The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-12-23
Is Mad"

L
the natural world as disclosed in the
Bible. The subject chosen for the
initial sermon was, 1.-THE Astronomy of
| the Bible, or God Among the Stars"
the text being from Amos tx, @, ut is
he that buildeth his stories in the
heaven" Preceding the sermon the
great congregation sang Isaac Watts
hymn:
The heavens declare thy glory, Lord,
In every star thy wisdom shines.
That is first rate poetry from Amos
the herdsman. While guarding his flocks
at night he got watching the heavens
He saw stars above stars, and the uni
verse seemed to him like great mansion
many stories high, silver room above
silver room, silver pillars beside silver
| pillars, and windows of silver and doors
| of silver, and turrets and domes of sill
| yer rising into the immensities, and the
prophets sanctified Imagination walks
through that great silver palace of the
universe, through the first story, through
| the second story, through the third
story, through the twentieth story,
through the hundredth story, through
the thousandth story, and realizing that
God is the architect and carpenter and
mason of all that upheaved splendor, he
cries out in the words of the text, at is
he that buildeth his stories in the
heaven"
THE ELEvATING SCIENCES.
My hearers, it is time that we widened
out and heightened our religious
thoughts. In our pulpits and Sabbath
classes and Christian work of all sorts
we ring the changes ON few verses of
Scripture until they excite no interest.
Many of the best parts of the Bible have
never yet been preached from or indeed
even noticed. Hence today begin Sc
ries of sermons, not for consecutive Sab
bath mornings, but as often as | think it
best for variety's sake, on the astronomy
of the Bible, or God among the stars; the
geology of the Bible, or God among the
rocks; the ornithology of the Bible, or
God among the birds; the ichthyology
| of the Bible, or God among the fishes; the
| pomology of the Bible or God among
the orchards; the precious stones of the
Bible, or God among the amethysts; the
conchology of the Bible, or God among
the shells; the botany of the Bible, or
God among the flowers; the chronology
of the Bible, or God among the centuries.
The fact is that we have all spent too
much time on one story of the great
mansion of Gods universe. We need
occasionally to go up stairs or down
stairs in this mansion; down stairs and
in the cellar study the rocks, or up stairs
and see God in some of the higher sto-
| ries and learn the meaning OF the text
when it says, at is he that buildeth his
| stories in the heaven"
Astronomy was born in Chaldea. Its
mother was astrology, OF the science Of
foretelling events by juxtaposition of
stars. The orientals, living much out of
doors and in very clear atmosphere,
through which the stars shone especially
lustrous, got the habit of studying the
| night heavens. In the hot seasons cara
vans journeyed chiefly at night, and that
gave travellers much opportunity of stel-
| Lar information. On the first page of
| the Bible the sun and moon and stars
roll in. The sun, a body nearly three
| million miles in circumference and more
than twelve thousand times as large as
our earth; the moon, more than two
thousand miles in diameter.
But God is used to doing things on
such an omnipotent scale that he takes
only one verse to tell of this stellar and
lunar manufacture. Yea, in three words
all the other worlds are thrown in. The
record says, The stars also!' 1t takes
whole pages for a man to extol the MAX
ing of q telescope or microscope, or a
magnetic telegraph or threshing ma
chine, or to describe fine painting or
statue, but it was so easy for God to
hang the celestial upholstery that the
story is comprised in one verse: "God
made two great lights; the greater light
to rule the day and the lesser light to
rule the night. The stars alsol"
Astronomers have been trying to call
the roll of them ever since, and they
have counted multitudes of them pass
ing in review before the observatories
built at vast expense, and the size and
number of those heavenly bodies have
taxed to the utmost the scientists of all
ages. But God finishes all he has to say
about them in three words, "The stars
also!' That is Mars with its more
than fifty-fve million square miles, and
Venus with its more than one hundred
and ninety-one million square miles
and Saturn with its more than nine
teen billion square miles, and Jupi
ter with its more than twenty-four bill
lion square miles, and all the planets
of our system of more than seventy eight
billion square miles, and these stars o.
our system, when compared with the
stars of the other systems, as a handful
of sand compared with all the Rocky
mountains and all the Alps. tThe starr
also" For brevity, for ponderosity, fol
splendor, for ggestiveness, for sublim
ity piled on sublimity, these words exec
all that human speech ever uttered o.
human imagination ever scared after
1.-The stars also!' 1t is put in as yor
write postscript = something yor
thought of afterward, as hardly wortl
putting into the body of a letter. "Tht
stars also!'
JOB AND ISAIAH KNEW.
Read on III your Bibles, and aftei
awhile the Bible flashes with the auror;
boreahs or northern lights, that strang,
illumination. as mysterious and unde
fined now as when in the book of Jol
it was written: MEN see not the brigh
light which is in the clouds. Fair wealth
er cometh out of the north" While al
the nations supposed that the earth wa
built ON foundation of some sort, ant
many supposed that it stood on a hug
turtle, or some great marine creature
job knew enough of astronomy to say i
had no foundation, bat was suspcndet
on the iuyh ihle arm Of the Almighty
declaring that she hangeth the cart
upon nothing Y lille all nations though
the earth wa 7el, the sky spread Owe
it like Il tent OYER a Eat surface, Isaill
declared the world TO be globular, cir
cular, saying Of God, "IIe sitteth upol
the circle OF the earth." See them glitta
In the scriptural sEy-Arcturus, Orion
the Pleiades and the Bear with he
! (