The Penn's Grove record., 1892-03-25
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The BROOKLYN Divine's Sunday
Sermon.
Subject. "Divinity in the stars"

pl lthOds IL IlpNG IL u va eh"e
the grain by a 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 iron comu
Just before it was getting ripe, as it wa
necessary and customary in thai way otaRe
from it the bitterness. He was the son OF q
poor shepherd and suffered. but before the
stammering rustic the Philistines and Syr'
ians and Phuenicians and Moabites and Am
monites and Edomites and lsraelites trem'
bled.
Moses was a law giver, Daniel was a
prince. Isaiah a c~ourtier and David a king;
but Amos, the author of my text, was a
peasant, and, as might be supposed, nearly
all his Varallelisms are pastoral, MS prom,
| ecy tull 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 cant
| out in their defense. He watched the herds
by day, and by night inhabited a 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 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 oil
lunar light.
What a life of solitude, all alone with hi,
herds Poor Amosl And at IL O'Clock at night
bark to the VOLTS bark, and the lions roar.
| anu the bears growl, and the wis e-whit-
te.who, and the serpent's hiss, as he unwit-
tiDgly 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
80 @-N ls.. ha KNfanaI anEnf
stars advancing and others ~receding. He
associated their lawn and setting with GER
| tain seasons of the year. H 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 r~osettes of stars espe.
| cialIy attracted his attention while seated on
the ground or lying on his back under the
, open scroll of the Midnight ~heavens-the
Pieiades, 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 ZONES to the meridian in Janu-
| airy. Ihe Pieiades, 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 p~hysiognomy
and ju~xtaposition of the heavenly bodies,
because they thought they had a special in
fluence upon the earth, and perhaps they
were right. Ii 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 a v been all super.
| stition 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 il
merely coincidental that before the destruc-
! ton of Jerusalem the moon was ec'ipsed fol-
twelve consecutive nightsf Did it merely
happen SO that a new star appeared in con
/ stellation Cassiopeia, and then disappeared
just before King Charles TX of France, who
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 a year
gave no more light than the moon, although
there were no clouds to obscure itp
Astrology, 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 and
took into his brown hand n cut and
| huDlpGu ulStlS tuo pcu u "a pioPuto aiu
| 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 1S5 years
B. c., is just as appropriate for us, ls9!
A. d.
In the first place, Amos saw, as We must
zee, that the God who made the Pleiades
and Orion must be the God of order. II
was not so much a star here and a 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 season and decade after de-
| cade they had Kept step of light. each one in
its own place, and sisterhood never c~lashing
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 for their
coming and gong; 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 nations may read it. Order.
Persistent order. Sublime order. Omnipo'
| tent order.
What a sedative TO you and me, to whom
communities and nations sometimes seem
going pellmell, and world ruled by SOM
6end 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 ami nations and continents in
adjustment. We had not better fret much,
Tor the peasants argument of the text was
right. II God can take care of the seven
worlds of the Pleiades and the four chief
worlds of Orion, He can probably take care
If the one world we inhabit.
so l feel very much as my father felt one
day when We were going to the country mill
to get a grist ground, and l. a boy of sever
years, sat in the back part of the wagon, and
our yoke of oxen ran away with US and along
a iabyrlnthine road through the woods, so
that L thought every moment we should be
dashed to pieces, and l made a terrible out.
cry of fright, and my father turned to me
with a face perfectly calm, 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 nov
are assured that il is not a yoke of unbroken
steers that are drawing US on. but that Or
der and wise government are in the yoke?
In -FOUR occupation, your mission, your
rphere, do the best you can and then trust
to God; and if all things are all mixed AMI
5isquieting, n your brain is hot and your
heart 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 eye could
namely, two hundred stars in the Pleiades,
and that in what is called the sword of Orion
there is a 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-tha
wheel of the consultations turning in the
wheel OF gslaxies for thousands of years
without the breaking of a cog or the slipping
OF a band or the snap of an axle. For your
piacidlty and comfort through the Lord
Jesus Christ l charge you, seek Him that
naketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
Again, Amos saw, as we must see, that thu
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
E~raup-2roup after group. 10 the rIeIade,
he ands Orion. It seems that God likes light
SO well that He keeps making it. Only ons
being in the universe knows the statistics oil
solar, lunar, stellar, meteoric creations, aud
that is the Creator Himself. And they have
all been lovingly christeued, each one a name
as distinct as the names of your children.
de telleth the number OF the stars; He
calleth them all by their Names rhs
seven Plelades had names gwen to them, and
they are Alcyone, Merope, Celeno, Electra,
Sterope, Taygete and Maia.
| But think Of the billions and ~trillions OIL