Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1901-11-01
THE SWEET INFLUENCES.
DR., Talmage Says We Are Affected for
Good or Evil By Forces That We
Seldom Recognize.
The Importance of Good ActlOns-dod heips
Us to Live Right.
downright, 1901.

copyright, l9Ol.
WASHINGTON, d. Gin this discourse
DR.. Talmage demonstrates that we are
affected by forces that we seldom recog-
nize and enlargcs upon human accounta-
bility The text is Job xXXvll, 81
"Canst thou bind the sweet influences OF
PleiadesW
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 ana
practical suggestiveness? A meaningless
passage of Scripture many thought 1t 10
be, but the telescopes were busy age after
are, 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 sclen-
tiic 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 422000 miles day in an orOlt
which it will take 100000 years to COM
plete. The Pleiades appear IN the spring,
time and are associated with flowers and
navigation of the Mediterranean was
from May to November, the rising and
the setting of the Pleades. The priests
of Belus noticed that rising and setting
1000 years before Christ.
Now, the glorious meaning of my text
is plain as we'll as radiant. To give JOB
the beautiful grace of humility God asked
him, "Canst thou bind the sweet influ-
ences of the Pleiades?" Have you any
power over the laws Of grayitation?. Can
you modify or change an influence welded
by star more than 200 miles away!
Can you control the winds of the spring
time? Can you call out the flowers? How
little you know compared with omnis,,
ciepce? 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 metallurgist, zooiog-
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
up: hence this interrogation of my text.
And there is nothing that so soon takes
point rightly thrust. Christ used it
nightly. Paul mounted the parapet OF
ms treat arguments with such battery.
Men of the world understand II. Demos,
themes began his speech 10 the crown and
Cicero his Grafton against Catllne and
Lord Chatham his most famous orations
w.ta a question. The empire of ignor-
ance IS 50 much vaster than the empire
of knowledge that after the most learned
and elaborate disQuisition upon any sub
ject OF sociology or theology the .plainest
y hot
the wisest speeches.. After the pro-
foundest assault upon Christianity the
humb,est disciple may 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 assaulted;
and we are tod there is nothing in 1t and
| there is no God and there never was a
| miracle and that the Scriptures are I'M
reasonable and cruel and that there new
er will be a judgment day, take out OF
vour nortable armory of interrogation
Something ike 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 II a
revelation was made, which do you pre-
| fertile Zenda-Vesta of the PERSIAN OF
| the Confucian writings OF the CDinese
or the Koran Of Mohammed or our Blble
| II Christ is not divine being; what
G Ahram NE w ise' I ann If the Bible is a
| ~ bool, what are the evil results of
reading it? Did you see any degrading
influence of the book in your father or
| mother OF sister who used to read IT,
| Do Won not think that JUDGMENT, day
Is necessary in order to explain and Tx
IN things that were never explained OF
| fixed up? If our religion is illogical and
| an imposition upon human credulity, why
| were Herschel and Washington and Glad
| stone and William Mckinley It's adVo'
| Gates? =.
How did it happen that our religion
furn;sbed the theme for the greatest
nosm ever written, Paradise Lost" and
70 the PAINTERS their greatest themes srj IN
fhe alteration of the Mag,",, The
Transformation "The Last Supper,
"'Thp CTuciiyion," "The Entombment,
The Last Judgment" and that all the
scnoo's OF painting put forth their utmost
Genius in presenting 'The Madonna"
Why was it that William Shakespeare
a:,fr amazing the world as he will amaze
the centuries with the splendor and pow
g. OF "Thc Merchant of Venice, anC
"Co?;o'anus." and Richard Ill, anc
king Lear" and "OtheIio," and Mac
helm" and Hamlet" wrote with his owl
bard his last will and testament, begin
r.rc it with the words: "1n the name
o. Cod. amen! 7, William Shakespeare
| a. Sfratford. on-Ayon, in the County o
Warwick. in perfect health and memorr!
| fCoJ be praisedD do make and ordalII
| tl.s NV last will and testament, through
me onv merits Of Jesus Christ, my Sav
iJur. TO he made partaker OF life, ever
'a,.;ng ard my body to the earth whereo
+. f.. made" Had Shakespeare lost M
| ,cas3a when he wrote his faith IN Chrls
an; The Great atonement? Put your an
| .,u,g;s5 a few questions like that, ant
,9y vii find him eXcusing himself Tor al
,o,.ogament he must meet immediately
These words also recognize far-reachin
irSaences. jon probably had no adequat
idca Of the distance Of the worlds men
f.ored from our world, but he knew then
g., be far Off and we, who have. ha
| 40 a.iy?ntage of modern sidereal inves
;ra..o,. ought to be still more impresse
man was Job with the question OF tn
.evf. as it pats before us the fact tina
worlds hundreds of thousands of mile
distant have grip on our world. Iher
are sweet influences which hold us fror
afar. There may have been In our an
cestral line perhaps 200 years ago som
consecrated man or woman who has hel
over all the generations since an init
cnce for good which we have no power t
realize, and we in turn by our virtue,
vice may influence those who shall Inv