St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1901-11-23

anu 0bASAAOs anu &SAGASDNOAA1 oAAN
Hamlet" wrote with his own hand
his last will and testament, beginning
it with the words: ''In the name OF
God, amen, I, William Shakespeare, OF
Stratford-on-Avon, in the county OF
Warwick, in perfect health and mem
DRY, God be praised, do make and or
dain this my last will and testament
through the only merits of Jesus
Christ, my Saviour, to be made par
taker of life everlasting and my body
to the earth whereof it is made?''
Had Shakespeare lost his reason when
he wrote his faith in Christ and the
great atonement? Put your antag-
onist few questions like that, and
you will find him excusing himself for
an engagement he must meet imme-
diately or he will start on retreat
like that which our northern troops
made for yonder Long bridge after
the battle of Manassas. A discourse
on Gods omnipotence and mans linn
itations would not have had such an
effect upon Job as the Interrogation
of the text: "Canst thou bind the
sweet influence of the Pleiades?"
These words also recognize far
reaching influences. Job probably
had no adequate idea of the distance
of the worlds mentioned from our
world, but he knew them to be far
off, and we, who have the advantage
of modern sidereal investigation,
ought to be still more impressed
than was Job with the question of
the text, as it puts before us the fact
that worlds hundreds of thousands
of miles distant have grip on our
world. There are sweet influences
which hold us from afar. There may
have been in our ancestral line per-
haps 200 years ago some consecrated
man or woman who has held over
all the generations since an influence
for good which we have no power to
realize, and we in turn, by our
virtue or vice, may influence those
who shall live 200 years from now.
Moral gravitation is as powerful as
material gravitation, and if, as my
text teaches and science confirms,
the Pleiades, which are millions OF
miles from our earth, influence the
earth we ought to be impressed with
how we may be Influenced by others
far away back and how we may in
duence others far down the future.
That rill away up among the Alle-
ghanies, so thin you think it will
hardly find its way down the rocks,
becomes the mighty Ohio rolling into
the Mississippi and rolling into the
sea. That word you utter, that deed
you do, may augment itself as the
years go by until rivers cease to roll
and the ocean itself shall be dried
up in the burning of the world.
Paul, who was all the time saying
things, said nothing more
'tartlingly suggestive than when he
declared: "None of us iveth or
lieth to himself" Words, thoughts,
have an eternity of fight.
As Job could not bind the sweet in
luences of the Seven Stars, as they
we're called, SO we cannot arrest or
urn aside the good projected long
lgo. Those influences were started
centuries before our cradle was
'ocked and will reign centuries after
,ur graves are dug. Oh, it is tre-
nendous thing to live! God help us
% live Alright.
Astronomers can easily locate the
'leiades. They will take you into
heir observatories on clear night
md aim their revealing instrument
oward the part in the heavens where
hose seven stars have their habi- j
ude, and they will point to the con-
tellation Taurus, and you can see
or yourself. But it is impossible
o point to influences far back that
ave affected our character and will
fleet our destiny. We know the in
luences near by-paternal, maternal,
onjugalEbut by the time we have
'one back two generations or at |
most three our Investigations falter
nd fail. Through the modern in
eresting habit of searching back to
md the ancestral tree we may find
long list of names, but they are
My names. The conservation or
of some one 200 years
go was not recorded. It would not
e so important if you and by our
God or bad behavior blessed or
lasted only those Immediately
round US, but our goodness or our
adness will reach as far as the
trongest rays of Alcyone = yea,
cross the eternities. Under this
what do you think of
hose who give themselves up to
rivolity or idleness and throw away
years of their existence as though
hey were shells or pebbles or pods
1stead OF embryo eternities?
Notice also in my text the influ-
nee of other worlds upon this world.
We all regard the effect which our
ointment has upon other continents
r one hemisphere upon the other
emisphere. Great harvest or drought
fleets the other side Of our world.
panic in Wall street, New York, has
s echo in Lombard street and the
curse. The nations of the earth
ablegrammed together all feel the
lme thrill of delight or shock of woe.
ut we do not appreciate the influ-
ace of other worlds upon our world.