The Penn's Grove record., 1892-03-25

AA1'ht
light. Again and again is nght harhessed
Tor symbolizltion = Christ, the prlght
morning star: evangelization, the nay-oreak,
the redemption of nations, sun OF
Righteousness rising with healing IN his
wings. u men and women, with SO many
sorrows and sins and perplexities, II you
want light Of comfort, light OF pardon, hgnt
of goodness, in earnest prayer through
Christ, Seek Him that maketh the Seven
Stars and Orion"
Again, Amos saw, as We must see, that
the God who made these two archlpeiagoes
OF stars must be an unchanging Tod. There
had been no change in tue stellar appear
ance in this herdsman's lifetime, and his
father, a shepherd, reported to bin that
there had been no change in his lifetime.
And these two clusters hang over the celes-
tial arbor now just as they were the nrst
night that they shoue on the Edenic bowers;
the same as when the Egyptians built the
pyramids, from the topo which to watch
them; the same as when the Chaldeans cal
culatei the e~clipses; the same as when
Elihu, according to the book OF Job, went
ont to study the aurora boreahs; the same
under Ptelemaic system and Copernican sys.
tenn; the same from Calisthenes to Pythag-
oras, and from Pythagoras to Herschel.
Surely, a changeless God must have fash
Toned the Fleiades and Orionl Oh, what an
anodyne amri the ups and downs of life, AMI
@'A lima vs.
to know that we have a changeless God, tn
same yesterday, to-day and %forever"
Aerxes 5arlalded and knighted the steers
man of his boat in the morning AMI hanged
him in the evening OF the same day. The
world sits in its chariot and drive tandem,
and the horse ahead is Huzza and the horse
behind IL Anathema Lord Gotham, In
King James, time, was applauded. and had
thirty five thousand dollars . year. but was
sfterwari execrated and lived on scraps
stolen from the royal kitchen. Alexander
the Great after death remained unburied for
thirty days, because no one would do the
honor OF shoyeling him under. The Duke OF
Wellington refused to have his iron fence
nendet because IL had been broken by an
nfuriated populace in some hour OF political
excitement and he left it in rains that mel
might learn what a tickle thing is human
favor. But the mercy OF tho Lord is fro n
everlasting tn everlasting to them that fear
Him, AMI His righteousness unto the chill
dren's children OF such as keep his covenant,
and to those who remember His
nents To do them" This moment seek
Him that mlketh the Seven Stars and
Orion
Again. Amos saw, as we IN u see, that
the God VINO made these two beacons of the
Orientai night sky must b. God of love and
Kindly warming. The Pleiades rising in
niisky sad to all the herdsmen and shep-
nerds aui husbandmen, Come out and en-
Joy the mild weather and cultivate YOU
gardens and fields" Orion, coming in win
ter, warned them to prepare for tempest.
All navigation was regulated by these two
considerations. The one said to shipmaster
and crew, Hoist sail for the sea and gather
merchandise from other lands" But Orion
was the storm signal, and said, REEF sail,
make things snug or put into harbor, for the
hurricanes are getting their wings out" As
| kha plala4.g ~ tho cuaaf auonnalc IF tho
spring, Orion was the warning prophet of
.ne winter.
Oh, now I get the best view of God I ever
hadl There are two kinds Of sermons |
never want to preach-the one that presents
God so kind, 50 ~indulgent, so l%enient, so i'm
beetle that men may do what they will
against Him and fracture His every law and
put the pry of their impertineucs and re-
bellion under His throne, and while they are
splitting IN His face and stabbing at His
heart, He takes them up in His arms and
kiss 5 their inturiated brow and cheek, say
ing, 'HOf such is the kingdom of heaven"
The oJuer kim of sermon l never want to
preach Is the one that represents God as all
lire and torture and thuniercloud, an with
red hot pitchtork tossing the m race
into paroxysms of infinite agony. The SER
mon that am now preaching believes in a
Col Of flowing, kindly warning, the God OF
spring ami winter, the God or Pieiades AMI
Orion.
You must remember that the winter is just
as important as the spring. Let one winter
pass without frost to kill vegetation and ice
to bind the rivers and snow to enrich our
fields, ami then you will have to enlarge
your hospitals and your cemeteries. "a
green Christmas makes a fat graveyard"
was the old proverb. Storms to purify the
air. Thermometer at ten degrees above zero
to tone up the system. December and jan
uary just as important as May and June. I
tell you We need the storms of life just as
much as we do the sunshine. There are more
men ruined by prosperity than by adversely.
Ii we had our own way in life before this We
would have been representations of selfish
ness and worldliness and disgusting sin, and
pulled up until we would have been like
julius Cesar, who was made by sycophants
to believe that he was divine, and that the
treckles on his face were as stars of the firm
lment.
One of the swiftest Transatlantic voyage.
made last summer by our swiftest steamer
was because she had a stormy wind abaft,
chasing her from New York to Liverpool,
But to those going in the opposite direction
the storm was a buffeting and a hindrance.
1t is a bad thing to have a storm ahead,
pushing US back; but IL we be Gods children
and aiming toward HEAVIER the storms OF
life viii only chase us the sooner into the
harbor. l am so glad to believe that the
monso0ns and typhoons and mistrals and
]sirocc0s Of the land and sea are not un-
chained mauiacs let loose upon the earth,
but are under divine supervisionI 1 ain so
glad that the God of the Seven Stars is also
the Col of Orionl 1t was out of Dante's
suffering came the sublime "Divina Com
media, - and out of John Millions blindness
came Paradise Lost" and out of miserable
Inidai attack came the 'Bridgewater
1~reatise' in favor of Christianity, and out
of Davis exile came the songs Of consola-
ton, and out OF the suiferInSs of Christ
come the possibility of the worlds redemp-
ton, AMI out OF your bereavement, your
persecution, your poverties, your mistor-
tunes may yet come an eternal heaven.
Oh, what a mercy it is that in the text and
all up and down the Bible God induces us to
look out toward other worldsl Bible astron-
omy in Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in the
Psalms, IN the prophets, major and minor,
in st Johns Apocalypse, practically saying:
'Worlis. w0rldsl worldsl Get ready for
them We have a nice little world here
that We stick to, as though losing that we
lose all. We are afraid Of falling Off this
little raft Of a world. We are afraid that
some meteorlc iconoclast will some night
smash il, and we want everything to revolve
around 1t, and are disappointed when we
find that It reVoiyes around the sun instead
of tue sun revolving around 1t. What a
lu1H We A'hh va hbbio blt VI q WI
its existence only a short time between two
spasrs, the paroxysm by which it was hurled
from chaos into order, and the paroxysm of
Is demolition.
And l am glad that so many texts sail US
to look of to other worlds, many Of them
larger and grander and more Respondent.
Look there says Job, ''at Nazareth and
Areturu, aud his sous ri "Look there" saws
st. John, 'at the moon under Christ's feetg'
"Look there says Joshua, "at the sun
standing still above GibeonP' Look there
says Moses, 'at the sparkling frma-
m6ntf' Look there" a Amos
the hsrdsman, 'tat the Seven Starr
aud UrIon?' Don't let US be so sad
about those who shove of from this world
under Christlv pilotage. Don't let US be 50
agitatei about our going off this little barge
or sloop orcanal boat Of a world to get on
some Great Eastern Of the heavens. Don't
let uspersist in wanting to stay in this barn,
this shell, this clubhouse of a world when ali
the Kings palaces already occupied by many
OF our best friends are swinging wide open
their gates TO let us in.
When | read, .In My Fathers house are
many mansions" 1 do not know but that
each world is a room, aud as many rooms as
there are worlds, stellar stairs, stellar gall
lerles, stellar Railways, stellar windows,
stellar domes- How our departed friends