The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-02-07
REV. DIR. TALMAGE,
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN.
DAY SERMON.


/ It almost takes our breath away to read
some Of the Bible imagery. There is such
boldness of metaphor in my text that have
been for some time getting my courage up to
preach from it. Isaiah. the evangelistic
prophet. is sounding the iubilate of our
planet redeemed and cries out, THE Lord
hath made bare His holy arm" What over
whelming suggestiveness in that figure OF
speech. "The bare arm Of God" The peo-
pie OF Palestine to this day wear much hinder
ing apparel. and when they want to ruin a
special race. or lift special burden, or fight
special battle, they put off the outside
apparel. as in our land when man proposes
special exertion he puts off his coat and
rolls up his sleeves. Walk through our
foundries our machine shops. our mines.
our factories. and you fill find that most OF
the toilers have their coats OF an1 their
sleeves rolled up.
Isaiah saw that there must be tremen-
dous amount OF work done before this world
becomes what it ought to be. and he fore
eees It all accomplished. and accomplished
Z 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"
Nothing more impresses me in the Bible
than the ease with which Col does most
things. Thersis such reserve Of power.
He has more thunderoots than He has ever
flung. more light than He has ever distrib-
uted, more blue than with which He has
overdrched the SSv, more green than that
with which He has emeralded the grass,
more crimson than that with which He has
FURNISHED the sunsets. say it with rever-
en- 20. from all can see, God has never half
4 tri"
a. You know as we'll rs I do that many OF the
most elaborate and expensive industries OF
our world have been employed in creating
artificial light Halo the time the world
Is darS The moon and the stars have their
glorious uses, but US instruments OF illumi-
nation they are failures. They will not
allow you to read book or stop the rufisn-
Ism of your great cities. Had not the dark
ness been persistently fought back by artia-
! sial means, the most of the worlds enter.
. prises would have halted half the time, while
che crime Of our great municipalities would
for halt the time run rampant and unre-
Z 5tbuked: hence all the inventions for creating
3 artificial light. from the flint struck against
steeIin centuries past to the dynamo OF our
electrical manufactures. What uncounted
numbers OF people at work the year round in
making chandeliers and lamps and fixtures
and wires and batteries where light shall be
made. or along wL.,:l light shall run. or
/ where light Shall poise How many bare
arms OF human toil-and some OF those bare
arms are very tired-in the creation Of light
and its 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 fref1ies flashing their small Ian
terms across the swamp:
But SEQ 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 as a finger. The flint out Of which He
strilck the MONDAY sun was the word.
slight" ''Let there be light" Adam did
not see the sun until the fourth day, for,
though the sun was created on the first dag,
4 II took its rays from the first to the fourth
day to work through the dense mass Of fluids
! by which this earth was compassed. Did you
4 ever hear OF anything SO easy as that? So
Z unique? Out Of word came the blazing
sun the father OF flowers, and warmth and
light! Out OF word building Fireplace
Tor all the Nations OF the earth to warm them
: selves by! Yea. seven other worlds, five OF
s them inconceivably larger than our own, and
seventy-nine asteroids, or worlds on q
smaller scale! The warmth and light for
this great brotherhood, great sisterhood.
or smaller worlds, all from that one mRgnif-
4 cent fireplace, made out Of the one word
light. The sun 1886, 900 miles In diameter.
do not know how much grander solar sys-
tenn God could have created II He had put
forth His robed arm, to say nothing OF an
z arm made bare! But this know, that our
MONDAY sun was a spark struck from the
Z anvil OF one word, and that word "Light."
ssBut, says some one, ''do you not think
that IN making the machinery OF the uni
rerse; OF which our solar system Is COM
Ter wheels, 1t must have cost God some ex-
srtion? The upheaval Of an arm either
robed 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
j.'WhenI consider Thy heavens, the work OF
Thy fingers"
A Scottish clergyman told me few weeks
ago OF dyspeptic Thomas Carlyle walking
the friend looked up and said, What q
! splendid sky!" Mr. Carlyle replied as he
glanced upward. '.Sad sight. sad sight ~
. Not so thought David as he read the great
Z Scripture of the night heavens. 1t was a
sweep OF embroidery, OF vast tapestry, God
manipulated. That is the allusion of the
psalmist to the woven hsngings OF tapestry
< as they were known long before Davids
time. Far back in the ages what enchant-
ment of thread and color, the Florentine
yelyets OF silk and gold and Persian carpets
woven OF goats hair! Ifyou have been in
sthe Gobelin manufactory OF tapestryin Paris
--dlbS. nON uO .-JOu hNACo5Ou NOA
drous things as you saw the wooden needle
or broach going back and forth and in and
out !; you were transfxed with admiration at
the patterns wrought. No wonder that Louis
8 XIV bought II, and it became possession of
the throne. and for long while 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 Gods fingers wove into
.t,, noJ, az ,frin nd
them with stars that Gods fingers en-.
Z broiderei them with worlds.
= How much OF the immensity OF the heavens
David understood do not know. Astronomy
was born In China $500 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 refraction Of the suns rays
and said they were ''turned as the clay to the
SEAL" The pyramids were astronomical OBJ
eervatories, and they were so long ago built
that Isaiah refers to one of them in his nine
teenth chapter and calls it the ':pillar ut the
border The first OF all the sciences born
was astronomy. Whether from knowledge
already abroad or from direct inspiration, it
seems 10 me David had wide knowledge OF
the heavens. Whether he understood the
full force OF what he wrote, know not. but
the Goi who inspired him knew. and He
would NOT let David write anything but truth,
and therefore all the worlds that the tele-
scope ever reached or Copernicus or Galilei
or Kepier or Newton or Laplace or Hersche
or our own Mitchell ever SAW were SO easily
made that they were made with toe fingers.
As easily as with your fingers YOU mold the
wax, or the clay. or the dough to partic-
ular shapes. so He decided the shape oI
our world. and that il should weigh six sex
tiliion tons and appointed for all world,
their orbi,s and decided their coor-sht