“The heavens declare the glory of God.”
WHAT is it you say, my young friends? A lovely starry evening, and not very cold, and will I come out with you for a glimpse at the stars, and help you to find some of the constellations?
Yes; I am quite ready to do so.
Let us go down to the gravel path at the other side of the lawn, we want to get into a clear space, so as to have a good view all around us. And when we have satisfied ourselves with gazing upward, we will all go in to the fireside to look at another kind of stars there—stars of quite another glory to those over our heads, but which have a glory of their own, as bright as, indeed brighter far than, the golden points studding the blue sky.
You all know the Great Bear, do you not? Not quite all of you, do you say? Well, turn your backs to where the sun was shining this morning at twelve o'clock. Now you are facing the North, look up, and you see straight before you seven bright stars, forming a square by four stars to the right and the three others a curve at the left of the square. That is our friend, Ursa Major, or Greater Bear. Some of the country people call it the Plow, others know it by the name of Charles's Wain or Wagon; the four stars they call the body, and the three to the left they call the shafts.
The Chinese hold this beautiful constellation in great reverence, and have even worshipped it as one of their gods for more than two thousand years. Of course, it does not in the least resemble a bear; but far, far away back in bygone ages, those who sailed across the wide ocean, had to select some fixed points in the firmament above them, to serve as beacons in guiding them on their voyages from one shore to another; so that by degrees the stars were grouped into what we call constellations, and given the name of some real or imaginary being: and the group we are looking at received the name of Ursa Major, known by most of us as the Greater Bear. This glorious group never sets, night and day it is always above the northern horizon; only during the day the light of the sun dims the radiance of it and makes it invisible except through a powerful telescope.
Are you quite sure that you see it clearly, distinct from those around? Look well at it then, for when once you have learned to distinguish it readily it will always seem like an old friend to you. And there is another reason why you should learn to know it—it will be of very great service in helping you to find the other constellations, if you take it as a starting-point in our wonderful journeys through the starry heavens. I will show you what I mean. Turn your back upon the Great Bear, now look up a little to the left, and just before you, gleams Orion, one of the most glorious of the wondrous wonders of the heavens.
What do you say, girls? you can only see an immense number of stars, and none that stand out clearly like Ursa Major? Wait a minute, and you will soon learn to distinguish Orion, too. Look now for four brighter stars, that also form a long irregular square, with three others that cross the inner part of the square. Ah! you see it plainly; yes, that is right; now look at the three across, and you will see some others not so lustrous that seem to fall downward—they are called the sword and belt. Orion was supposed to be a great hunter and warrior, and the whole group is sometimes known as “Orion with his sword and belt," and those two stars that gleam at the side are called his dogs. You can see all this with the naked eye, but to look at it with only a moderate telescope, marvelously increases its grandeur, and the number of stars visible are many more than we see now; and through a very powerful glass it is one of the most glorious objects that it is possible to conceive.
Is it not well worth a little trouble to learn to know these different groups? Not only for our pleasure on starlit evenings like these, but also because God has chosen to make mention of them; and that is why I love to see the gleaming beauty of Orion's stars up there in the deep azure, and I remember, too, that thousands of years ago, far away in the land of palm-trees, and blue skies, and such starry nights as we rarely see in England, God was speaking to a man called Job, and He asked of him a wonderful question about this same bright company of stars that we are looking at. And when Jehovah was calling to His people Israel, through the prophet Amos, He calls Himself by the name of “Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion." So we may well try to know it from all the rest.
Now if you are satisfied with what you have learned to-night, we will go back to our cozy room, and look at the other stars of which I spoke.
Here we are, then, comfortably settled in the cheery glow of the firelight. How pleasant it is, and how brightly the flames leap up and pour their red light upon us, but how very faint they seem if we compare them with the lights we have just been looking at. They are lights created by God, so that nothing can vie with them. And yet those stars as we call them, which are probably so many suns, are so many millions of miles away from us, that our mind cannot take in the distance. But we get a glimpse of how far off they are when we think of the time the light takes to reach us as we stand looking at Orion, or the Great Bear.
How long do you think, young people, that gleam of light that we saw had been in coming to us?
What do you say, Janet? A whole day? Ah, no! none would reach us in a day.
A month? No, a month would be of no use for the journey of light from the almost measureless distance in space that the golden rays dart through.
A year? No! Ten years? No, no, dear friends, if you can imagine for one minute that you are a ray of starlight from the Great Bear, then you must have started on your marvelous journey twenty-five years ago, to be able to reach our eyes as we stood looking up to-night; twenty-five years ago, so astronomers tell us, must the light that we see now have left its home, in the lustrous worlds that gleam above us, long, long before most of you were born. Do you say, it is too wonderful to be true? Yes; it would be if it concerned anyone else than Him who is called "Wonderful," the Mighty God, who called the stars into being, the suns that light up our little world that is still the most wonderful world amongst all the worlds of the universe.
Why do I say it is the most wonderful? Can you not think of any reason for calling it so? then I will tell you. It is because of this: there once came to this very world on which we now live, such a light as never shone on mortal eyes before or since. It was a light that revealed everything in the darkness-not a fierce, glaring light that terrifies and destroys; but a pure, lovely, gracious light, that imparted its own clear brilliancy to all who were willing to receive it.
Where is it now, do you say, and have I ever seen it?
One question at a time, please!
First, “Where is it now?”
Well, that wondrous light has gone; it was once in this world, but it has gone back to the place whence it came. The darkness could not bear the Light; it showed how very, very dark and gloomy the darkness was, and so the people of darkness agreed to do away with the Light, and they got rid of it as soon as they could, for as long as it was in their midst it showed how very miserable all the poor, tiny, little lights were, that they were so proud of, for they were not true lights at all. There never was but one true Light, and that is not here, it has gone back again to its own place.
But before it went, it lit up a number of smaller lights from itself; very feeble they were, very flickering, and easily dimmed; but still they really were lit up from the true Light itself; and so from that day to this, other lights have been kindled from those who first received the only source of light, first one and then another, and another, and still others, on and on, down through long centuries, until this very day in which we live. And still other lights are being lit up and gleam brightly here and there.
And that brings me to your other question, "Have I seen that wonderful Light?" No, and Yes, is the answer I must give you; rather like a contradiction, is it not? But I must say No, because long, gloomy ages have rolled past since the Light was here, and this world will never see it again, till that same Light shall return to extinguish with its own overpowering glory, all the false lights of this world.
But I can also say, Yes, to your question, in this way, that that same Light has shone upon me, not upon these eyes of mine that can look at yonder skies, but it has shone into my heart, exposing all the awful blackness there, and causing me for refuge to turn to Itself, and so, turning to the Light, and away from all the horrid blackness within, It has given me to walk in Its own most glorious and most precious brightness.
Ah! you know now what the Light is, It is a Person, and no less a Person than He who is the eternal Son of the eternal God, and sent down from the "Father of lights." What less could He be than the Light of the world-this dreary, icy world? He came into it to show us a path of life that He would illumine with heavenly radiance for all who would accept it. For, those who follow Him “shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
Do you not want this Light, dear young friends? are you willing to let it shine upon you, to show you all the darkness, but, in the very same act, removing it all, and bringing in His own marvelous light? Are you ready for it to shine upon you, or does it make you afraid because of what it will expose?
The fierce heat and glare of the sun's rays we may be afraid of sometimes, but who is afraid of starlight? Well, read the lovely name that this holy glorious Person takes, you will find it, in Rev. 22:1616I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. (Revelation 22:16): “I am.... the bright and morning star." Does not that tell you that there is nothing there for you but the most tender, pitiful love if you will have it? Nothing to terrify in it, is there? Only grace for you, if you will allow it an entrance into your heart. But if you turn away from it, you are turning away to darkness, and you will find, if you go on, it has only one end, and that is the awful “blackness of darkness forever.'
But now look at another bright ray from the word, it shines in Rev. 2:2828And I will give him the morning star. (Revelation 2:28): “I will give him the morning star."Who is the wonderfully privileged “him"? If you look at the verses before this, you will see that it is the one who overcomes. So now we want to know how we can overcome. Look, then, at chapter 12:11 of this same book: “And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb." You may be an overcomer in the same way.
What will shelter you in the first place from the judgment of the holy God? that, I need not tell you, we all deserve. What will alone shelter you? The blood of the Lamb, only that—nothing beside that. On a terrible night, long, long ago, in the fair land of the Nile, when God's wrath swept down upon Pharaoh and his people, on that night of anguish and death, Jehovah said to His people, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you."And all who trusted in the blood were perfectly safe. God says to you to-night, “When I see the blood I will pass over you." Does He see you sheltered by it? are you trusting in it—that "precious blood of Christ"? If so, you are safe, and ready to go on and learn something of the infinite value that God Himself attaches to that blood. Then you not only need shelter from judgment, but you want your sins to be put away out of God's sight, that you may be before Him cleansed and happy in the sense of His full forgiveness.
It is the precious blood that "cleanses us from all sin." And in writing to the beloved people at Colosse (and I have no doubt there were some young ones amongst them), Paul speaks of this, too. Listen to what he says: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins."Now can every one of us really say that for ourselves? If we are trusting in the blood of Christ, as the one only hope of being made pure and clean in God's most holy sight, then it is true of us, and you will all agree that these different verses we have been looking at are well worth being called" stars, "for they shine with heavenly light." God grant that we may live and walk in the brightness of them.