The Lancaster ledger. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1852-1905, 1894-01-27
REV. DIR TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVlNE'S sun
DAY SERMON.

4 tO
| preach from II. Isaiah, the ev,npelIstic
prophet is sounding the iubilate OF our
! Planet redeemed and cries out, "The Lord
hath made bare His holy arm" What over
wheiming suggestiveness i'm that figure OF
| speech, "The bare arm OF God :" The peo-
pie OF Palestine TO this dav wear much hinder
ing apparel and when they want to run n
special race. or lift special burden. or fight
| special battle, they put OF the outside
| apparel. as in our land when a man proposes
! aspeciai exertion he puts off his coat and
| rolls up his sleeves. Walk through our
| foundries. our machine shops. our mines
| our factories and you all find that most of
| the toilers have their coats off AMI their
sleeves rolled up.
Isaiah saw that there must be n tremep
| nous amount OF work done before this world
becomes what II ought to be, and he fore
| sees 1t all accomplished and accomplished
! by the Almighty. not as we ordinarily think
| OF Him, but by the Almighty with the sleeve
| of His robe rolled back to His shoulder
| "The Lord hath made bare His holy arm z"
| Nothing more impresses me In the Bible
| than the ease with which God does most
| things. There is such reserve of power.
| He has more thunderhons than He has eyer
| Hung. more light than He has over distrin-
| Wed. moro blue than with which He has
| overarched the skv, more green than that
| with which He has emeralded the grass
| moro crimson than that with which He has
| FURNISHED the sunsets. I say It with rever-
| ence from all can see, God has never half
| tried.
| You know IA well as LIDO that many of the
| most elaborate and expensive industries Of
| our world have been employed I'm creating
| artificial light Half OF the time the world
| Is dark. The moon aud the stars have their
| glorious uses, but as instruments OF illumi-
| nation they are failures They will NOT
| allow YOU to read book or stop the rufflan.
| ism OF your great cities. Had not the dark
| ness been persistently fought back hy artia-
! ciai means, the most Of the worlds enter
| priseS would have halted half the time while
orr mi al a
| for half the time run rampant and unre-
| huk"i hence all the inventions for creating
| artificial light. from the flint struck against
| steel IN centuries past to the dynamo of our
| electr,"ll manufactures. what uncounted
| numbers OF people at work the year round I'm
making chandeliers and lamps and fixtures
| and wires and batteries where light shalt he
| made or. along which light shall run. or
| wher" light shall poisc How many bare
| arms "r human toll l-and some of those bare
| arms ARE very tired in the creation OF light
| and IFS apparatus, and after all the work the
| greater part OF the continents and hemis-
| pheres at night have no light at all. except
| perhaps the hre1ies flashing their small Ian
| terms across the swamp.
| But see how easy God made the light He
did not make bare His arm He did not even
| put forth His robed arm He did not lift So
| much IA finger. The flint out OF which He
| struck the MONDAY sun tho word
| "Light Let there he light ~ Adam did
| not see the sun until the fourth dsy for
| though the sun was created on the flrst day
| II took its rays from the first to the fourth
| day to work through the lense mass OF fluids
| by which this earth was compassed Did YOU
| ever hear OF anything so easy as that2 So
| uniGu"i Out of n word came the blazing
| sun, III. father OF flowers. and warmth and
| light out OF word building n Fireplace
| for ali the Nations OF the earth TO warm them
| selves by, Yea. seven other worlds Ave Of
them inconceivably larger than our own, and
| seventy nine asteroids, worlds on n
smaller scale The warmth and light for
this great brotherhood, great sisterhood
great family OF worlds, eighty-seve larger
or smaller worlds all from that one magnin-
| cent fireplace. made out of the one word
Light. The sun ss6. 900 miles In diameter. |
do not know how much grander u solar sys-
tenn God could have created II He had put
forth HIS rohed arm, to say nothing OF an
arm made bare But this know that our
MONDAY sun was spark struck from tho
anvil OF one word, and that word Light"
,nu'. says some one; do you not think
vers', OF which our solar system IL com
Parhtvely n small wheel working into might
Ter wheels, II must have cost God som. eN-
ertion2 The uphcaval of an arm either
robci Or an arm made bare" No we are
distinctly told otherwise. The machinery OF
universe God made simply with His fingers
David inspired In a night song. says SO
when consider Thy heavens, the work of
| Thy fingers"
| A Scottish clergyman told me- u lew weeks
AZ" OF dyspeptic Thomas Carlyle walking
out with friend one starry night, and ~
the 'riend looked M and said. What
| splendid skyV Mr.. Carlyle replied as he
| glanced upward, sad sight, sad sight 80
| Not % thought David IA he read the great
Scripture OF the night heavens II was a
SWEEP OF embroidery. OF vast tapestry. aod
manipulated. That is the alusion Of the
psalmst TO the woven hanglngs Of tapestry
as they were known long before Duvid's
| time. Far back In the ages what enchant-
| ment Of thread and color the FIorentine
Naty ynta offs all md. Al a
| woven OF goats hair IL YOU have been in
the Gobelin manniactory oC tlpcstryin Paris
| --aias. now no more You Witnessed won
| dfouS things as you saw the wooden needle
| or broach going back and forth and In and
| out YOU were transilNsd with admiration at
| the patterns wrought No wonder that Louis
| XIV bought IT, and II became possession os
| the throne, and for long white none but
| thrones and palaces might have any OF its
| work What triumphs Of loom What
| victory OF skilled fingers So David says of
the heavens that COTS fingers wove into
them the light that Gol's fingers tapcstried
| them with stars that Coils fingers en-
| broidered them with worlds.
How much of the immensely Of the heavens
| David understood do not know. Autonomy
| was born In China 2800 years before Christ
| was born. During the reign OF Hoang-Ti
| astronomers were put TO death II they made
| wrong calculations about the heavens Job
| understood the refrRction OF the suns rays
| and said they were turned Rs the clay to the
seal The pyramids were astronomical OBJ
seryatories, and they were so long ago built
that Isaiah refers to one OF them In his nine
teenth chapter and calls II the pillar at the
| border" The first OF all the sciences born
was astronomy. Whether from knowledge
already abroad or from direct inspiration, 1t
seems to me David had wide knowledge of
the heavens. Whether he understood the
full force OF what he wrote | know not hut
the God who inspired him knew and He
would not let David write anything but truth
and b.. -. IL. "A a -.
scope ever reached or Copernicus or GaIiiei
or kepier or Newton or Lapiace or Herschel
or our own Mitchell ever saw were so easily
made that they were made with the fingers.
As easily ~ with your fingers you mold the
wsI. or the clay. or the dough TO par,ic-
ular shapes so lie desided the shape ot
| our world, and that II should weigh six saN-
| tillion tons and appointed for all worlds
| their orbits and decided their color Tho
| white to Sirius the ruddy to Aldebardn. the
| yellow to Pollux. the blue to Affair. marry
ng some OF the stars. as the 2400 double stars
l.aN Ill.