The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1892-12-21

the eartn upon nothing" While all ma
tions thought the earth was level, the
sky spread over It like tent over fiat
surface, Isaiah declared the world to be
Rlobular, circular, saying Of God: HE
sitteth upon the circle Of the earth.v
See them glitter in the scriptural sky
iArcturus Orion, the Pleiades, and the
"Bear with her young" While run
ming your fingers among the leaves Of
your Bible with the astronomical
thought in your mind, you see two
worlds stop-the sun and the moon. But
what does that Christian know about
that miracle who does not under
stand something Of those two lu-
minaries? Unless you watch mod
ern astronomy put those two worlds
in its steelyards and weigh them
you are as ignorant as a Hottentot
about the stupendousness of that scene
in the life of Joshua The sun over
three hundred thousand times as heavy
as our earth and going thousands Of
miles the hour. Think Of stopping that
and starting 1t again without the ship
wreck Of the universal But can easily
believe 1t What confounds me is not
that He could stop and start again those
two worlds in Joshuas time, but that
He could have made the wheel of worlds,
OF which the sun and moon are only
cogs, and keep that wheel rolling for
thousands of years--the fly wheel Of all
eternity. II an engineer can start a
long train, 1t is not surprising that he
can stop it II God could make and
move the universe, which Is an express
train drawn by an omnipotent engine,
l am not surprised that for part Of a
day He could put down the brakes on
two pieces Of the rotating machinery.
Infdelity is hard up for ground
Of complaint against the Scriptures
when it finds fault with that
cessation Of stellar and lunar travel
Here is my watch. / could not make
watch If / tried, but l can stop 1t
and start it again. My difficulty is not
that God could stop two worlds and
start them again, but that He could
make them at all as He did make them.
What pleases me and astounds me more
is that each one Of the millions Of
worlds has .God-given name. Only a
comparatively small number of them
have names given them by scientists
II astronomers can give a name TO a
whole constellation or galaxy, they
think they do well, but God has name
for each star in all immensity. In
spired David declares Of God: "He
telleth the number of the stars, He
calleth them all by their names" They
are not orphans that have never been
christened. They are not unknown
ships on the high seas of immensity.
They belong TO family Of which God Ia
the father, and as you call your children
Benjamin or Mary or Bertha or Addi-
son or Josephine, so He calls all the in
FAINT worlds and all the adult worlds
by their first name, and they know 1t
as well as though there were only one
child of light in all the divine family.
HE calleth them all by their names" "
and when He calls Warrant they come.
o the starsl Those vestal fires kept
burning on infinite altars Those light
houses on the coast Of eternity. The
hands and weights, and pendulum OF
the great clock Of the universe. Ac-
cording to Herschel, the so-called fixed
stars are not fixed at all, but each one
a sun with mighty system of worlds
rolling round II, and this whole system
with all the other. systems rolling on
around some other great center Nil.
lions and millions, billions and billions,
trillions, and trillions, quadrillions and
quadrillions,
But what gladdens me, and at the
same time overwhelms me, is that those
worlds are Inhabited. The Bible says
so, and what a small idea you must have
of God and His dominion II you think Il
only extends across this chip of world
which you and now inhabit Have
You taken this idea of all the other
worlds being inhabited as human guess
workP Read Isaiah, 45th chapter, 18th
verse: 'Thus saith the Lord that ere.
ated the heavens, God Himself that
formed the earth, and made it; He hath
established II, He created II not in vain,
He formed It to be inha bited." Now, Il
He inhabited the earth so that It would
not be.ereated in vain, would He make
worlds hundreds and thousands OF times
larger, and not have them inhabitedi
Speaking Of the inhabitants of this
world, he says: ''The nations are a!
the drop Of bucket" II all the In
habitants of this world areas the droT
Of n bucket, where are tho other drops
of the bucket? Again and again the
Bible speaks Of the host Of heaven, and
the word "host" means living creatures
not inert masses and the expires
sion -hosts of heaven" must mean
inhabitants of other worlds The
Psalmist cries ont: ''Thy mercy
Is great above the heavens" II
there were no inhabitants above the
heavens, what use Of any mercy
Again, the Bible exclaims: Thy good.
ness Is great above the heavens" What
could be the use of His goodness above
the heavens II there were no inhabi
tants to enjoy its. Again, the Bible
says He has set thy glory above the
heavens" And here my text comes in
with its idea of a mansion of many
stories. at Is He that buildeth His
stories in the heaven" Is IL possible
that we who live on the ground floor Of
this many-storied building are the only
tenants, and that tho larger rooms and
the more gorgeously upholstered rooms
and the more brilliantly chandeliered
rooms above II are uninhabited? Be