Connecticut western news., 1892-03-24
GOD OF THE STARS.
pR. TALMAGE FINDS A LESSON IN
 ORION AND THE PlEADES


 wAs Some Moral Lesson Even in As-
 troiogy-rhe Great Cathedral of Co.,
 logns and the Humble worshiper.
 BROOKLYN, March 20.-In this ser mon Dr. Talmage traverses wide realms of thought to teach useful everyday lessons, based on the text, Amos V, 6, Seek him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion"
 A country farmer wrote this text Amos of Tekoa. He plowed the earth and thrashed the grain by a new thrashing machine just invent ed, as formerly the cattle trod out the grain. He gathered the fruit of the sycamore tree and scarified 1t 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 a poor shepherd and stuttered; but before the stammering rustic the Philistines and Syriaps and Pheni- cians and Moabites and Ammonites and Edomites and lsraelites trem- bled
 Moses was a lawgiver, Daniel was a prince, Isaiah a courier and David king; but Amos, the author of my text, was a peasant, and, as might be supposed, nearly all his parallelisms are pastoral, his prophecy full of the D odor of new mown hay, and the rat tie of locusts, and the rumble of carts with sheaves, and the roar of wild beasts devouring the flock while the shepherd came out in their defense. He watched the herds by day, and by night inhabited booth made out of bushes, so that through these branches he could see the stars all night long, and was more familiar with them than we who have tight roofs to our houses and hardly ever see the stars except among the tall brick chimneys of the great towns. But at seasons of the year when the herds were in special danger he would stay out in the open field all through the darkness, his only shel- ter the curtain of the night heaven, with the stellar embroideries and silvered tassels of lunar light.
 r.. THE SOLITUDE OF AMOS
 What a life of solitude, all alone with his herdsl Poor Amos And at twelve o'clock at night, hark to the wolf's bark. and the lions roar, and the bears growl. and the owls te-whit-te-who, and the serpent's hiss as he unwittingly steps too near while moving through the thickets 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 cancellations, divinely rhythmic.
 But two rosettes of stars especially attracted his attention 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 the spring, as it rises about the first of May. The latter he associated with the winter, as it comes to the meridian in January. The Plei- ades, 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 special influence upon the earth; and perhaps they were right. If the moon every few hours lifts and lets 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 effecta
 And there are some things which make 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 a meteor run on evangelistic errand on the first Christmas night and designate the rough cradle of our. Lordl Did not the stars in their courses fight against Sisera2 Was 1t merely coin cidental that before the destruction of Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for twelve consecutive nights2 Did it merely happen so that new star appeared in constellation Cassiopeia, and then disappeared just before King Charles Tx of France, who was responsible for the St. Bartholomew massacre, died2 Was it without signii- canoe that in the days of the Roman emperor Justinian war and famine were preceded by the dimness of the sun, which for nearly year gave no more light than the moon, although there were no clouds to obscure it7 THE ANTHEM OF THE STARS.
 Astrology, 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 lnotted fingers the pen of a prophet and advised the recreant people of his time to return to God saying, Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion" This com mand. which Amos gave 785 years B. C., is just as appropriate for us, | 1892 A. 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 a