Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1894-01-24

nlpulated. That is the allusion of the
psalnist to the woven hangings of tap
estry as they were known long before
David's time. Far back in the ages
what enchantment of thread and color,
the Florentine velvets of silk and gold
and Persian carpets 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
broach going back and forth and in
and out; you were transfxed with ad-
miration at the patterns wrought. No
wonder that Louis XIV bought it, and
it became the possession of the throne,
and for long while none but thrones
and palaces might have any of its work |
What triumphs Of looml What victory
of skilled fingers! So David says of the
heavens that Gods fingers wove into
them the light; that God s fingers tap
estried them with stars; that God s fin
gers embroidered them with worlds.
How much of the immensity of the
heavens David understood ! know not
Astronomy was born in China $500
years before Christ was born. During
the reign of Hoang-Ti astronomers were
put to death if they made wrong calcu-
lations about the heavens. Job under
stood the refraction of the suns rays
and said they were turned as the clay
to the SEAL" The pyramids were as
Economical 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. y
The first of all the sciences born was
astronomy. Whether from knowledge
already abroad or from direct inspira-
ton, it seems to me David had wide
! knowledge of the heavens. Whether be
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 tele-
scope ever reached or Copernicus or
Galilei or Kepler or Newton or La
place 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 ne 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-
parng what astronomers called, 1.-THE
girdle of Andromeda" and the nebula
in the sword handle of Orion. Worlds
on worlds! Worlds under worlds!
Worlds above worldsl 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 fngersl Reserva-
tion of power! Suppression of omnipo-
tence! Resources as yet untouched!
Almightiness yet 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 cut all his strength
and when he unlimbers all the batteries
of his omnipotenceP The Bible speaks
again and again of Gods outstretched
arm, but only once, and that in the text
of the bare arm of God.
A GREAT UNDERTAKING.
! My text makes it 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 1t at first. A word was only
necessary for the first creation, but for
the new creation the unsleeved and un-
hindered fore arm of the Almighty! The
reason of that | can understand. In the
shipyards of Liverpool or Glasgow or
New York a great vessel is construct
ed. The architect draws out the plan,
the length of the beam. the capacity OF
tonnage, the rotation of wheel or screw,
the cabin, the masts and all the ap-
pointments of this great palace of the
deep. The architect finishes his Work
without any perplexity, and the cars
penters and the artisans toll on the craft
so many hours day, each one doing his
part, until with flags flying. and thou
sands of people huzzaing on the docks
the vessel is launched. But out on the
sea that steamer breaks her shaft and
is limping slowly along toward harbor'
when Caribbean whirlwinds, those
mighty hunters of the deep. looking out
for prey of ships, surround that wound
ed 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 hurricane deck as she parts
midships.
Would it not require more skill and
power to get that splintered vessel OIL
the rocks and reconstruct it than 1t re-
0uired originally to build her? Aye!
Our world that God built so beautiful,
and which started out with all the flags
of Edenic foliage and with the chant OF
paradisaical bowers, has been 90 cen
turies pounding in the skerries OF SIN
and sorrow, and to get her out, and TO
get her off. and to get her on the rlght
,yav again will require more Of ommp-