The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1901-11-28
STRANGEINFLUENCES
We Are Often Affected by Forces
We Seldom Recognize.
Or. Talmage Enlarses Upon Human
Accountability in His Sermon
Some Great Surprises of
the New World.

| onstrates that we are affected by
! forces that we seldom recognize and
enlarges upon human accountability;
the text is Job 1881: 'Canst thou
| bind the sweet influences of Plei-
| ades?'
What is the meaning of that ques-
| ton that God put to job? Have we
| all our lives been reading it and are
most of us ignorant of it's beauty
| and power and practical suggestive
| ness? \ 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 meaning of my text comes out
lustrously. The Pleiades is a con-
ste.latiOn Of seven stars appearing to
| the naked eye, but scientific lnstru-
| ments 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
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 1900 miles
| day in an orbit which it will take
19,O0O,000 years to complete. The Plel-
| AIDES appear in the springtime and are
associated with flowers and genial
warmth and good weather. The navi-
| cation of the Mediterranean was from
May to November-the rising and the
setting of the Pleiades. The priests
of Belus noticed that rising and set
ting 1000 years before Christ.
Now the glorious meaning Of my
text is plain as well as radiant. To
give Job the beautiful grace of hu-
mility 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 WELD
ed by a star more than 100000 miles
away? Can you control the winds of
the springtime? Can you call out the
flowers? How little you know COM
pared with omniscience! How little
you can do compared with Omnipo-
| tence.
been tempted to arrogance by his vast
attainments. He was a metallurgist,
-oologist, poet, and shows by his
writings he had knowledge of hunt
ing, of music, of husbandry, of medi-
cine, of mining, of astronomy, and
perhaps was SO far ahead of the
scholars and scientists of his time
that he may have been somewhat
putfed up; hence this Interrogation of
my text. 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. Demosthenes
began his speech on the crown and
Cicero his Grafton against Catiline
and Lord Chatham his most famous
orations with a questi The empire
of ignorance is SO much vaster than
the empire of knowledge that after
the host learned and Ella borate dis
qulsltion upon any subject of sociol-
ogy or theology the plainest man may
ask question that will make the
wisest speechless. After the pro-
foundest assault upon Christianity
the humblest disciple may make an
inquiry that would silence Voltaire.
Called upon, as we all are at times,
to defend our holy religion, instead
of argument that can always be an
swered 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
Christianity is assailed and we are
told there is nothing in it, 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 porta BILE armory OF
Interrogation something like this:
What makes the condition of women
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 writ
ten revelation to explain and encour.
age and elevate and save? And if a
revelation was made, which do YOU
prefer, the Zenda-Vesta of the Per
sian or the Confucian writings of the
Chinese or the Koran of Mohammed ID
or our Bible? If Christ is not a Di.
vine being, what did He mean when
; He said: Before Abram was I am?
, If the Bible is bad book, where are
the evil results of reading it? Die
you see any degrading influence OF
. the book in your father or mother
or sister, who used to read it? Dc
you not think that a Judgment day
is necessary in order to explain ane
fix up things that were never ex
planned or fixed up? If our religion i.
Illogical and an imposition upon hu
man credulity, why were Herschel ane
Washington and Gladstone and VIII
liam Mckinley its advocates? How