them to prepare for tempest. All navigation was regulated by these two
constellations. The one said to shipmaster and crew: "Hoist sail for
the sea, and gather merchandise from other lands." But Orion was the
storm-signal, and said: "Reef sail, make things snug, or put into
harbor, for the hurricanes are getting their wings out." As the
Pleiades were the sweet evangels of the spring, Orion was the warning
prophet of the winter.

Oh, now I get the best view of God I ever had! There are two kinds of
sermons I never want to preach--the one that presents God so kind, so
indulgent, so lenient, so imbecile that men may do what they will
against Him, and fracture His every law, and put the cry of their
impertinence and rebellion under His throne, and while they are
spitting in His face and stabbing at His heart, He takes them up in
His arms and kisses their infuriated brow and cheek, saying, "Of such
is the kingdom of heaven." The other kind of sermon I never want to
preach is the one that represents God as all fire and torture and
thundercloud, and with red-hot pitch-fork tossing the human race into
paroxysms of infinite agony. The sermon that I am now preaching
believes in a God of loving, kindly warning, the God of spring and
winter, the God of the Pleiades and Orion.

You must remember that the winter is just as important as the spring.
Let one winter pass without frost to kill vegetation and ice to bind
the rivers and snow to enrich our fields, and then you will have to
enlarge your hospitals and your cemeteries. "A green Christmas makes a
fat grave-yard," was the old proverb. Storms to purify the air.
Thermometer at ten degrees above zero to tone up the system. December
and January just as important as May and June. I tell you we need the
storms of life as much as we do the sunshine. There are more men