The Place of the Bible in Education

CHAPTER XIX. THE STUDY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE—Continued

ASTRONOMY must be a study in Christian schools, in obedience to the call of the Lord, “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one faileth.” Isaiah 40:26. This will be one of the texts: and the brilliant galaxy of the heavens, with its suns, systems, orbits, and laws, and the literature of the subject, will be the study-book. And as the student contemplates the innumerable host, and remembers that God not only knows the collective number of them all, but brings out each one by its own number; that He calls each one by its particular name, and never forgets—not one ever slips His mind or escapes His attention—either its number or its name; and that by this infinite knowledge and this attention that touches the infinitesimal, each one is kept exactly in its orbit and in its time to a spider’s web space in ages upon ages—as thus he learns in the study-book and there falls upon his car the pleading inquiry of the next verse in the Text-book, “Why sayest thou, ... My way is hid from the Lord, and My judgment is passed over from My God?” he knows that He who calls these all by their names, and thinks upon him, will never forget his name, nor shall he ever fail of the infinite attention. PBE 196.1

Another text may be, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?” Job 38:31. With that as a text, all the astronomy of the Pleiades will be the study-book. And when the student has covered the field of the Pleiades, and knows what are the sweet attractive influences of the Pleiades, he will know that he can know, in his own life, the sweet influences of the Spirit of Him who gave sweet influences to the Pleiades; and that will make him in his place in the order of God what the Pleiades are in their place in the order of God. PBE 197.1

He can read also the text, “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names.” Psalm 147:3, 4. And when he has studied the look of the Pleiades and their sweet influences, and Orion and his bands, and knows that He can “bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and loose the bands of Orion,” he will also know that He can bind up the broken heart and heal the wounded spirit, and loose the bands of sin and evil habits that hold his soul in bondage. He will then be better able to appreciate, and more ready to accept, the call to “Seek Him that maketh the seven stars [the Pleiades] and Orion.” Amos 5:8. PBE 197.2