The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1897-02-17
men and women, with 30 many serrews and

stars must be m nnchanging God. There
had been no change in the stellar appearance
in this herisman's lifetime, and his father, q
shepherd, reported to him that there had
been no change in his lifetime. and these two
clusters hang over the celestial arbor now
Just rs they were the first night that they
shone on the Edenic bowers; the same as
when the Egyptians built the pyramids from
the top of which to watch them; the same
as when the Chaldeans calculated the
eclipses: the same rs when Elihu, according
to the book OF Iob went out to study the
aurora boreals; the same under Ptolemalc
system and Copernican system; the same
from Calisthenes to Pytbagoras and from
Pythagoras to Herschel. Surely o change
less God must have fashioned the Pleiades
and Orion Oh, what an anodyne amid the
ups and downs OF life and the fluX and reflux
Of the tides Of prosperity to know that We
have changeless God, "the same yesterday,
to-day and foreverw
| Xerxes garlandsd and knighted the steers
man Of his boat in the morning and hanged
him in the evening OF the same day. Fifty
| thousand people stood around tho columns
| of tho National Capitol shouting themselves
hoarse at the Presidential inaug ural, and in
| four months SO great were the antfpathies
| that ruf1an's pistol In Washington depot
expressed the sentiment OF many a d1sap-
|
chariot and drives tandem, and the horse
ahead Is Huzza, and the horse behind is Ana
thema. Lord { 'bham, in King James's time,
was appauded and had SS5, 900 year, but
was afterward execrated and lived on scraps
stolen from the royal kitchen. Alexander
| the Great after death remained unburied for
thirty days because no one would do the
honor of shoveling him under. The Duke
! of Wellington refused to have his iron fence
mended because it had been broken by an In
! furiated popula.e in some hour Of political
excitement, and he left it in ruins that men
| might learn what tickle thing is human
favor. "But the mercy Of the Lord IS from
everlasting to everlasting to them that fear
Him, and His righteousness unto The chill
dren's children of such as keep His coven-
ant, and to those who remember His COM
mandments to do them" This moment
"seek Him that maketh the seven stars and
Orion"
One ofthe swiftest transatlantic voyages
made one summer by the Etruria was be-.
cause she had stormy wind abaft, chasing
her from New York to Liverpool. But TO
those going in the opposite direction the
storm was bufetIng and hindrance. 1t
is lad thing to have storm ahead, push.
ing US back. but If we be Gods children and
aiming toward heaven the storms OF life will
am so glad to believe that the monsoons,
ryphoons and inistrals and siroccos OF the
land and sea are not unclaimed maniacs let
loose upon the earth but are under Divine
superyision I an so glad that the God OF
the seven stars is also the God OF Orion! 1t
was out OF Dantes suffering came the sub
lime 'Divna Commedia," and ont OF John
Millions blindness came paradise Lost.
ana out of miserable infidel attack came the
| "Bridgewater Treatise" in favor OF Christi
anity, and out of David's exile came the songs
CT consolation, and out OF the sufferings OF
Christ came the possibility OF the worlds re-
demption, and out of your bereavement,
your persecution, your poyerties, your mis-
| fortunes, may yet come an eternal heaven. =.
Oh, what mercy it Is that In the text and
all up and down the Bible God induces us
to look out toward other worlds! Bible as.
tronomy in Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, IN
the Psalms, In the prophets. major and
minor; in st. Johns Apocalypse, practically
saving: "Worlds! Worlds! Worlds! Get
ready for themi" We have nice little
world here that We stick to, as though losing
that VIC lose all. We are afraid OF falling
off this little raft OF a world. We are afraid
that some meteoric iconoclast will some
night smash it, aud we want everything to
revolve around it and are disappointed when
stead OF the sun revolving around 1t. What
fuss we make about this little bit OF q
world, its existence only short time be-
tween two spasms, the paro1ysm by which
it was hurled from choas Into order and the
paroxysm of its demolition.
And am glad that 80 many texts cali US
20 look of to other worlds, many OF them
larger and grander and more resplendent.
"Look there" says Job. 'at Mnzaroth and
Arcturus and his sons" "Look there"
snys st. John, ':at the moon, under
Christ's feetr' 'Look there says
Joshua. Sat the sun standing still above
the sparkling armament" ''Look there"
SAWS Amos, the herdsman, sat the seven
stars and Oron!"- Do not let US be 80 sad
about those who shove off from this world
under Christly pilotage. Do not let US be 80
agitated about our own going OIL this little
barge or oop or canal boat OF world to
get on some Great Eastern OF the heavens.
Do not let US persist in wanting to stay in
this barn, this shed, this outhouse OF world,
when all the Kings palaces already occupied
by many of our best friends are swinging
wide open their gates to let US in.
When read, "In My Fathers house are
many mansions" do not know but that
each world is room, and as many rooms as
there are worlds, stellar stairs, stellar gal
lerles, stellar Railways, stellar windows,
stellar domes. How our departed friends
must pity US shut up in these cramped apart
ments tired if we walk fifteen miles, when
they some morning, by one stroke OF wing,
can make circuit OF tie whole stellar system
and he back in time for mathis! Perhaps
yonder twinkling constellation is the resi-
dence of the martyrs; that group OF twelve
luminaries may be the celestial homo OF the
apostles. Perhaps that steep Of light is the
dwelling place of angles cherubic, seraphic,
archangelic. A mansion with rs many rooms
as worlds, and all their windows Illuminated
tor festivity!
Oh, how this widens and lifts and stimu-
| lates our expeciativ How little it makes
the present, and how stupendous 1t makes
the future! How it consoles US about our
pious dead. that, instead Of being boxed up
and under the ground, have the range OF as
many rooms rs there are worlds and well
come everywhere, for 1t is the Fathers
house, in which there are many mansons'
o Lord God OF the Seven stars and Orion,
how cen endure the transport, the ecsi asy,
of such vision2 must obey my text and
seek Him. I will seek Him. l seek Him
now, for call to mind that 1t is not the ma
terial universe that is most valuable, but the
spiritual, and that each OF US has soul
worth more than all the worlds which the
inspired herdsman saw from his booth on
the hills of Tekoa.
mad studied it before, but the cathedral
Of Cologne, Germany, never impressed me
| rs it did one summer. 1t is admittedly the
grandest Gothic structure in the world, its
foundation laid in 124S, only few years ago