The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1893-02-11
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Astronomy Of the Bible, or
God Among the Stars.
A Journey Through the Upper Stories Of
Gods House-The Story the
Stars Tell OF God aud
His Greatness.

His Greatness.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage delivered the
following sermon as the first of series
on God In the Natural World as Dis
closed in the Bible" or God Among
the Stars" His text was:
1t Is He that buildcth bis stories IA the heav-
ens.-Amos, w., 9.
That is first-rate poetry from Amos,
the herdsman. While guarding his
flocks at night, he got watching the
heavens He saw stars above stars,
and the universe seemed to him like a
great mansion many stories high, sill
yer room above silver room. silver pill
lars beside silver pillars, and windows
of silver and doors of silver. and tur-
rets and domes of silver rising into the
immensities, and the prophets sancti-
fed imagination walks through that
great silver palace of the universe,
through the first story, through the
second story, through the third story,
through the twentieth story, through
the hundredth story, through the
thousandth story. and realizing that
God is the architect and carpenter and
mason of all that upheaved splendor,
he cries out in the words of the text:
s.It is He that buildeth His stories in
the heavens"
Ny hearers, it is time that we
widened out and heightened our re-
ligious thoughts. In our pulpits and
Sabbath classes and Christian work of
all sorts we ring the changes on few
verses of Scripture until they excite no
interest. Many of the best parts of the
Bible have never yet been preached
from or indeed even noticed. Hence
to-day begin series of sermons, not
for consecutive Sabbath mornings, but
as often as think it best for varlety's
sake, on the astronomy of the Bible or
God among the rocks, the ORTHODOXY
of the Bible or God among the birds,
the ichthyology of the Bible or God
among the fishes. the pomology of the
Bible or God among the orchards, the
precious stones of the Bible or God
among the amethysts. the conchology.
of the Bible or God among the shells,
the botany of the Bible or God among
the flowers. the chronology of the Bible
or God among the centuries. The fact
is that we have all spent too much
time on one story of the great mansion
of Gods universe. We need occasion
ally to go upstairs or downstairs in this
mansion; downstairs and in the cellar
study the rocks, or upstairs and see
God in some of the higher stories, and
learn the meaning of the text when it
says: at is He that buildeth His stories
in the heavens"
Astronomy was born in Chaldea. Its
mother was astrology, or the science of
foretelling events by iuxtaposition of
stars. The orientals, living much out
of doors and in very clear atmosphere,
through which the stars shone especi-
ally lustrous, got the habit of studying
the night heavens. In the hot seasons
caravans journeyed chiefly at night,
and that gave travellers much oppor-
tunity of stellar information. On the
first page of the Bible the sun and
moon and stars roll in. The sun,
body nearly three million miles in cir.
conference and more than twelve
thousand times as large as our
earth; the moon, more than two
thousand miles in diameter. But God
is used to doing things on such an ON
nipotent scale that He takes only one
verse to tell of this stellar and lunar
manufacture. Yea. in three words all
the other worlds are thrown in. The
record says: THE stars. alsor' 1t takes
whole pages for man to extol the
making of a telescope or a microscope
or magnetic telegraph or a threshing
machine, or to describe fine painting
or statue, but it was SO easy for God to
hang the celestial upholstery that
the story is comprised in one
verse -"God made two great
lights, the greater light to
rule the day and the lesser light to rule
the night. The stars also!" Astrono-
mers have been trying to call the roll
of them ever sine, and they have
counted multitudes of them passing in
review before the observatories built at
vast expense, and the size and number
of those heavenly bodies have taxed to
the utmost the scientists of all ages.
But God finishes all He has to say about
LneLD III tltSc WOTuS- tuc StdTS also.
That is Mars, with its more than fifty
five million square miles, and Venus,
with its more than one hundred and
ninety-one million square miles, and
Saturn, with its more than nineteen
billion square miles, and Jupiter. with
its more than twenty-four billion
square miles, and all the planets of our
system of more than seventy-eight bill
lion square miles, and these stars of
our system, when compared with the
stars of the other syste ms, as hand
full of sand as com pared with all the
Rocky mountains and all the Alps.
THE stars also!' For brevity, for
ponderosity, for splendor. for sug-
gestiveness, for sublimity piled on sub
Unity. these words excel all that hui
man speech ever uttered or human
imagination ever scared after: 1.-THE
stars also!" 1t is put in as you write a
ostscript-something you thought of
afterwards-as hardly worth putting
into the body of a letter: 1.-THE stars
also"
Read on in your Bibles, and after
awhile the Bible flashes with the au-
rora borealis or northern lights, that
strange illumination, as mysterious
JAG, L