ink that it may not have
been all superstition which connected the movements and appearance of
the heavenly bodies with great moral events on earth. Did not a meteor
run on evangelistic errand on the first Christmas night, and designate
the rough cradle of our Lord? Did not the stars in their courses fight
against Sisera? Was it merely coincidental that before the destruction
of Jerusalem the moon was eclipsed for twelve consecutive nights? Did
it merely happen so that a new star appeared in constellation
Cassiopeia, and then disappeared just before King Charles IX. of
France, who was responsible for St. Bartholomew massacre, died? Was it
without significance that in the days of the Roman Emperor Justinian
war and famine were preceded by the dimness of the sun, which for
nearly a year gave no more light than the moon, although there were no
clouds to obscure it?

Astrology, after all, may have been something more than a brilliant
heathenism. No wonder that Amos of the text, having heard these two
anthems of the stars, put down the stout rough staff of the herdsman
and took into his brown hand and cut and knotted fingers the pen of a
prophet, and advised the recreant people of his time to return to God,
saying: "Seek Him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion." This
command, which Amos gave 785 years B.C., is just as appropriate for
us, 1885 A.D.

In the first place, Amos saw, as we must see, that the God who made
the Pleiades and Orion must be the God of order. It was not so much a
star here and a star there that impressed the inspired herdsman, but
seven in one group, and seven in the other group. He saw that night
after night and season after season and decade after decade they had
kept step of light, each one in its own place, a sisterhood never
clashing and never contesting precedence. From the time Hesiod called
the Pleiades the "seven daughters of Atlas" and Virgil wrote in his
AEneid of "Stormy Orion" until now, they have observed the order
established for their coming and going; order written not in
manuscript that may be pigeon-holed, but with the hand of the Almighty
on the dome of the sky, so that all nations may read it. Order.
Persistent order. Sublime order. Omnipotent order.

What a sedative to you and me, to whom communities and nations
sometimes seem going pell-mell, and world ruled by some fiend at
hap-hazard, and in all directions maladministration! The God who keeps
seven worlds in right circuit f