Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-02-01
ADVICE OF A FARMER
BEFORE THE STAMMERiNG RUSTIC
MIGHTY HOSTS TREMBIED.


MIGHTY HOSTS TREMBiED.
REV. DIR. Talmagc mt Ills Best In Ser
mon Declaring the Goodness and Power
and watchfulness of God-Looking 1t
the Midnight Heavens.
WASHINGTON, Jan 31.-This sermon
of DR.. Talmsge, looking at the midnight
heavens through the eyes of one of the
ancients,. is un que for practically and
must set all to useful thinking. His text
is Amos v, 8, 'tScek him that maketh
the seven stars and Orion"
A country farmer wrote this text,
Amos of Tekoa- He plowed the earth
and thrashed the grain by a new
thrashing machine just invented, as
formerly the cattle trod out the grain.
He gathered the fruit of the syca-
more tree and scarified it with an
iron comb just before it was getting
ripe, as it was necessary and customary
in that way to take from it the bitter
ness. He was the son of poor shepherd
and suffered, but before the stammer-
ing rustic the Philistines and Syrians
and Phoenicians and Moabites and Am
monites and Edomites and Israelites
trembled
Moses was a law giver, Daniel was a
prince, Isaiah q courtier and David
king, but Amos, the author of my text,
was peasant, and, as might be sup
posed, nearly all his parallelisms are
pastoral, his prophecy full of the odor
of new raown hay, and the rattle of 10
Gusts, and the rumble of carts with
sheaves, and the roar Of wild beasts de-
vouring the flock while the shepherd
came out in their defense. He watched
the herds by day, and by night inhabited
a booth made out of bushes, SO that
through these branches he could see the
stars all night long. and was more ia
miliar with them than we who have
tight roofs to cur houses and hardly
ever sec the stars except among the tall
brick chimneys of the great towns. But
at seasons of the year when the herds
were in special danger he would stay
out in the open field all through the
darkness, his only shelter the curtain of
the night heaven, with the stellar en-
broideries and silvered tassels of lunar
light
Alone With His Herds.
What life Of solitude, all alone with
his herdsi Poor Almost And at 10
o'clock at night bark to the VOLTS bark,
and the lions roar, and the BEARS
growl, and the OWLS te-whit te-who,
and the serpent's hiss as he unwittingly
steps too near while moving through the
thickets. So Amos, like other herdsmen,
got the habit of studying the map of the
heavens because it was SO much Of the
time spread out before him. He noticed
some stars advancing and others reced-
ing. He associated their dawn and set
ting with certain seasons of the year.
He had q poetic nature, and he read
night by night and month by month
and year by year the poem of the con-
stellations, divi lely rhythmic. But two
rosettes of stars especially attracted his
attention while seated ON the ground or
lying on his back under the open scroll
of the midnight heavens-the Pleiades,
or seven stars, and Orion. The former
group this rustic prophet associated with
the spring, IS it rises about the first of
May. Tho latter he associated with the
winter, as it comes to the meridian in
January. The Plciades, or seven stars,
connected with all sweetness and Joy;
Orion, the herald of the tempest Tho
ancients were the more apt to study tho
physiognomy and juxtaposition of the
heavenly bodies because they thought
they had a special influence upon the
earth-and perhaps they We're right. IF
the moon every few hours lifts and lets
down the tides of the Atlantic ocean
and the electric storms in the sun, by
all scientific admission, affect the earth,
why not the stars have proportionate
effect?
And there ere some things which
make me think that it nay not have
been all superstition which connected
the movements and appearance of tho
heavenly bodies with great moral events
ON earth Did not u meteor run on evan
gelistic Grand on the first Christmas
night and designate the rough cradle of
our Lord? Did not the stars in their
courses fight against Sisera? Was it
merely coinSidental that before the de
struction of Jerusalem the moon was
hidden for IL consecutive nights? Did
1T merely happen SO that q new star ap-
peared in constellation Cassiopeia and
then disappeared just before Charles *
of France, who was responsible for the
St Bartholomew massacre, died? Was it
without significance that, in the days CT
the Roman empire Justinian, war and
famine were preceded by the dimness of
the sun, which for nearly year gave
no more light than the moon, although
there We're no clouds to obscure it?
Astrology, after all, may have been
something more than brilliant hea-
thenism. No wonder that Amos of tho
text, having heard these two anthems
of the stars, put down the stout, rough
staff of the herdsman and took into his
brown hand and cut ard knotted fingers