The Bossier banner., 1893-01-12
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 and
His Greatness.


following sermon as the first of series
closed in the Bibls," or "God Among
the Stars" His text was:
1t is He that bui ldeth his stories in the hsav.
ens.-Amos, iv., g.
That is first-rate poetry from Amos.
the herdsman. While guarding his
foclSs 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 sple endor,
he cries out in the words of the text:
SIT is He that buildeth His stories in
the heavens"
My 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 a 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 ornithology
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 storl IS, and
learn the meaning of the text when il
says: "It is He that buildeth His stories
in the heavens"
Astronomy was born in Chaldea. 1t
mother was astrology, or the science o
foretelling events by juxtaposition o
stars. The orientals, living much on
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 th'
first page of the Bible the sun ant
moon and stars roll in. The sun,
body nearly three million miles in cir
cumference and more than twelv
thousand times as large as ou
earth; the anoon, more than tw
thousand miles in diameter. But Coz
is used to doing things on such an ON
nipotent scale that He takes only ont
verse to tell of this stellar and luna
manufacture. Yea, in three words a.
the other worlds are thrown in. Th
record says: THE stars al5o:'' 1t take
whole pages for a man to extol tn
making of a telescope or a microscop
or a magnetic telegraph or threshin
machine, or to describe fine paintin
or statue, but it was so easy for God t
hang the celestial upholstery tina
the story is compassed in on
verse -" "God made two grea
lights, the greater light t
rule the day and the lesser light to rul
the night The stars also!" Astronc
mers have been trying to call the rol
of them ever since, and they hav
counted multitudes of them passing i
review before the obseryatories built q
vast expense, and the size and numbe
of those heavenly bodies have taxed
the utmost the scientists of all age!
But God finishes all He has to say abor
them in these words-"the stars also!
That is Mars, with its more than fifty
five million square miles, and Venus
with it's more than one hundred an
ninety-one million square miles, an
Saturn, with its more than ninetee
billion square miles, and Jupiter, wit
its more than twenty-four billio
square miles, and all the planets of on
system of more than seventy-eight bi
lion square miles, and these stars {
our system, when compared with til
ste.,s of the other system ms, as hant
fus of sand as com pared with all tt
Rocky mountains and all the Alp
THE stars alsop For brevity, fl
ponderosity, for splendor, for SUI
gestiveness, for sublimity piled on sui
Unity. these words excel all that hi
man speech ever uttered or huma
imagination ever scared after: "Tt
stars also." 1t is put in as you write
postscript-something you thought I
afterwards hardly worth putin
into the body of letter: "The sta
also"
Reah On in your Bibles, and aft
awhile the Bible flashes With the Q