The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-03-25

huNiSdtloH WIS TtSulilcu ny llltSo
two consultations, The one said to
shipmaster and crew, Hoist sail for
the sea and gathermerchandise from
other lands But Orion was the
storm signal and said, Reef sail,
make things snug, or put into har-
Dor, for the hurricanes are getting
their wings out" AS the Pleiades
were the sweet evangels of the
spring, Orion was the warming
prophet of the winter.
GODS LOVE AND JUSTICE.
Oh, now / get the best view of God
ever had There are two kinds of
sermons l never want to preach-the
one that presents God so kind, so in,
dulgent, so lenient, so imbecile that
men may do what they will against
him, and fracture his every law, and
put the pry Of their impertinence and
rebellion under his throne, and while
they are splitting in his face and
stabbing at his heart, he takes them
up in his arms and kisses their in.
furiated brow and cheek, saying, "Of
such is the kingdom of heaven" The
other kind of sermon | never want
to preach is the one that represents
God as all fire and torture and
thundercloud and with red hot
pitchfork tossing the human race into
paroXysms of infinite agony. The
sermon that | am now preaching be
ieyes in a God of loving, kindly
warning, the God of spring and
winter, the God of the Pleiades and
Orion
You must remember that the win
ter is just as important as the spring.
Let one winter pass without frost to
kill vegetation and ice to bind the
rivers and snow TO enrich our fields,
and then you will have to enlarge
your hospitals and your cemeteries.
"a green Christmas makes a fat
graveyard" was the old proverb.
Storms to purify the air. Thermom.
eter at ten degrees above zero to
tone up the system. December and
January just as important as May and
June. tell you we need the storms
of life as mach as we do the sunshine.
There are more men ruined by pros
perity than by adversely. II. we had
our own way in life, before this we
would have been representations of
selfshness and worldliness and dis
gushing sin, and pulled up until we
would have been like julius Caesar,
who was made by sycophants to be-
lieve that he was divine, and the
freckels on his face We're as the stars
of the armament.
One of the swiftest transatlantic
voyages made last summer by our
swiftest steamer was because she
had a stormy wind abaft, chasing
her from New York to Liverpool
But to those going in the opposite
direction the storm was buffeting
and hindrance. 1t is bad thing
to have a storm ahead, pushing us
back; but if we be Gods children
and aiming toward heaven, the
storms of life will only chase us the
sooner into the harbor. | am 50 glad
to believe that the monsoons and ty-
phoons and mistrals and sirOccos of
the land and sea are not unclaimed
maniacs let loose upon the earth, but
are under divine supervision! I am
so glad that the God of the Seven
Stars is also the God of Orionl
twas out of Dante's suffering came
thesublime "Divina Commedia, and
out of John Milton's blindness came
Paradise Lost" and out of miser-
able infdel attack came the Bridge
water Treatise" in favor of Christian
ity, and out of David's exile came the
songs of consolation, and out Of the
sufferings of Christ came the posi-
bility of the worlds redemption, and
out of your bereavement, your perse-
cutlon, your poyerties, your misfor-
tunes, may yet come an eternal
heaven.
THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE.
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 words 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 a nice little world here that we
stick to, as though losing that we
lose all. We are afraid of falling off
this little raft of a world. We are
afraid that some meteoric icOnoclast
will some night smash it, and we want
everything to revolve around it, and
are disappointed 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 world, its existence only short
time between two spasms, the par
oxysm by which it was hurled from
chaos into order, and the paroxysm
of its demolition.
And 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, ''at Nazareth and Arcturus
and his sons." Look there" says
st. John, "at the moon under Christ's
feetw Look there" says Joshua,
lat the sun standing still above
Gibeonw Look there" says Moses,
"at the sparkling flmament" Look
there" says Amos, the herdsman,
lat the Seven Stars and Orion ~ Don't
let us be 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 a
world to get on some Great Eastern
of the heavens. Don't let us per-
sist in wanting to stay in this barn,
this shed, this clubhouse of a world,
when all the kings palaces, already
occupied by many of our best frien6s,
o,,p C,r-, N r,-;la o,,p,, +hoir no t,e,