Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-03-25


fashioned the Pleiades aud Orion! Oh,
downs of life, and the flux and refux
of the tides of prosperity, to know that
we have changeless God, the same
yesterday, to-day, andcforever.
Again, Amos saw, as we must see,
that the God who made these two bea-
cons of the Oriental night sky must be
a God Of love and kindly warning. The
Pleiades rising in mid-sl<y said to all the
herdsmen and shepherds and husband
men: Come out and enjoy the mild
weather, and cultivate your gardens
and lelds." Orion, coming in winter,
warned them to prepare for tempest.
All navigation was regulated by these
two consultations. The one said to
shigmaster 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 the Pleiades were the sweet evangels
of the spring, Orion was the warning
prophet of the winter.
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
worlds Bible astronomy in Genesis,
in Joshua, in Job, in the Psalms, in the
prophets, major and minor, in St.
Johns Apocalypse, practically saying,
Worlds! worlds! worlds! Get ready
for them" We have nice little world
here that we stick to, as though losing
that we lose all. We are afraid of fall
ing off this little raft of a world. We
are afraid that SEINE meteoric iconoclast
will some night smash it, and we want
everything to revolve around it, and
are disa 5ponted when we find that
it revolves around the sun instead of
the sun revolving around it. What a
fuss we make about this little bit of q
world, its existence only short time
between two spasms, the paroxysm by
which it was hurled from chaos into
order, and the paroxysm of it's demoli-
ton.
And 1 am glad that so many texts
call us to look off to other worlds, many
of them larger and grander and more
Respondent. ''Look there" says Job,
Eat Nazareth and Arcturus and his
sons!" "Look there" says St. John,
Eat the moon under Christ's feetw
Look there" says Joshua, sat
the sun standing still above Gibeon!"
Look there" says Moses, Sat
the sparkling armament" "Lools
there" says Amos, the herdsman, Eat
the seven stars and Orionr' Don't let
us be so sad about those who shove off
from this world under Christly pilotage.
Don't let us be so agitated about our
own going off this little barge or sloop
or canal-boat of world to get on some
Great Eastern" of the heavens. Don't
let us persist in wanting to stay in this
barn, this shed, this clubhouse of n
world, when all the Kings palaces al
ready occupied by many of our best
friends are swinging wide open their
gates to let us in.
When l read, I'm my Fathers house
are many mansions" L do not know
but that each world is room, and as
many rooms as there are worlds, stellar
stairs, stellar galleries, stellar hall
ways, stellar windows, stellar domes.
How our departed friends must pity
us shut up in these cramped apart
ments, tired if we walk fifteen miles,
when they some morning, by one stroke
of wing, can make circuit of the whole
stellar system and be back in time for
mathis. Perhaps yo2der twinkling
constellation is the residence of the
martyrs; that group of twelve lumi-
naries is the celestial home of the
Apostles. Perhaps that steep of light
is the dwelling-place of angels che
rubic, seraphic, archangelic. A mansion
with as many rooms as worlds, and all
their windows illuminated for festivity.
/ had studied it before, but the Cathe-
dral of Cologne, Germany, never i'm
it. 1t is admittedly the grandest
Gothic structure in the world, it's
foundation lald in 1913, only eight or
nine years ago completed. More than
600 yems in building. All Europe
taxed for its construction. It's chapel
of the Magi with precious stones enough
to purchase kingdom. It's chapel of
st. Agnes with masterpieces of paint
ing. Itsspire springing 511 feet into the
heavens. Its stained glass the chorus of
all rich colors. Statues encircling the
pillars and encircling all. Statues
above statues, until sculpture can do
no more, but faints and falls back
against carved stalls and down on pave
ments over which the kings and
queens of the earth have walked to
confession. Nave and aisles and tran
sept and portals combining the
splendor of sunrise. Intorlaced, inter-
foliated, intercolumned grandeur. As
l stood outside, looking at the double
range of flying buttresses and the for
est of pinnacles, higher and higher and
higher, until almost reeled from dizzi-
ness, exclaimed: Great doxology in
stone! Frozen prayer of many ua.
tions!'
But while standing there saw
poor man enter and put down his pack
and kneel beside his burden on the hard
floor of that cathedral. And tears of
deep emotion came into my eyes, as I
said to myself: "There is soul worth
more than all the material surround
ings. That man will live after the last
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