The Forrest City times., 1892-03-25
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
THE SEVEN STARS OF ORION
 AND THEIR GOD.
Dr. Talmage Traduces the Heavenly Realms for Truths Told by the Stars Amos of Tekoa and His Interest iu the Heavenly Bodies.

! 1 thought to teach useful everyday lessons based on the text, Amos 5: s: Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion
 A country farmer wrote this text- Amos of Tekoa. He ploughed the earth and threshed the grain by a new threshing machine just invented, as formerly the cattle trod out the grain. He gathered the fruit of the sycamore 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 son of poor shepherd and ! stuttered; but before the stammering rustic the Philistines, and Syrians, and Phenicians, and Moabites. and Am monites, and Edomites, and Israelites trembled.
 ! What life of solitude, all alt
 with his herdsl Poor Amos. And at i F o'clock at night, hark to the wolfs bark, and the lions roar, and the bears growl, and the owls te-whit-t te- who, and the serpent's hiss, as he unwit- tingly steps too near while moving through the thickets. So Amos, like other herdsmen, got the habit of study ing the map of the heavens, because it was so much of the time spread out be- i fore him. He noticed some stars ad- vancing and others receding. He as- sociated their dawn and setting with certain seasons of the year. He had n 1 poetic nature, and he read night by night, and month by month, and year by year, the poem of the constellations, divinely rhythmic.
 l And there are some things which makes me think that it may not have been all superstition which connected the movements and appearance of the heavenly bodies with great moral events on earth. Did not meteor run on evangelistic errand on the first Christmas night, and designate the rough cradle of our Lord? Did not the stars in their course fight against Sisera? Was it merely coincidental l that before the destruction of Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for twelve con secutive nights? Did it merely happen so that new star appeared in constel- lation Cassiopeia, and then disappeared just before King Charles TX. of France, who was responsible for St. Bartholo- new massacre, died? Was it without l significance that in the days of the Roman Emperor Justinian war and i famine were preached 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 it?
 In the first place Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who made the Pleiades and Orion must be the God of order. It was not so much star here and star there that impressed the in- spired herdsman, but seven in one He saw that night after night and sea- son after season and decade after dec- ade, they had kept step of light, each one in it's own place, a sisterhood never clashing and never contesting prece- dence. From the time Hesiod called the Pleiades the "seven daughters of Atlas" and Virgil wrote in his Eniad of "Stormv Orion" until now, they have observed the order estab- lished for their coming and going; order written not in manuscript that may be pigeon -holed, but with the hand of the Almighty on the dome of the sky, so that all nations may read 1t. Order. Persistent order. Sublime or der. Omnipotent order.
 What sedative to you and me, to whom communities and nations some times seem going pell-mel, and world ruled by some fiend at hap-hazard. and in all directions maladministration. The God who keeps seven worlds in right circuit for 5000 years can cer- tainly keep all the affairs of individuals and nations and continents in adjust ment. We had not better fret much, for the peasants argument of the text was right. If God can take care of the seven worlds of the Pleiades and the four chief worlds of Orion, he can prob ably take care of the one world we in- habit.
 Amos saw that God was not satisfied with making one star, or two or three stars, but he makes seven; and having finished that group of worlds, makes another group-group after group. To the Pleiades he adds Orion. It seems that God likes light so well that he keeps making it. Only one being in the universe knows the statistics Of solar, lamar, stellar, r,meteoric creations, and that is the Creator himself. And they have all been lovingly christened, each one a 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 Pleiades had names given to them, and they are Alcyone, Merope, Cel@no, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia.
 But think of the billions and trillions of daughters of starry light that God calls by name as they sweep by him with beaming brow and lustrous robe! So fond is God of light-natural light. Again and again is light harnessed for ymbolization-Chris the bright and morning star; evangelization, the daybreak; the redemption of nations, Sun of Righteousness rising with heal ing in his wings. Oh, men and women, with so many sorrows and sins and perplexities. if you want light of com fort, light of pardon, light 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 archi-