St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1901-11-23
Observation-Disclosures
We Are Often Affected by Forces
We Seldom Recognize.

DR.. TalmaEe EnlarEes Upon Human
Accountability in His Sermon
Some Great Surprises of
the New World.
Copyright. 1901. by Louis klopsch. N. ~
Washington,
In this discourse DR.. Talmage DEM
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 its beauty
and power and practical suggestive.
ness? 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 meaning of my text comes out
lustrously. The Pleiades is con"
stellation of seven stars appearing to
the naked eye, but scientific instru-
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 it's planets wheel around
that center at the rate of $4,000 miles
q day in an orbit which it will take
100000 years to complete. The Plei-
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 we'll as radiant. To
give Job the beautiful grace of hui
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 star more than $1,000 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!
The probability is that Job had
been tempted to arrogance by his vast
He was a metallurgist.
! zoologist, a 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
puffed up; hence this interrogation of
my text. And there is nothing that
10 soon takes down human pride as
IN interrogation point rightly thrust.
Christ used it nightly. Paul mounted
The parapet of his great arguments
with such a battery. Men of the
world understand it. Demosthenes
began his speech on the crown and
Cicero his Grafton against Catiline
Ind Lord Chatham his most famous
'rations with question. The empire
# ignorance is so much vaster than |
he empire of knowledge that after
he most learned and elaborate dis
luisition upon any subject of sociol-
'gy or theology the plainest man may
lsk question that will make the |
visest speeches.. After the pro-
oundest assault upon Christianity |
he humblest disciple may make an
inquiry that would silence a voltaire.
Called upon, as we all are at times,
o defend our holy religion, instead
# argument that can always be an
wered by argument let us try the
'ower of Interrogation. We ought to
'e loaded with at least half dozen
uestions and always ready, and when
is assailed and we are
old there is nothing in it, and there
8 no God, and there never was .
and that the Scriptures are
and cruel, and that
here never will be judgment day,
axe out of your portable armory of
Interrogation something like this:
What makes the condition of women
q Christian lands better than in
eathen lands? Do you think it would
e kind in God to turn the human
ace into world without any writ
en- revelation to explain and encour-
ge and elevate and save? And if a
evelation was made, which do you
refer, the Zenda-Vesta of the Per
ian or the Confucian writings of the
hinese or the Koran of Mohammed
T our Bible? If Christ is not Di-
inc being, what did He mean when
lie said: Before Abram was 1 amp
the Bible is bad book, where are
he evil results of reading it? Did
on see any degrading influence of
he book in your father or mother
r sister, who used to read it? Do
on not think that judgment day
necessary in order to explain and
X up things that were never ex-
lained or fixed up? If our religion is
logical and an imposition upon hui |
ian credulity, why were Herschel and