The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-01
A BIBLICAL FARMERS ADVICE.
SEEK HIM THAT MAKETH THE
SEVEN STARS AND ORION.

Amos of TekOn the Author of the
Text-Amos Peasant and the
stars He studied studded the CaH-
opy of His COuch-GOd shown by
the Regular Movements of the
stars to BE the God of Order-AlsO
the God of Light and an UnchanS-
ing GOd-GOd of Love and kindly
Warning.
Washington D. c.. Jan. 81, 1S3.-This
sermon of DR.. Talmage looking a. the mid
night heavens through the eyes of one OF
the ancients, is unique for practicality,
and must set all to useful thinking. His
text is: Amos SIS. Seek Him That Maketh
the Seven Stars and Orion"
A country farmer wrote this text-Amos
of Tekoa. He plowed the earth and thresh-
ed the grain by a new threshiug machine
just invented as formerly the cattle trod
out the grain. He gathered the fruit OF
the sycamore tree, and sacrificed 1t with
an iron comb just before it was getting
ripe, as it was necessary and customary
in that way to take from it the bitterness.
lie was the son of a poor shepherd, and.
suffered: but before the stammering rus
Tic the Philistines, and Syrians, and Phoe-
nicians and Moabites and Ammonites,
and Edomites, and Israelites trembled.
Moses was a law-giver Daniel was a
prince, Isaiah a courtier. ard David a
king; but Amos, the author of my text
was a peasant. and. as might be supposed,
nearly all his parallelisms are pastoral,
his prophecy full of the odor of new-mown
hay, and the rattle of locusts, and the
rumble of carts with sheaves, and the roar
of wild beasts devouring 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 alf night long, and was more ia
Yniliar with them than we VINO nave ught
roofs to our houses, and hardly ever see
the stars except among the tall brick
Chimneys of the great towns. But at sea
sons 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 heaV-
en-, with the stellar embroideries and sill
Yered tassels of lunar light.
What a life of solitude. all alone with
his herds! Poor Amos! And at twelve
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 ser
pent's hiss, as he unwitungly 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 receding. He asso-
ciated their dawn and setting with certain
seasons of the year. He had a poetic
; NJ f1fra and 10 read night nv night and
month by month, and year by year. the
poem of the consultations, divinely rhyth-
mic. 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
Pieiades, or Seven stars, and Orion. The
former group this rustic prophet associated
with the spring, as it rises about the first
OF May The latter he associated with the
winter, as it comes to the meridian in jan
uary. The Pieiades, or Seven Stars, con-
nected with all sweetness and joy; orion,
the herald of the tempest. The ancients
were the more apt to study the physiog
nomy and juxtaposition of the heavenly
bodies, because they thought they had
special influence upon the earth; and per-
haps they were right. If the moon every
few hours lifts and let's down the tides of
the Atlantic ocean, and the electric storms
IN the sun, by al scientific admission. af-
Droportionate effect?.
And there are some things which make
me think that 1t may not have been all
superstition which connected the move
ments and appearance of the heavenly
bodies with great moral events on earth
Did not a meteor run on evangelistic
errand on the first Christmas night and
designate the rough cradle of our Lord
Did not the stars i'm their courses fight
against Sisera? Was is merely coincl-
dental that before the destruction of
Jerusalem the moon was hidden for
twelve consecutive nights? Did it merely
happen so that a new star appeared in
constellation Casseopeia, and then dis
appeared just before Charles TX of
France, who was responsible for st. Bar
tholomew massacre died? Was il with.
out significance that in the days of the
Roman Emperor 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 were
no clouds to obscure IL?
Astrology, after all, may have been
something more than a brilliant heathen-
ism. No wonder that Amos Of the 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 and knotted fingers the pen
of a prophet, and advised the recreant peo-
pie of his time TO return to God, saying
Seek him that maketh the Seven Stars
and Orion This command, which Amos
gave 7S5 years B. c. is just as appropri-
ate for us 1897 A. d.
In the first place, Amos saw, as we
must see. that the God who made the
Pleiades and Orion must be the God OF
2 order. II was not so much a star here
and a star there that impressed the in
spired herdsman. but seven in one group,
and seven in the other group. He s5w
that night after night and season after
season and decade after decade they had
kept step Of light, each one In its own
place, sisterhood never clashing and
never contesting precedence. From the
time Hesiod called the Pleiades the
seven daughters Of Atlas" and Virgil
wrote in his Aeneid of stormy Orion"
until now they have observed the order
established for their coming and going
order written not in manuscript that may
be pigeon-holed, but with the hand of the
Almighty on the dome of the sky. so that
all nations may read 1t. order. Per-
sistent order. Sublime order. Omnipo.
tent order.
What a sedative to you and me, 70
whom communities and nations some
times seem going pell-mell. and the world
ruled by some tiend at hap-hazard. and in