Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1892-03-26
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DfvINE,s SUN.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Divinity in the stars

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A country farmer wrote this text-Anios
OF Tekoa- He plowed the earth and thrashed
the grain by new thrashing machine lust
invented, as formerly the cattle trod out the
grain. He gathered the fruit of the syca-
more tree and scarified 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 eon of a
poor eAepherd and suffered. but before the
stammering rustic the Philistines and Syr-
lans and PhGnicians and Moabites and Am
monites and Edomites and Israelites trem-
bled.
Moses was a law giver, Daniel was a
prince Isaiah a courtier and David king;
but Amos the author of my text, was a
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 Of 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 booth
made out of bushes, so that through these he
could see the stars all night lorg, and was
more familiar with them than we who have
tight roofs to our houses and hardly ever sea
the stars, except among the tall brick
chimneys 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 his
herds! Poor Amos And at IL 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 uuwit-
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
associated their dawn and setting with GER
tain seasons Of the year. 81 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 on
the ground or lying on his back under the
open scroll of the midnight heavens-the
P1eiades, or 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 in Janu-
airy. The Pleiades, or Seven Stars, con-
nected with all sweetness and joy; Orion,
the herald of the tempest. The ancents
were the more apt to study the pbysiognomy
and juxtaposition of the heavenly bodies,
because they thought they had a special in
f1uence upon the earth, and perhaps they
were right. If the moon every few hours
lifts and lets 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 effectS
And there are some things which make me
think that it may not have been all super.
sutton which connected the movements and
appearance of the heavenly bodies with
great moral events on earth. Did not me-
teor run on evangelistic errand on the first
Christmas night and designate the rough
cradle of our LordS Did not the stars in
their courses fight against Siseca? Was it
merely coincidental that before the destruc-
ton OF Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for
twelve consecutive nightsf Did it merely
happen so that new star appeared in con-
stellatlou Cassiopeia, and then disappeared
just before King Charles TX of France, who
was responsible for the st. Bartholomew
massacre, dieds 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 itp
Astrology, after all, may have been SO me-
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 and
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. e, is just as appropriate for US, 1892
A. D.
In the first place, Amos saw, as we must
see, that the God who made the PIeiades
| and Il-EN., IL r.
was not so much star here and a star
there that impressed the inspired herdsmau,
but seven In one group and seven in the
other group. He saw that night after night
and season after season and decade after de-
| cade they had kept step of light, each one in
its own place, and sisterhood never clashing
| and never contesting precedence. From the
time 6esiod called the Pleiades the ''seven
daughters of Atlas, and Virgil wrote in his
IEneid 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 pigeonholed, but with
the hand of the Almighty on the dome of the
sky, so that all pations 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
hend 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. If God car 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 as my father felt one
| day when we were going to the country mill
to get grist ground, and /. boy of seven
years, sat in the back part of the wagon and
| our yoke of oxen ran away with us and along
iaoyrinthine road through the woods, so
That thought every moment we should be
| dashed to pieces, and made terrible out.
| cry OF fright, and my father turned to me
with face perfectly calrl, and said: "De
WITT, what are you crying about? 1 guess
| we can ride as fast as the oxen can run"
And, my hearers, why should we. be affrighted
and lose our equilibrium in the swift move
ment of worldly events, especially when we
are assured that it is not yoke of unbroken
steers that are drawing us on, but that Or
der and wise government are in the yoke?
In your occupation, your mission, your
sphere, do the best you can and then trust
TO God; and if all things are all mixed and
| dlsquletlng, and your brain is hot and your
| neart SICK, get some one to go out with you
into the starlight and point out to you the
Pleiades, or, better than that, get into some
| observatory and through the telescope see
| further than Amos with the naked eve could
namely, TWO hundreI stars IN Tue FleladeS
and thatin what is called the sword of Orion
| there is nebula COMPUTED to be two trillion,
two hundred thousand billions times larger
| than the sun. Oh, beat peace with the God
| who made all that and controls all that-the
wheel of the consultations turning in the
| wheel of galaXles for thousands of years
without the breaking of a cog or the slipping
OF band or the snap OF an axle. For your
| pacidity and comfort through the Lord
Jesus Christ charge you, Seek Him that
| maketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
| Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that the
God who made these two groups of the text
was the God of light. Amos saw that God
was not satisfied with making one star or
three stars, but He makes seven; and having
| finished that group of worlds makes another
| group-group after group. 70 the Pieiades
| He adds Orion. 1t seems that God likes light
| so well that He keeps making it. Only one
being in the universe knows the statistics of
! solar, lunar. stellar, meteoric creations, and
! that is the Creator Himself And they have
all been lovingly christened. each one name
as distinct as the names of your children.
He telleth the number of the stars; He
| calleth them all by their names.' The
seven Pleedes had names given TO them, and
| they are Aiey one Merope. Ceano Electra,
| Sterope, Tavgete and Maia.
But think of the billions and trillious of
daughters of starry light that God calls by
name as they sweep by Him with beaming
brow and lustrous robel So fond is God of
hght-natural light moral light, spiritual
| light. Again and again is light harnessed
for symbolzation = Christ, the BRIGHT
morning star; evangelization, the day -break;
| Nn a