Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1894-02-01

the immensely of the heavens David
| understood I know not 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
| r~efraction of the suns rays. and SAID
they were turned as the clay to the
seal" TIE pyramids were astronoml
cal observatories. and they were SO long
ago built that Isaiah refers to n or
them in his nineteentheclapte and calls
1t the pillar at the border" The hrst
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 under
stood the full force Of what he wrote.
1 know not; but the God who inspired
him knew. and he would not let David
write anything but truth; and therefore
all the worlds that the telescope ever
reached. or Copernicus, or Calico, or
Kepler, or Newton. or Laplace, or Her
Schel, or our own Mitchell we saw
were so easily made that they were
made with the fingers. As easily as
with your fingers you mold the WAX,
or the clay, or the dough, to particular
shapes, so he decided the shape of our
world. and that it should weigh six
sextillion tons. and appointed for all
worlds their orbits and decided their
color-the white to Sirius, the ruddy to
Aldebaran, the yellow to PolluX. the
blue to Affair, marrying some of the
stars, as the 2,400 double stars that
Herschel observed: administering to the
whims of the variable stars as their
glance becomes brighter or dim, pre-
pairing what astronomers called The
girdle of Andromeda." and the nebula
i'm the sword handle of Orion. Worlds
on worlds. Worlds under worlds!
Worlds above worlds! Worlds beyond
worlds! So many that arithmetics are
of no use in the calculation! But he
couRted them as he made them. and
he made them with his fingers! Reser-
walton Of power! Suppression of On
impotence! Resources as yet untouched!
Alnlightiness yet undemonStrated!
Now l ask. for the benefit OF all
disheartened Christian workers, If God
accomplished so much with his fingers,
what al he do when he puts out all
his strength? and when he unlimoers
all the batteries of his om%nipotence?
The Bible speaks again and again of
Gods outstretched arm. but only once,
and that in the text, of the bare arm
of God.
My text makes 1t plain that the rec
tification Of this world is a ~stupendous
undertaking. 1t takes more power to
make this world over again than it
took to make it at first. A word was
only necessary for the first creation,
but for the new creation the unsleeved
and unhindered forearm of the Almigh-
ty. The reason Of that | car under
stand. In the ship yards Of Liverpool,
or Glasgow, or New York, a great YES
sci is constructed. The architect draws
out the plan, the length of the beam,
the capacity of tonnage, the rotation Of
wheel or screw, the cabins, the masts
and all the appointments of this great
palace of the deep. The architect fin
his work without any p~erpleXity,
and the carpenters and the artisans
toll on the craft so many hours a day,
each II doing his part, until with flags
flying, and thousands Of people huz-
zaing on the docks. the vessel is launch
ed. But nj on the sea that steamer
breaks her shaft and is limping slowly
along toward harbOr, when Caribbean
those mighty hunters of
deep, looking out for prey of ships,
surround that wounded vessel and pitch
1t on n rocky coast, and she lifts and
falls in the breakers until every joint Is
and every spar is down, and every
wave sweeps over the hurricane deck
rs she parts midshipS. Would it not
more skill and power to get
that splintered vessel off the rocks and
reconstruct it than it required originally
TO build her? Aye! Our world that
God built so beautiful, and which
out with all the flags of Edenic
and with the chant of para
lisaical bowers, has been six centuries
pounding in the skerries of sin and sor-
and TO get her out, and to get her
off. and to get her or the right way
again will require more of omnipotence
than it required to build her and launch
her. So | am not surprised that, though
II the dry dock Of one word our world
made. it will take the unsleeved
lrm of God to lift her from the rocks
md put her on the right course again,
It. is evident from my text. and its COM
with other texts, that it would
not be SO great an undertaking to make
/, whole constellation of worlds, and Il
whole galaxy of worlds. and a whole as
of worlds, and swing them
their right orbits, as to take this
wounded world. this stranded world,
his bankrupt world, this destroyed
world, and make it as good as when 1t
Now, just look at the enthroned diff
in the way. the removal Of
which. the overthrow of which seems
o require the bare arm Of the Omni
There stands heathenism, |
With its $50. 900 900 victims. / do not
are whether you call them Brahmins, |
II BuddhiSts, COnfucian or Fetish idol
At the worlds fair in Chicago
asst summer those monstrosities Of re-
igion tried to make themselves respec-
able, but the long hair and baggy trOus
rs and trinketed robes Of their repre-
entativcs can not hide from the world
he fact that those religions are the au-
hors of funeral pyre, and J%uggernaut
rushing. and Gauges infanticide, and
thinese shoe torture. and the a%ggregat-
d massacres of many centur-
rs. They have their heels on India, on
nina. on Persia, on Borneo. on three
OF the acreage of our poor old
world L know that the missionaries,
Who are the most sacrificing and Christ
Ike men and women on earth are
taking steady and gloriOus jnro1ds m.