The same stars that look down on us looked down upon the Chaldean shepherds. The meteor that I saw flashing across the sky the other night, I wonder if it was not the same one that pointed down to where Jesus lay in a manger, and if, having pointed out his birth-place, it has ever since been wandering through the heavens, watching to see how the world would treat him.
When Adam awoke in the garden, in the cool of the day, he saw coming out through the dusk of the evening the same worlds that greeted us on our way to church to-night.
In Independence Hall is an old cracked bell that sounded the signature of the Declaration of Independence. You can not ring it now; but this great chime of silvery bells that strike in the dome of night ring out with as sweet a tone as when God swung them at creation. Look up to-night, and know that the white lilies that bloom in the hanging gardens of our King are century plants—not blooming one© in a hundred years, but through all the centuries.
The star at which the mariner looks to-night was the light by which the ships of Tarshish was guided across the Mediterranean, and the Venetian flotilla found its way into Lepanto. Their armor is as bright to-night as when in ancient battle, the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. To the ancients, stars were the symbols of eternity. But here the figure breaks down—not in defeat, but on the majesties of the judgment.
The stars shall not shine forever. The Bible says they shall fall like autumn leaves. It is almost impossible for a man to take in a courser going a mile in three minutes; but God shall take in the worlds, flying a hundred thousand miles an hour by one pull of his finger.
As, when the factory band slips at nightfall from the main wheel, all the smaller wheels slacken their speed and with slower and slower motion they turn until they come to a full stop; so this great machinery of the universe, wheel within wheel, making revolutions of appalling speed, shall, by the touch of God’s hand, slip the band of present law, and slacken, and stop.
That is what will be the matter with the mountains. The chariots in which they ride shall halt so suddenly that the kings shall be thrown out. Star after star shall be carried out to burial amid the funeral torches of burning worlds. Constellations shall throw ashes on their head, and all up and down the highways of space shall be mourning, mourning, mourning, because the worlds are dead.
But Christian workers shall never quit their thrones—they shall reign forever and ever. Forever the river of joy flows on; forever the jubilee progresses—forever, forever.—TALMAGE.
