Tonight I am in the Ozarks and old Mother Earth is passing through the belt of meteoric dust, that great mysterious sea in the universe through which we pass every year about the middle of November.

It is midnight. I will not reach my destination until 1:30 in the morning. Two fellow passengers in the car, after cussing their luck, have finally gone to Snoozeland, while I call the passing hours opportunity.

I look out into the night and marvel at the countless stars in the infinite black void, and wonder how closely those stars may be connected with humanity.

That they are connected I have no doubt, for truly "the sun, the moon, the stars, and endless space as well, are parts, are things, like me, that cometh from and runneth by one grand power of which I am in truth a part, an atom though I be."

How many stars are there? Well, let's get ready to appreciate number. I can see about 3,000; with opera glasses I could see 30,000.

The late Franklin Adams photographed the whole canopy with 206 photographs. He counted the stars by mathematical plans, and gives the conclusion that there are 1,600,000,000 stars, and that number is just about the number of humans on this earth. So then there is one star for each of us.

Each of those stars, practically speaking, is larger than the earth. Many have human beings who think and reason like we do. Multiply the 1,600,000,000 population on this earth by any portion of the 1,600,000,000 stars that may have thinking creatures on them; multiply that total by the millions of years and millions of generations that have passed out of existence.

Think of these numbers and limitless boundaries and then tell me that one little man, on one little star we call earth, has a strangle-hold on truth, and that his viewpoint, his ism, his little dogma, his narrow creed, is all sufficient, and that he can give me and you and them definite rules and patterns for our belief.

Verily, little protoplasm, you have an-* *other guess. We can by experience and tests prove two and two make four. We can by practice and experience prove that love, kindness, help, gentleness, sympathy, cheer and courage bring happiness.

These are tangible things; but when one wee Willie with sober face tells you and me and others that he has the truth about the definite, full workings of God's plans and purposes, I think of the greatness of 1,600,000,000 stars each with 1,600,000,000 humans and of the unnumbered generations gone by, and say, verily we must live TODAY and do the best we can today in act and thought and word.

Yesterday is dead, tomorrow is unknown; where we have been, where we will be, we know not. Where we are today we know, and God in His great plan knows only the final answer as to our future estate.

He will take us and hold us and place us in His keeping and according to His purpose, even though we do not or cannot follow or believe any one of the little man-formed creeds, isms or cults as the measure and rule for our beliefs.

Those stars testify to the certainty of God, and I believe in Him.