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That is what people will not do. They are thoughtless, superficial, frivolous; they do not sit down and put things together and add them up, and ask the meaning of the poetry of the total.

1. "When I consider" — I become a new man, much larger, nobler, saintlier. What does consider mean? I wonder if any six men in any audience could tell the meaning, etymological and historical and parabolical, of consider. It is a word which everybody knows. It is two words, it is two Latin words; it is con or cum, with, together: sider — what is there in the word sider? Nothing. Take care! Sider comes a long way up the track of language; it was born sidus. That is what you say when you write, your married name; under it you put nee, born — another name, your father's name, which you have relinquished in favour of another name. Sidus means star; it is the root of siderial heavens, the starry heavens, the stellar universe, and the like. Considerealise — when we star together — put the planets into syllables and words and paragraphs; when I considerealise, make a lesson book of the stars; when I punctuate my discourse with millenniums, then I pray. If men would do this they would be religious, but they are frivolous — "What is in the paper this morning?" Ah me! 'tis hideous and disheartening. When I, said the Psalmist, who kept his shepherd's crook in the belt of Orion, when I considerealise, talk in stars and think in planets and pray in constellations — Reverence is the basis of true character. Little subjects will make little men; gossip will dethrone an Aristotle.

2. How this considerealising of things changes their whole aspect, their entire value, relation, and meaning. We do not loop our subjects on to the great cars, so we perform little journeys, and we are no sooner out of the house than we are in it again. We do not outrun the height of the planets; we are so easily excited by subjects that really have nothing in them. Who would speak of a great earthquake? There never was such a thing, except within the limits of the little earth itself; then it was very great, it almost shook down the chest of drawers in my house! For a time I thought the bookcase was going to fall over me; it was a great earthquake! No, a spasm not worth talking about; if the earth had quaked itself out of existence it would not have deserved the epithet great. God is great, and His heavens are as nothing before Him, and the universe is to Him like a dewdrop trembling on the leaf of a flower.

3. We must therefore get into the right way of thinking about things; we must consider, we must read much in starlight; we must bring the right scale to bear upon the events which disturb us so much, and then they will disturb us no longer. The Psalmist says, "When I consider Thy heavens, the moon, and the stars, which Thou hast ordained," then I get the right view of everything else. We must get back to the geometric measurements, to the stellar spaces, to the all-quieting immensities; then we shall be great, because we shall be in our measure like God.

4. And when I thus consider, my spirit is tranquillised; a great peace steals over my soul. When I look at death I am disquieted and overborne and impoverished; when I look at immortality I am young, I come out of my chamber as a bridegroom ready to run a race, like a giant that cannot be tired. Thus there are two views of life, the detranquillising view and the all-tranquillising view. We may spend so much time with death as to think the universe is but a ghostly shadow. Why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God, count His stars, be familiar with His heavens; hear the man of science who tells thee that, having seen the night glory, the telescope has found forty thousand galleries such as the gallery which is visible to the poor struggling astronomical instrument; and when thou dost bathe thyself in the rivers of the stars thy flesh shall come again as the flesh of a little child, and thou shalt begin to praise God in a new sweet hymn.

5. "When I consider," I find that things are not so roughly related and antagonised as at first they seemed to be. I was not looking from the right point of view, I did not get far enough away from my subject, I was in the thick of the battle, in the very midst of the storm of dust, I could not see things in their right relation and proportion; but when I climbed the stairway of the stars and looked down upon the earth and time and measurable space I said, All things work together for good to them that love God.

6. "When I consider," consideralise, put the stars together, I get time drawn into its right relation or driven off into its right prospective, I punctuate the literature of Providence properly. Consideration, properly defined, is a religious duty. In 1 Samuel 12:24 you have exactly what I mean — "Consider how great things He hath done for you. Job says the same thing in his own grand way, "Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God" (Job 37:14). Put things together; give God time. You are impatient because you are little poor fussy fools; give Him time. Consideration is a great element in wisdom and practical prudence. Sometimes men cannot go to the stars, so God has made some little stars for them to look at. How kind He is, and condescending! He says, in effect, The stars are too many for you, you feel a noise in your little heads, and it is not good for you to look at the Milky Way and the Great Bear and the gleaming Orion and the beauteous Venus; so I will make some starlets for you, little living stars, asteroids. How sweet! Hear His voice through the medium of His prophet, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider" — the same word, with all its stars and Milky Ways — "consider her ways, and be wise" (Proverbs 6:6). So you can get the lesson reduced as to mere size; you can have a universe in a microcosm, you can have all creation reduced to a minimum, so that you can see God's meaning and learn God's philosophy. Consideration is the only profitable use of history. We find, then, in Isaiah 43:18, "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. That is the reason why you are so poor, and why you are so easily driven about. You might be rich in history, you might be millionaires in retrospect. Consideration is the best use of nature. Consider the lilies, how they grow: connect them with the stars. And consideration is the greatest impulse to true piety, as we are taught in Hebrews 10:2, 3, "Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself." Consideration is the greatest guarantee of self-control. "Consider thyself, lest thou also be tempted." Stars have fallen, angels have dropped out of line; consider thyself. Solitude is often necessary to true consideration. God said to the prophet, "Go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee" (Ezekiel 3:22).

(J. Parker, D. D.)

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KJV: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

WEB: When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained;