs
and ~Orion"-Tru,s All to God-Ths
Need Of Storm rs Well as
Sunshine.

In q late sermon at Brooklyn Rev.
7. De Witt Talmage took his text from
Amos ". s: seek Him that Maketf
the Seven Stars and Orion" Follow
ing is the sermon:
A country farmer wrote this text
Amos of Tekoa He plowed the earth
and threshed the grain by a new
threshing machine just invented. as
formerly the cattle trod out the grain.
He gathered the fruit of the sycamore
tree, and scarifed it with an iron CONT
just before it was getting ripe, as it
vas 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 stammer.
ing rustic the Philistines. and Syrians,
and Phenicians, ami Moabites, and
Ammonites, and Edomites. and Israel.
ties trembled.
Moses vas a law giver, Daniel was
. prince, Isaiah a courtier, and David
q king; but Amos, the author of my
text, was q peasant, and, as might be
supposed, nearly all of his parallelisms
are pastoral, his prophecy full of the
odor of new NOW hay. and the rattle
of ~locusts, ADD the rumble of carts
with sheaves and the roar Of wild
beasts devourlng 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 branches
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 v see the stars except
among tall 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
the curtain of the night heaven. with
the stellar embroideries and silvered
Of lunar light.
What a life of solitude, all alone
with his herds! Poor Amosi And at
o'clock at night, bark to the
VOLTS bark, and the lions roar, and
the bears growl, and the owls te-whit-
to-who. and the serpent's hiss, as he
steps too near while NOV
ing 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 advanc-
ing 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, divine
" 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
rustic prophet associated with the
as it rises about the first of May.
The latter he associated with the win
ter, as it comes to the meridian in jan
nary. The Pleiades, or seven stars,
with all sweetness and joy;
Orion. the herald of the tempest The
were the more apt to study
the physiognomy and juxtaposition of
The heavenly bodies, because they
they had a special influence
upon the earth; and perhaps they were
right. If the moon every few hours
lifts and lets down the tides of the At
lantic ocean, and the electric storms of
the sun. by all scientific admission. af-
!ect the earth, why not the stars have
Droportionate effect?
And there are some things which
make me think hat it may not have
been all superstition which connected
The movements and appearance of the
heavenly bodies with great moral events
IN earth. Did not a meteor run on
errand on the first Christ
mas night, and designate the rough
,radle of our Lord? Did not the stars
their courses fight against Sisera?
Was it merely coincidental that before
destruction of Jerusalem the moon
was eclipsed for twelve consecutive
Did it merely happen SO that
, new star appeared in constellation
Cassiopeia and then disappeared just
King Charles IN, of France. |
who was responsible for st. Bartholo-
new massacre, died? Was it without
that in the days of the
Roman Emperor Justinian war and
anime were preceded by the dimness
# the sun. which for nearly a year
ave no more light than the moon, al
there were no clouds to obscure
t?
Astrology, after all, may have been
'omething more than n brilliant heath
,nisrn. No wonder the Amos of the
ext, having heard these two anthems
If the stars, put down the stout, rough
taft of the herdsman and took into his
brown and cut and knotted fingers the
zen Of a prophet, and advised the re-
.reant people of his time to return to
rod, saying: seek Him that maketh
he seven stars and Orion" This COM
.and, which Amos gave 7s5 years Ii.
=. is just as appropriate for US, 1899
l. d.
In the first place. Amos saw, as we
must see, that the God who made the
'leiades and Orion must be the God of
rider. 1t was not SO much a star here
nd a star there that impressed the in
PRED herdsmen. but seven in one
and seven in the other group.
lie saw that night after night and
aason after season and decade after