The Monitor-register., 1897-02-05


steers that are drawing us on, but that
order and wise government are in the
yoke?
In your occupation, your mission,
your sphere, do the best you can and
; then trust to God, and if things are all
mixed and disquieting and your brain is
hot and your heart sick, get some one
to go out with you into the starlight and
point out to you the Pleiades, or, better
than that, get into some observatory, and
through the telescope see farther than
Amos with the naked eye could-name-
| ", 200 stars in the Pleiades, and that
in what is called the sword of Orion
there is a nebula computed to be two
trillion two hundred thousand billions
, of times larger than the sun. Oh, be
! at peace with the God who made that
and controls all that, the wheel of
the consultations turning in the wheel
of galaxies for thousands of years
without the breaking of cog, or the
slipping of band, or the snap of an
axle! For your placidity and comfort
through the Lord Jesus Christ charge
you, "Seek him that maketh the seven
stars and Orion"
The God of Light.
Again, Amos saw, as we must see,
that the God who made these two groups
of the text was the God of light Amos
saw that God was not satisfied with
making one star or two or three stars,
but he makes seven, and having finished
that group of words makes another
group-group after group. To the
Pleiades he adds Orion. 1t seems that
God likes light SO well that he keeps
making it. Only one being in the uni
verse knows the statistics of solar, lu-
mar, stellar, meteoric creations, and that
! is the Creator himself And they have
all been lovingly christened, each one
name as distinct as the names of your
children. ''He telleth the number of the
stars; he calleth them all by their
names" The seven Pleiades had names
given to them, and they are Alcyone,
Merope, Celeno, Electra, Sterope, Tay-
gete and Mala.
But think of the billions and trillions
of daughters of starry light that God
calls by name as they sweep by him
with beaming brow and lustrous robel
So fond is God of light-natural light,
moral light, spiritual lightl Again and
again is light harnessed for symboliza-
tion-Christ, the bright and morning
star; evangelization, the daybreak; the
redemption of nations, sun of righteous
ness rising with healing in his wings.
Oh, men and women, with SO many sor-
rows and sins and perplexities, if you
want light of comfort, light of pardon,
light of goodness, in earnest prayer
through Christ, "Seek him that maketh
the seven stars and OrionW
Again, Amos saw, as we must see,
that the God who made these two archi-
pelagoes of stars must be an unchang
ing God. There had been no change in
the stellar appearance in this herdsman's S
lifetime, and his father, a shepherd, re-
ported to him that there had been no
change in his lifetime. And these two
clusters hang over the celestial arbor
now just as 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 as
when Elihu, according to the book Of
job went out to study the aurora bore
ais; the same under Ptolemaic system
and Copernican system; the same from
Calisthenes to Pythagoras and from
Pythagoras to Herschel. Surely a
changeless God must have fashioned the
Pleiades and Orion. Oh, what an ano-
dyne amid the ups and downs of life
and the f1ux and re1ux of the tides of
prosperity to know that we have
changeless God, "the same yesterday,
today and foreverp'
Xerxes garlanded and knighted the
steersman of his boat in the morning
and hanged him in the evening of the
same day. Fifty thousand people stood
around the columns of the national cap
itol shouting themselves hoarse at the
presidential inaugural, and in four
months, so great were the antipathies,
that ruffian's pistol in Washington de-
pot expressed the sentiment of many a
disappointed Office seeker The world
sits in its chariot and drives tandem,
and the horse ahead is Huzza, and the
horse behind is Anathema. Lord Cob
ham, in King James time, was applaud
ed and had $35, 900 year, but was aft
erward execrated and lived on scraps
stolen from the royal kitchen. Alexan-
der the Great after death remained un-
buried for 80 days because no one would
do the honor of shoveling him under.
The Duke of Wellington refused to have
bis iron fence mended because it had
been broken by an infuriated populace
in some hour Of political excitement.
and he left it In ruins that men might
learn what a tickle thing is human fa-
vor. But the mercy of the Lord is
from everlasting to everlasting to them
that fear him. and his righteousness
unto the children's children of such as
keep his covenant and to those who re-
member his commandments to do them, +"
This moment ''seek him that maketh
the seven stars and Orion"
A God of Love.
Again, Amos saw, as we must see
that the God who made these two bea-
cons of the oriental night sky must be
God of love and kindly warning. The
Pleiades rising in midsky, said to all the
herdsmen and shepherds and husband
men, "Come out and enjoy the mild
weather and cultivate your gardens and
fields" Orion, coming in winter, warn
ed them to prepare for tempest. All
navigation was regulated by these two
consultations. The one said to shipmas-
, ter and crew, "Hoist sail for the sea
and gather merchandise from other
lands" But Orion was the storm sig
nal and said "Reef sail; make things
snug or put into harbor, for the hurri-
canes are getting their wings out :" AS
the Pleiades were the sweet evangels of
the spring, Orion was the warning
prophet of the winter
| Oh, now get the best view of God l
ever had! There are two sermons I nev-
er want to preach-the one that presents
God so kind, SO indulgent, SO lenient, SO
imbecile that men may do what they
will against him and fracture his every
law and put the pry of their imperti-
nence and rebellion under his throne
and while they are splitting in his face
and stabbing at his heart he takes them
up in his arms and kisses their infuriat-
ed brow and cheek, saying, "Of such is
the kingdom of heaven. The other
kind of sermon I never want to preach
is the one that represents God as all fire
and torture and thundercloud and with
redhot pitchfork tossing the human
race into paroxysms Of infinite agony
The sermon that am now preaching be-
lieves in a God of loving, kindly warn