The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-02-05
ADVICE OF A FARMER
BEFORE THE STAMMERlNG RUSTIC
MIGHTY HOSTS TREMBLED.


and Watchfulness of God-Looking Al
the Midnight Heavens.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31.-This sermon
of DR.. Talmage, looking at the midnight
heavens through the eyes Of one of the
ancients, is unique for practically and
must set all to useful thinking. His text
Is Amos V, s, "Seek him that maketh
Che seven stars and Orion.
A country farmer wrote this text,
Amos of Tekoa. He plowed the earth
shrashing 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
xipe as it was necessary and customary
In that way to take from it the bitter
mess. He was the son of a poor shepherd
and suffered, but before the stammer-
ing rustic the Philistines and Syrians
and Phenicians and Moabites and Am
monites and Edomites and Israelites
frembled.
Moses was law giver, Daniel was a
prince, Isaiah a courtier and David a
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 mown hay, and the rattle of To-
Gusts, and the rumble of carts with
aheaves, 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 our houses and hardly
ever see 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.
l. Alone With His Herds.
What life of solitude, all alone with
his herdsl Poor Amosl 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 poetic nature, and he read
night by night and month by month
and year by year the poem of the con-
stellations, divinely 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, as it rises about the first of
May. The latter he associated with the
winter, as it comes to the meridian in
January. The Pleiades, or seven stars,
connected with all sweetness and JOY;
Orion, the herald of the tempest. The
ancients were the more apt to study the
physlognomy and juxtaposition of the
heavenly bodies because they thought
they had special influence upon the
carth-and perhaps they were 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 are some things which
make me think that it may not have
been all superstition which connected
the movements and appearance of the
heavenly bodies with great moral events
ON earth. Did not meteor run ON evan
gelistic errand 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 coincidental that before the de-
struction of Jerusalem the moon was
hidden for 10 consecutive nights? Did
1t merely happen so that new star APP
peared in constellation Cassiopeia and
unsupported JusU DSIOIo SudIlto Ia
Of France, who was responsible for the
st. Bartholomew massacre, died? Was it
without significance that, in the days of
the Roman empire Justinian, war and
famine were preceded by the dimness of
the sun, which for nearly a year gave
no more light than the moon, although
there were no clouds to obscure it?
Astrology, after all, may have been
something more than brilliant hea-
thenism. 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 prophet and advised the
recreant people of his time to return to
God, saying, Seek him that maketb
the seven stars and Orion" This COM
mand, which Amos gave 785 years B.
O., is just as appropriate for us 1897
A. d.
A God of Order.
In the first place, Amos saw, as we !
must see, that the God who made the
Pleiades and Orion must be the God OF
orf1er IL was NOT So much a star hera {