Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1901-10-31
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
RIGHTEOUSNESS OF RELIGION LAST
SUNDAYS SUBJECT.
From Job XxXvIII as Follows: "Canst
Thou Bind the Most Influences of the
PIeiades"-The Meaning of the Pas
sage Clearly Defined.


course DR.. Talmage demonstrates that
we are affected by forces that we sell
dom recognize and enlarges upon hui
man accountability; the text Is Job
xxxviii, 81, "Canst thou bind the sweet
influences of Pleiades?"
What is the meaning of that question
hat God put to Job? Have we all our
ives been reading 1t and are most OF
Is ignorant of its beauty and power
nd practical suggestiveness? A mean
ingless passage Of Scripture many
thought it to be. But the telescopes
were busy age after age and astronom-
ical observations kept on questioning
the skies until the meaning OF my text
comes out lustrously. The Plelades is
a constellation of seven stars appear
ing to the naked eye, but scientific in
struments reveal more than 400 prop
erly belonging to the group. Alcyone
is the name of the brightest star OF
that group called the Pleiades. A Rus
sian astronomer observed that Alcyone
is the center of gravitation of our solar
system. Hugh Macmillan says that the
sun and its planets wheel around that
center at the rate OF 422 900 miles a day
in an orbit which it will take $4,000, 900
years to complete. The Pleiades ap-
pear in the springtime and are asso-
ciated 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 Belus
noticed that rising and setting 1000
years before Christ.
Now, the glorious meaning of my
text is plain as well as radiant. To
give Job the beautiful grace Of humil-
ity God asked him, "Canst thou bind
the sweet influences 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 con-
troll the winds of the springtime? Can
you call out the flowers? How little
you know compared with omniscience!
How little you can do compared with
omnipotence!
Armed with Interrogations.
Called upon, as we all are at times,
o defend our holy religion, instead of
argument that can always be answered
by argument let us try the power of
interrogation. We ought to be loaded
with at least half a dozen questions,
and always ready, and when Chris
tianity is assailed and we are told there
is nothing in 1t, and there is no God,
and there never was a miracle, and
that the Scriptures are unreasonable
and cruel. and that there never will be
a Judgment day, take out of your port
able armory OF interrogation some
thing like this: What makes the con-
dition of woman in Christian lands
better than in heather lands? Do you
think 1t would be kind in God to turn
the human race into a world without
any written revelation to explain and
encourage and elevate and save? And
II revelation was made which do you
prefer, the Zenda-Vesta of the Persian
or the Confucian writings of the Chi
nese or the Koran of Mohammed or
our Bible? II Christ Is not divine
being what did he mean when he said,
Before Abram was / ann" II the
Bible is bad book, where are the evil
results of reading 1t? Did you see any
degrading influence OF the book in your
father or mother or sister, who used
to read It? Do you not think that a
judgment day is necessary in order to
explain and fix up things that were
never explained or fixed up? II our
religion Is illogical and an imposition
upon human credulity. why were
Herschel and Washington and Glad
stone and William Mckinley its ad-
vocates? How did 1t happen that our
religion furnished sthe theme for the
greatest poem ever written, Paradise
Lost" and to the painters their great
est themes in the Alteration OF the
Magi," THE TRANSPORTATION" "The
Last Supper" "The Crucifixion." 1.-THE
Entombment." "The Last Supper"
and that all the schools OF painting
put forth their utmost genius in pre-
senting '"The Madonna?"
Sweet Influence from Affair.
Astronomers can easily locate the
plelades. They will take you into their
observatories on a clear night and aim
their revealing instruments toward the
part In the heavens where those seven
stars have their habitude. and they
will point to the constellation Taurus,
and you can see for yourself. But it
is impossible to point to influences far
back that have affected our character
and will affect our destiny. We know
the influences near by-paternal, ma
ternal. conjugal-but by the time we
have gone back two generations or at
most three our investigations falter
and fail. Through the modern interest
ing habit of searching back to find the
ancestral tree we may find long list
Of names, but they are only names. The
conservation or abandonment of some
one 200 years ago was not recorded.
1t would not be so important II you
and I by our good or bad behavior
blessed or blasted only those imme-
diately around us but our goodness or
our badness win reach as far as the
strongest ray Of Alcyone-yea. across
the eternities. Under this considera-
ton what do you think OF those who
give themselves up to frivolity or idle
ness and throw away fifty years of
their existence as though they were
shells or pebbles or pods instead OF
embryo eternities?
Surprises of the Next World.
suppose one of the greatest sur
prises of the next world will be to see
what wide, far-reaching influence for
good or evil we have all exerted. am
speaking of ourselves, who are only