Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-26

NoAi ~ - HAANAf 10 AAS AohNS0
"Sad sight, sad sight," Not so thought
David as he read the great 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 hangings of
tapestry, as they were known long be-
fore David's time. Far back in
the ages what enchantment of
thread and color, the Florentine vel
vets of silk, and gold and Persian car
pets woven of goats hair! If you have
been in the Gobelin mandatory OF
tapestry in Paris-alas! now no more
you witnessed wondrous things, as
you saw the wooden needle or breach,
going back and forth and in and out;
you were transfiXed with admiration
at the patterns wrought. No wonder
that Louis XIV bought it and it be-
came the possession of the throne; and
for n 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 them the light; that Gods fingers
tapestried them with stars; that Gods
fingers embroidered them with worlds
How much of the immensely of the
heavens David understood l know not
Astronomy was born in China
twenty-eight hundred years be-
fore Christ was born. During
the reign of Hoang-Ti astronomers
were put to death If 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 observatories, and
they were so long ago built that Isaiah
refers to one of them in his nineteenth
chapter, and calls it the "Pillar at the
border" The first of all the sciences
born was astronomy. Whether from
knowledge already abroad or from
direct inspiration, it seems to me 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 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 Herschel, or
our own Mitchell ever 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 de-
cided 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
2.4O0 double stars that Herschel OBJ
served; administering to the whims of
the variable stars as their glance be-
comes brighter or DIM preparing what
astrpuomers called, 1.-THE Girdle of
| Andromeda," and the nebula in 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 counted
them as he made them, and he made
them with his fingers! Reservation of
| power! Suppression of omnipotence.
| Resources as yet untouched! Almighti-
ness vet undemonstrated! Now | ask,
for the benefit of all disheartened
Christian workers. if God accomplished
so much with his fingers, what can he
do when he puts out all his strength?
and when he unlimbers all the bat
teries of his Omnipotence? The bible
speaks again and again of Gods out
stretched arm, but only once, and that
in the text, of the bare arm of God.
My text makes it plain that the
rectiication of this world is a stipend
Gus 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 AL
mighty! The reason of that / can un-
derstand. In the ship yards of Liver
pool, or Glasgow, or New York
a great vessel 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 finishes his
work without any perplexity, and :ae
carpenters and the artisans toll on the
craft so many hours a day, each one
doing his part, until with flags flying
and thousands fpeople huzzaing on the
docks. the vessel is launched. But out
on the sea that steamer breaks her
shaft, and is limping slowly along to-
ward harbor, when Caribbean whirl-
Winds those mighty hunters of the
deep, looking out for prey of ships,
surround that wounded vessel and
pitch it on a rocky coast, and she lifts
and falls in the breakers until every
joint is loose, and every spar is down,
and every wave sweeps over the hur1'i-
cane deck as she parts midships.
Would it not require more skill and
power 20 get that splintered vessel off
the rocks and reconstruct it than it re-