The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-11-13
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON
SUNDAYS DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.

DIVINE.
Subject The Sweet Influences - We Are
Affected Tor Good or Evil BY Forces
That We Seldom Recognize-Import-
ance of Good Actions.
copyright, lsUl.l
WASHINGTON, d. Gin this discourse
DR.. Talmage demonstrates that we are
affected by forces that we seldom recog
nize and enlarges upon human accounts
bility. The text is Job XxXviii, 81
"Canst thou bind the sweet influences OF
Pleiades?"
What is the meaning of that question
which God put to Job? Have we all our
lives been reading it, and are most of us
ignorant of its beauty, and power and
practical suggestiveness? A meaningless
passage of Scripture many thought it to
be, but the telescopes were busy age after
age, and astronomical observations kept
on questioning the skies until the mean
ing of my text comes out lustrously. The
Pleiades is a constellation of seven stars
appearing to the naked eye, but scien-
tifc instruments reveal more than 400
properly belonging to the group. Alcyone
is the name of the brightest star OF that
! group called the Pleiades. A Russian as
tronomer observed that Alcyone is the
centre Of gravitation of our, solar system.
| Hugh Macmillan says that the sun and its
Planets wheel around that centre at the
rate Of 100000 miles a day in an orbit
which it will take 100000 years to COM
! piete. The Pleiades appear in the spring.
! time and are associated with flowers and
genial warmth and good weather. The
| navigation of the Mediterranean was
from May to November, the rising and
! the setting of the Pleiades. The priests
OF Beius noticed that rising and setting
| 2O0O years before Christ.
Now, the glorious, meaning of'my text
! is plain as well as radiant: To, give JOB
! the beautiful grace of humility God asked
enccs of the Pleiades?" Have you any
power over the laws of gravitation? Can
| you modify or change an influence welded
by star more than 100000 miles away?
| Can you control the winds Of the spring
time? Can you call out the flowers? How
| little you know compared with omnis,,
cience? How little you can do compared
with omnipotence!
The probability is that Job had been
tempted to arrogance by. his vast attain
| ments. He was a metallurgist, a zoolog-
! ist, poet, and shows by his writings he
had knowledge of hunting, of music, of
husbandry, of medicine, of mining, OF
astronomy and perhaps was so far ahead
of the scholars and scientists OF his time
that he may have been somewhat pulled
| And there is nothing that so soon takes
down human pride as an interrogation
point rightly thrust. Christ used it
nightly. Paul mounted the parapet OF
his great arguments with such battery.
Men of the world understand it. Demos.
themes began his speech to the crown and
Cicero his grafton against Catiline and
! Lord Chatham his most famous orations
with a question. The empire of ignor-
ance is so much vaster than the empire
of knowledge that after the most learned
and elaborate disquisition upon any sub
ject of sociology or theology the piainest
man NAV ask a question that will make
the wisest speechless. After the pro-
foundest assault upon Christianity the
humblest disciple NAV make an inquiry
that would silence Voltaire.
Called upon, as we all are at times, to
defend our holy religion, instead OF argu-
ment that can always be answered by
argument let us try the power Of interro-
cation. We ought to be loaded with at
least half a dozen questions and always
ready, and when Christianity is assailed;;
and we are told there is nothing in 1T and
there is no God and there never was
miracle and that the Scriptures are un-
reasonable and cruel and that there rev.
er will be a judgment day, take out !: OF OF
something like this: What makes the
condition Of woman in Christian lands
better than in heather lands? Do you
think it would be kind in God to turn
the human race into world without any
written revelation to explain and en-
courage and elevate and save? And if
revelation was made, which do you pre-
| fer-the Zenda-Vesta of the Persian or
the Confucian writings of the ChnGse
or the Koran of Mohammed or our Bible; ;
If Christ is not divine being; what
a,H Abram me waS. ae1 1 am?" s # # the Bib'c is a
bad book, what are the evil results Of
i reading it9 Did You see any degrading
influence. of the book in your father or
! mother or sister who used to read 1t!
Do you not think that judgment, day
is necessary in order to explain and tX
up things that were never explained or
fixed up? If our religion is illogical and
| an imposition upon human credultv. why
were Herschel and Washington and Glad
stone and William Mckinley its advo-
Gates?
How did it happen that our religion
| furnished the theme fol, the greatest
poem ever written, paradise Lost" and
to the painters their greatest themes e;rha IN
TRANSPORTATION" "The Last Supper,
"The Crucifxion," "The Entombment,"
''The Last judgment" and that all the
schools of painting put forth their utmost
genius in presenting "The Madonna"
WHY was it that William Shakespeare
after amazing the world as he will amaze
the centuries with the splendor and, pow;
| er of "The Merchant Of Venice, and
/ "Corio!auus," and "Rchard Ill" and
"King Lear. !" and "Othello," and Mac
beth" and Hamlet" wrote with his own
hand his last will and testament, begin
ming it with the words: In the name
Of Stratford rd-on-Avon, in the County or
Warwick, in perfect health and memory
! (God be p7aisedD do make and ,ordain
this nv last will and testament, through
the only me rits of Jesus Christ, my Say
| iour, to be made partakcr OF life, ever.
lasting and 10y body tn the earth whereof
it is made" Had Shakespeare, lost his
reason when he wrote his faith in Christ
and the great atonement? Put your an,
taronist few questions like thai: and
Won will find him eycusinc himself for an
engagement he must meet Immediately.
These words also recognize tar-reaching
influences. Job probably had TO adequate
idea of the distance OF the worlds men
toned from our world, but he knew then,
to be far off, and we, who have. had
!he advantage of modern sideraal inves,,
tigation, ought to he still more impressed
than was Job with the question or the
text. as it puts before us the fact that
worlds hundreds OF thousands of miles
distant have a grip on our world. There
are sweet influences which ho;d us from
aiar. There may have been in Our an
,estral line perhaps 200 years ago some
:onsecrated man or woman who has held
over all the generations since an lnt1u'
! ence for good which we have no power to
realize, and we in turn by our virtue, or
| 80 ELL ;nhnnnce thnse who shall live