The Iola register., 1901-11-01

enlarges upon human accountaDllltyi
the text is job 3S:31: "Canst thou
bind the sweet influences of Plei-
ades?"
What is the meaning of that ques-
tion 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? \ 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 its planets wheel around
that center at the rate of 1920 miles
q day in an orbit which it will take
100000 years to complete. The Plei-
ndes 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!
The probability is that Job had
been tempted to arrogance by his vast
Rttainments. He was metallurgist,
a zoologist, 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
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
Drations with a question. The empire
of ignorance is so much vaster than
lhe empire of knowledge that after
the most learned and elaborate dis
guisition upon any subject of sociol-
ogy or theology the plainest man may
ask a 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 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 Il judgment day,
take out of your portable 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
or our Bible? If Christ is not a Di-
He said: Before Abram was | am p
If the Bible is a bad book, where are
The evil results of reading it? Did
you see any degrading influence of
the book in your father or mother
DIT sister, who used to read it? Do
you not think that a Judgment day
'ts necessary in order to explain and
dx up things that were never ex-
planned or fixed up? If our religion is
Illogical and an imposition upon hui
man credulity, why we're Herschel and
Washington and Gladstone and Will
liam Mckinley its advocates? How
did 1t happen that our religion fur
nished the theme for the greatest
poem ever written, Paradise Lost
and to the painters their creates
themes in the Alteration of the
Magi," "The TRANSPORTATION" "The
Last Supper" "The Crucifxion, 1.-THE
Entombment," THE Last Judgment ~
and that all the schools of painting
put forth their utmost genius in pre-