The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1892-04-13


on the text, Amos V, S, "Seek him
that anaketh the Seven Stars and
Orion
Aoountry farmer wrote this text
Amos Of Tekoa. He plowed the
dsaosh and trashed the grain by anew
Ahrashing machine just invented, as
formerly the cattle trod out the grain.
He gathered the fruit of the syca-
more tree and scarifed it with an
iron comb just before it was getting
ripe, as it was necessary and custom
airy In that way to take from it the
bitterness. He was the son of a
poor shepherd and suffered, but be
fore the stammering rustic the Phil
istines and Syrians and Phenicians
and Moabites and Ammonites and
Edomites and Israelites trembled.
Moses was a lawgiver, Daniel was
a prince, Isaiah a courtier and David
a king; but Amos, the author of my
text, was a peasant, and, as might be
supposed, nearly all his parallelims
are pastoral, his prophecy full Of the
odor of new mown hay, and the rat
tile of locusts, and the rumble of
carts with sheaves, and the roar of
wild beast devouring the flock while
the shepherd came out in their de-
tense. He watched the herds by day,
and by night inhabited a booth made
cut of bushes, SO that through these
ne could see the stars all night long,
and was more familiar with them
than NE who hive tight roofs to our
houses and hardly ever see the stars,
except among the tall brick chims
o the great towns. Bas&l
Serus
W6ge danger, he would
stay out in the open fields all through
the darkness his only shelter the cur
tain OF the night heaven, with the
stellar emloroideries and silyered tas-
sells Of lunar light.
What a life of solitude, all alone
with his herds! Poor Amos! And
ct - o'clock at night bark to the
VOLTS bark, and the lions roar, and
the bears growl, and the owls te-
whit -te-who, and the serpent's hiss
as rnwittingly steps too near while
No loving through the tickets! So
Amos, like other herdsmen, got the
habit of studying the map of the
heavens, because it was so much Of
the time spread out before him. He
noticed some stars advancing and
others receding. He associated their
dawn and setting with certain sea-
sons Of the year. He had a poetic
nature, and he read night by night,
and month by month, and year by
year the poem of the consultations,
divinely rhythmic. But two rosettes
stars especially attracted his atten-
ton while seated on the ground or
lying on his back under the open
scroll of the midnight heavens-the
Pleiades, or Seven Stars, and Orion.
The former group this rustic prophet
associated with spring, as it rises
about the first Of May. The latter
he associated with winter, asst comes
to the meridian in January. The
Pleiades, or Seven Stars, connected
with all sweetness and Joy; Orion,
the herald of the tempest. The
ancients were the more apt to study
the physiognomy and juxtaposition
of the heavenly bodies. because they
thought they had a special in
fuence upon the earth, and perhaps
they were right. If the moon every
few hours lifts and let's down the
tides Of the Atlantic ocean, and the
electric storms of the sun, by all
scientific admission, affect the earth,
why not the stars have proportionate
effect?
Assrology, after all, may have been
something more than a brilliant
heathenism. No wonder that Amos
of the text, having heard these two
anthems of the stars, put down the
stout rough staff of the herdsman
and took into his brown hand and
cut and knotted fingers the pen of the
prophet and advised the recent peo-
pie of his time to return to God, and
saying, "Seek him that maketh the
Seven Stars and Orion" This COM
mand, which Amos gave 765 years
B. c., is just as appropriate for us,
1892 4. D.
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 a star there that i'm
pressed the inspired herdsman, but
sever in one group and seven in the
other group. He saw that night al
ter night and season after season and
decade after decade they had kept