“HE MADE THE STARS ALSO”

Otago Witness, Issue 4029, 2 June 1931, Page 79

“HE MADE THE STARS ALSO”

By the

Rev. D. Gardner Miller.

“ And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” “ He made the stars also ”•—how beautifully simple it sounds. The writer of this incomparable first chapter of Genesis makes us feel as if the making of stars were simply an after-thought on the part of the Creator. It is as if he said, God had a few minutes to spare so He studded the night sky with gem« of light. An English poet called the stars “ the poetry of heaven,” and truly the poem of the stars is one that men never tire of reading. Another great thinker likened the stars to eyes—“ how they gleam like spirits through the shadows of innumerable eyes from their thrones in the boundless depths of heaven! ” It is a quaint thought that, through the twinkling lights of the heavens, the. spirits of just men made perfect look upon their earth home. Naturally such a view cannot be held on scientific grounds, or on any other. Only in poetry could such license be permitted. The poets and the singers of the race take liberties, and laugh at the boundaries which reason would build round thought. They, the poets and the singers, have taught men how to fly from the circumscribed to the infinite.

For thousands of years men have studied the stars, and yet the starry heavens still withhold their secret from the questioning mind of man. It would seem as if no new thing could stir men in these marvel-glutted days of ours. Yet recently the realm of thought and inquiry has been quickened by the pronouncements of Sir James Jeans, the famous scientist and astronomer. He reminds us that there are probably millions of millions of stars beyond the range of the most powerful telescope. A few stars are known which arc hardly bigger than the earth, but the majority are so large that hundreds of thousands of earths could be packed inside each and leave room to spare; here and there we come upon a giant star large enough to contain millions of millions of earths. And the total number of stars in the universe is probably something like the total number of grains of sand on all the seashores of the world. Such is the littleness of our home in space when measured up against the total substance of the universe. This vast multitude of stars is wandering about in space. A few form groups which journey in company, but the majority are solitary travellers And they travel through a universe so spacious that it is an event of almost unimaginable rarity for a star to come anywhere ’ near to another star. For the most. part each voyages in splendid isolation, like a ship on an empty ocean. In a scale model in which the stars are ships, the average ship will be well over a million miles from its nearest neighbour, whence it is easy to understand why a ship seldom finds another within hailing distance.” The very calmness of the language staggers us. The immensity of space, in the midst of which the.earth is no bigger than a soap-bubble, makes the brain reel as we try to comprehend it.

And God made the stars! To Him they are but a detail in the furnishing of the universe. The starry heavens above and the moral law within, as Kant, the great philosopher, remarked, are a proof of the existence of God. But the great and moving poem of “ The beginning ” does not stop with the creation of the heavens and the earth; it goes on to tell us of God’s greatest adventure, the creation of Man. In His own image, created He Man. That’s the final touch, the consummation of the Divine purpose. To Man, He has given what is denied every other form of life, personality For Man, the world was created. The sun cannot think, cannot commune with God, but Man can. The stars cannot pray and rebel, but Man can. The -Animal Kingdom cannot feel the sense of the infinitude, but Man can. The thought of the worth and wonder of human personality made David cry out: “ When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers; the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is Man that Thou are mindful of him. or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? ”

To many, the thought of the immensity of the universe and the whirling worlds that noiselessly rush through space makes them feel that it is impossible for God to know, far less to care for, the individual. In reality the truth is the very reverse. To Him. Who maintains the great stellar systems it can be no burden to know and relieve the needs of the individual.

To think of ourselves as too ■ insignificant to be known by God is to misunderstand His relation to the world. We must not think of God as apart from the world, but as in the world. He is not the superintendent of a system, but /the gracious Father bound to His children by love ties that nought can sever. The working of the "world to Him' whs but a preliminary to the working of Man like unto Himself. God made the stars to light the night sky, but He made Man to be His companion.