The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-12-30
BIBLE ASTRONOMY.
DR.. Talmage Discourses Upon an
Interesting Subject.
He Believes 1t Is Time to Widen Out and
Heighten Religious Thought-Old
Ruts should BE Avoided In
Christian Work.

Dewitt 1almage TOOK Tor MS SUBJECT
1.-THE Astronomy of the Bible. or God
Among the Stars" the text being from
Amos, TX 6: 1T is He that buildeth
His stories in the heaven" Preceding
the sermon the congregation sang DIR.
Watts hymn:
The heavens declare Thy glory, Lord
In every star Thy wisdom shines.
DR.. Talmage said
That is first rate yoetry from Amos,
flocks at night he watched the heavens.
He saw stars above stars and the uni
verse seemed to him like a great man
sion 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 silver rising into the immensities,
and the prophets sanctifed imagina-
ton 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 cried out in the
words of the text: 1T is He that
buildeth His stories in the heaven"
Ny 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 a 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 l to-day
begin a series of sermons, not for con-
secutive Sabbath mornings, but as often
as think it best for varietvs sake, on
the Astronomy of the Bible, or God
among the Stars; the Geology of
the Bible, ~ God among the Rocks;
the Ornithoiogy 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 Anne
thysts; 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 uni
verse We need occasionally to go up
stairs or downstairs in this mansion;
| downstairs and in the cellar study the
rocks, or upstairs and see God in some
of the higher stories, and learn the
meaning of the text when it says: st
is He that buildeth His stories in the
| heaven"
Astronomy was born in Chaldea. It's
mother was astrology or the science of
foretelling events by juxtaposition of
stars The orientals, living much ont
of doors and in a very clear atmosphere,
| through which the stars shone especial
| " lustrous. got the habit of studying
! the night heavens. In the hot seasons
caravans jOurneyed chiefly at night,
and that gave travellers much oppor-
| tunity of stellar information. On the
| first page of the Bible the sun and
moon and stars roll in. The sun, n
body nearly 5000, 900 miles in circum-
| ference and more than 1000 times as
I large as our earth; the moon, more
/ than 1000 miles in diameter. But God is
used to doing things on such an omnip-
otent scale that he takes only one verse
| to tell of this stellar and lunar manu-
facture Yea, in three words all the
| other worlds are thrown in. The rec
ord says: 1.-THE stars alsor 1t takes
whole pages for a man to eXtol the
making Of a telescope or microscope or
a magnetic telegraph or n threshing
| machine, or to describe n fine painting
or statute, but it was so easy for God to
hang the celestial upholstery that the
| story is compassed 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 also.'
Read on in your Bibles, and after
/ awhile the Bible flashes with the aurora
| borealis or northern lights, that strange
/ illumination, as mysterious and undo
/ fined now as when, III the book of Job,
| it was written: Men see not the bright
/ light which is in the clouds. Fair
weather cometh out of the north. y
! While all the nations supposed that the
sort, and many supposed that it stood
| on a huge turtle, or some great marine
creature, Job knew enough of astron-
omy to say it had no foundation, but was
| suspended on the invisible arm of the
Almighty, declaring that HE hangeth
the earth upon nothing" While all ma
tions thought the earth was level, the
sky spread over it like a tent over a
fiat surface, Isaiah declared the world
to be globular, saying of God: ''He sit
! teth upon the circle of the earth"
While running your fingers through
the leaves of your Bible with the as
Economical thought in your mind you
see two worlds stop-the sun and the
moon. But what does that Christian
know about that miracle who does not
understand something of those two
luminaries? Unless you watch modern
astronomy, put those two worlds in its
steelyards and weigh them, you are as
ignorant as Hottentot about the stu
pendousness of that scene in the life
of Joshua. But l can easily be-
lieve it. What confounds me is not
that He could stop and start again those
two worlds in Joshua's time, but that
He could have made the wheel of worlds
of which the sun and moon are only
cogs, and keep that wheel rolling for
thousands of years-the fy-wheel OF
all eternity. If an engineer can start
| a long train, it is not surprising that
he can stop it. If God could make and
move the universe, which is an express
train drawn by an omnipotent engine,
am not surprised that for part of a
day he could put down the brakes on
two pieces of the rotating machinery.