The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1894-01-25
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIvINE's sun
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "Tae Bare Arm OF Cod"

boldness OF metaphor In nv text that have
been for some time getting my courage up TO
preach from II. Isaiah. the evangalistic
prophet, Is sounding the jubilnta OF our
planet redeemed and cries out, "The Lord
hath made bare His holy arm" What over
whelminR suggestivenes- IN that figure OF
speech, "Tbo bare arm OF Godr The peo-
pie Palestine TO this dav weir much hinder
Ing apparel. and when they want to run a
special race. or lin special burden. or fight
special battle. they put on tn, outside
apparel. ~ in our land when man proposes
special exertion he puts on his coat and
rolls up his sleeves. Walk through our
toundries. our machina shops our mines
our factories. aud you nll fiud thar most OF
III" toilers have their coats or and their
sleeves rolled IN.
Isaiah saw that there must be a tremsn.
dous amount Of work done before this world
becomes what 1t ought to be. nn1 he fore
secs u all accomplished. aud ACCOMPLISHED
bv the Almighty. not ~ Wa or linarlly think
OF Him. but by the Almighty with the sleeve
ol HIS robe rolled back To His shoulder.
"Th" Lord hath made bare His holy arm" "
Nothing more impressss me in the Bible
than the ease with which God does most
things. 1here IL such n reserve OF mower
He mas more thunderbolts than He has ever
Hung. nor" light than lie has ever distrib-
uied. more blue than with which He has
overdrrhei the skv. more green than that
Nhh NhA'H nv nHS hrlfThlued tue grass.
more crimson than that with which He has
FURNISHED the sunsets. s1y IL with rever.
ence, from all can see. God has never half
tried.
You know ne well as DO that many of the
most elaborate and expensive industries OF
our world have been employed In creating
artificial light. Halfof tue time the world
is dars. The moon and the stars have their
glorious usas. but ~ instruments OF iIlumj-
nation they are failures They will not
allow YOU to read book or s,op the ruffian-
ism %; your great cities. Had not the dark
ness been persstently fought back by artin-
cia means. the most Of the worlds enter
prises would have halted half the time, while
the crime ot our great municipalities would
for half the time run rampant and unr.
buked hence all the inventions for creating
artificial light. from the flint struck against
steel IN centuries past 10 the dynamo OF our
electrical manufactures. What uncounted
numbers of people az work the year round I'm
making chandeliers and lamps and fixtures
aud wires and batteries where light shalt be-
made. or along which 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 aud after all the work tho
greater part OF the continents and hemis-
pheres at night have no light at all. except
perhaps the ilreilies flashing their small lam
terms across the swamp.
But see how easy Col made the light. He
did not make bare His arm He'did not even
put forth His robed arm He did not lift 80
much as "a finger. The flint out OF which HI
strncS the MONDAY sun was the wor,i
Light Let there he light =. Adam aid
not see the sun until the fourth day. for
though the sun was created on the rsf da,;
1t took its rays from the first TO the fourt n
day To work through the dense mass OF fluids
by which this earth was compassed. Did ydn
ever hear OF anything so easy as that2 SO
unique! Out OF word came the blazlflg
sun. the father Of flowers. and warmth aid
light Out OF word building a 1re-plAce
Tor alithe Nations OF the earth to warm them
selves BY Yea. seven other worlds, five
nv ~ssn
-, y. rwOrias IN a 4
smaller scale The warmth and light for
his great brotherhood. great sisterhood.
great family OF worlds. eghty-seven larger
pr smaller worlds, all from that one magnin-
,ent fireplace, made out OF the one word
Light. The sun SsG0 miles In diameter, [
10 not know how much grander a solar sys-
lem COD could have created IL He had nut
forth His robed arm, 10 say nothing OF an
arm made bare But this | know. that our
MONDAY sun was n spark struck from the
anvil OF one word, and that word Light"
But. says some one. do YOU not think
hat IN making the machinery OF the uni
'erSe, or whirh our solar system X COM
paratiNeiN small wheel working into might
Ter wheels. II must have cost God some ex-
'rtion? The upheaval OF an arm either
robed or an arm made barep' No we are
distinctly told Otherwise. The machinery OF
q universe God made simply with His fingers.
David, inspired in u night song. says So
when consider Thy heavens, the work of
Thy llngers."
A Scottish clergyman told me few weeks
ago OF dyspeptic Thomas Carlyle walking
out with a friend one starry night. and as
the friend looked up aud said, What a
splendid sky" Mr.. Carlyle replied us he |
glanced upward. Sad sight. sad sight I"
Not 80 thought David rs he read the great |
Of the night heavens IL was a |
sweep OF embroidery, OF vast tapestry, God |
That is the allusion of the |
psalmist 10 the woven hangings of tapestry |
AS they were known long before David's |
time. Far back in the ages what enchant-
inent Of thread and color, the Florentins
velvets OF silk and gold and Persian carpets |
woven OF goats hair IL you have been in |
the Gobelln manufactory OF tapestryi in Paris |
-alas, now no more you witnessed won i
drous things as you saw the wooden needle /
or broach going back and forth and in and |
out you were transilxed with admiration at |
the patterns wrought. No wonder that Louis |
NV bought II. and 1t became possession Of |
the throne, aud for long while none but /
thrones aud 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 |
them the light that Gods fingers tapsstrled |
them with stars that God 5 fingers em-
broldered them with worlds.
How much OF the immensiiy OF the heavens |
Iayid understood do not know. Astronomy
WAS born In China $500 years before Christ |
was born. During the reign of Hoang-Ti |
astronomers were put 10 death IL they made
wrong calculations about the heavens. Job |
understood the reiraction OF the suns RAYS
and said they We're turned as the clay TO the |
SEAL The pyramids were astronomical oh |
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. IL
seems TO mo David had wide knowledge OF
the heavens. Whether he understood the
full force OF what he wrote. | know not, but
the God who inspired him knew, and Ho
would not let David write anything but truth
and therefore all the worlds that the tele-
scope ever reached or Copernlcus or Galilei
or Kepler or Newton or Laplace or Herschel
or our own Mitchell ever saw were so easily