Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith Part 24

3. The third objection we have named is equally unfounded. _The Bible nowhere teaches that the sky is a solid sphere, to which the stars are fixed, and which revolves with them around the earth._ I know that Infidels allege that the word _firmament_, in the first chapter of Genesis, conveys this meaning. It does not. Neither the English word, nor the Hebrew original, has any such meaning. As to the meaning of the English word, I adhere to the dictionary. Infidels must not be allowed to coin uncouth meanings for words, different from the known usage of the English tongue, for which Webster is undeniable authority. His definition of _firmament_ is, "The region of the air; the sky, or heavens. In Scripture, the word denotes an expanse--a wide extent; for such is the signification of the Hebrew word, coinciding with _regio_, _region_, and _reach_. The original, therefore, does not convey the sense of solidity, but of stretching--extension. The great arch or expanse over our heads, in which are placed the atmosphere and the clouds, and in which the stars _appear_ to be placed, and are _really_ seen." The word _firmament_, then, conveys no such meaning as the Infidel alleges, to any man who understands the English tongue.

No Hebrew speaking man or woman ever did, or ever could understand the original Hebrew word _reqo_ in any other sense than that of _expanse_; for the verb from which it is formed means to extend, or spread out, as even the English reader may see, by a few examples of its use, in the following pa.s.sages of Scripture; where the English words by which the verb _reqo_ is expressed, are marked in italics. "Then did I beat them small as the dust of the earth, and did stamp them as the mire of the street, and _did spread them abroad_." "The goldsmith _spreadeth it over_ with gold." "Thus saith the Lord: he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that _spread forth_ the earth." "I am the Lord, that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, and _spreadeth abroad_ the earth by myself." "To him that _stretcheth out_ the earth above the waters." "The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them _make them broad_ plates, for a covering for the altar. _And they were made broad._" "Hast thou with him _spread out_ the sky;"[239] or, in Humboldt's elegant rendering, "the pure ether, _spread_ (during the scorching heat of the south wind) as a melted mirror over the parched desert."[240] We might refer to the opinions of lexicographers, all unanimous in ascribing the same idea to the word; but the authorities given above are conclusive. The meaning, then, of the Hebrew word rendered firmament is so utterly removed from the notion of compactness, or solidity, or metallic or crystalline spheres, that it is derived from the very opposite; the fineness or tenuity produced by processes of expansion. Science has not been able to this day to invent a better word for the regions of s.p.a.ce than the literal rendering of the original Hebrew word used by Moses--_the expanse_.

The inspired writers of the New Testament, though they found the world full of all the absurdities of the Greek philosophy, and their Greek translations of the Bible continually using the word _stereoma_, which expressed these notions, _never used it_ but once, and then not for the sky, but for the _steadfastness of faith_ in Christ. Their thus using it once shows that they were acquainted with the word, and its proper meaning, and that their disuse of it was intentional; while their disuse of it, and choice of another word to denote the heavens, proves decisively that they disapproved of the absurdity which it was understood to express. Now, whether you account for this fact by admitting their inspiration, or by alleging that they drew their language from the Hebrew original, and not from the Greek translation, it is in either case perfectly conclusive as to the scriptural meaning of the word. Indeed, it is marvelous how any man who is familiar with his Bible, and knows that the Scriptures usually describe the sky by metaphors conveying the very opposite ideas to those of solidity or permanence--as, "stretched out like a curtain," "spread abroad like a tent to dwell in," "folded up like a vesture," and the like--should allow himself to be imposed on by the impudent falsehood of Voltaire, that the Bible teaches us that the sky is a solid metallic or crystal hemisphere, supported by pillars.

Those beautiful figures of sacred poetry in which the universe is represented as the palace of the Great King, adorned with majestic "pillars," and "windows of heaven," whence he scatters his gifts among his expectant subjects in the courts below, have been grossly abused for the support of this miserable falsehood. We are a.s.sured, that so ignorant was Moses of the true nature of the atmosphere, and of the origin of rain, that he believed and taught that there was an ocean of fresh water on _the outside_ of this metal hemisphere, which covered the earth like a great sugar-kettle, bottom upward, and was supported on pillars; and at the bottom of the ocean were trap-doors, to let the rain through; which trap-doors in the metal firmament are to be understood, when the Bible speaks of the windows of heaven. Now, the bottom of an ocean is an odd place for windows, and a trap-door is rather a strange kind of watering-pot; and if Moses put the ocean of fresh water on the _outside_ of his metal hemisphere, he must have changed his notions of gravity materially from the time he planned the brazen hemisphere for the tabernacle, which he turned mouth upward, and put the water in the _inside_.

While such writers are quite clear about the metal trap-doors and the ocean, they have not yet fully fathomed the construction and arrangement of the pillars. Whether the Bible teaches that they are "pillars of salt," like Lot's wife, or of flesh and blood, like "James, Cephas, and John," or such "iron pillars and brazen walls" as Jeremiah was against the house of Israel--whether they consisted of "cloud and fire," like the pillar Moses describes in the next book as floating in the sky over the camp of Israel, or are "pillars of smoke," such as ascend out of the wilderness--whether they are those "pillars of the earth which tremble"

when G.o.d shakes it, or "the pillars of heaven which are astonished at his reproof"--whether they are the pillars of the earth and its anarchical inhabitants, which Asaph bore up, or are composed of the same materials as Paul's "pillar and basis of the truth," or the pillars of victory which Christ erects "in the temple of G.o.d"[241]--they have not yet decided. Whether the Hebrews understood these pillars to be arranged on the outside of the metal hemisphere, and if so, to imagine any use for them there; or in the inside, and in that case whether they kept the sky from falling upon the earth, or only supported the earth from falling into the sky, these learned men are by no means agreed. Having trampled the pearl into fragments, their attempts to combine them into another shape are more amusing than successful; and it is hard to say which of the seven opinions ascribed to the Bible by Infidel commentators is least probable. That opinion, however, will, doubtless, after more vigorous and protracted rooting, be discovered and greedily swallowed amid grunts of satisfaction; an appropriate reward of such laborious stupidity.

The absurdities of the Greek philosophers were not drawn from the Bible.

Had the Greeks read the Bible more, they would have preserved the common sense G.o.d gave them a great deal longer, and would not, while professing themselves to be wise, have become such fools as to adore blocks and stones, and dream of metal firmaments. But they turned away their ears from the truth, and were turned unto such fables as Infidels falsely ascribe to the Bible. A thousand years before the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic astronomy were invented, and before learned Greeks had learned to talk nonsense about crystal spheres, and trap-doors in the bottom of celestial oceans, the writers of the Bible were recording those conversations of pious philosophers concerning stars, and clouds, and rain, from which Galileo derived the first hints of the causes of barometrical phenomena. The origin of rain, its proportion to the amount of evaporation, and the mode of its distribution by condensation, could not be propounded by Humboldt himself with more brevity and perspicuity than they are expressed by the Idumean philosopher: "He maketh small the drops of water; they pour down rain according to the vapor thereof, which the clouds do drop and distill upon man abundantly. Also, can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacles?"[242] The cause of this rarefaction of _cold water_ is as much a mystery to the British a.s.sociation as it was to Elihu; and even were all the mysteries of the electrical tension of vapors disclosed, "the balancings of the clouds" would only be more clearly discovered to be, as the Bible declares, "the wonderful works of Him who is perfect in wisdom." But the gravity of the atmosphere, the comparative density of floating water, and its increased density by discharges of electricity, were as well known to Job and his friends as they are to the wisest of our modern philosophers. "He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven, _to make weight to air, and regulate waters by measure, in his making a law for the rain, and a path for the lightning of thunder_."[243] Three thousand years before the theory of the trade winds was demonstrated, or before Maury had discovered the rotation and revolutions of the wind-currents, it was written in the Bible, "The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about to the north. _And the wind returneth again, according to his circuits._"[244]

Thousands of years before Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus were born, Isaiah was writing about the "orbit of the earth," and its insignificance in the eyes of the Creator of the host of heaven.[245]

Job was conversing with his friends on the inclination of its axis, and its equilibrium in s.p.a.ce: "He spreadeth out the north over the empty s.p.a.ce, and hangeth the earth upon nothing."[246]

So far from entertaining the least idea of the waters of the atmosphere being contained either on the outside or the inside of a metal or solid hemisphere, the writers of the Bible never once use, even figuratively, any expression conveying it. On the contrary, the well-known scriptural figures for the fountains of the rain, are the soft, elastic, leathern waterskins of the east, "the bottles of the clouds," or the wide, flowing shawl or upper garment wherein the people of the east are accustomed to tie up loose, scattering substances.[247] "He bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them."

"Who hath bound the waters in a garment;" "As a vesture thou shalt change them;" or the loose, flowing curtains of a royal pavilion; or the extended covering of a tent: "his pavilion around him were dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies;" "the spreadings of the clouds, and the noise of his tabernacle;" "he spread a cloud for a covering."[248]

Instead of the notion of a single ocean, the "number of the clouds" is proverbial in the Scriptures[249] for a mult.i.tude; and in direct opposition to the permanence of a vast metallic arch, the chosen emblems of instability and transitoriness, and of the utmost rapidity of motion, suitable even for the chariot of Jehovah, are selected from the heavens.[250]

In short, there is not the slightest vestige of any foundation in Scripture for the notions long afterward introduced by the Greek philosophers. Yet Christians, who have read these pa.s.sages of Scripture over and over again, allow themselves to give heed to Infidels, who have not, a.s.serting, without the shadow of proof, that Moses taught absurdities which were not invented for a thousand years after his death. The Bible gives hints of many profound scientific truths; it teaches no absurdities; _and, instead of countenancing the notion that the sky is a solid metal hemisphere, it teaches, both literally and figuratively, directly the contrary_.

4. We come now to the fourth objection, _that the Bible represents G.o.d as creating light before the sun_, which is supposed to be an absurdity, _and as creating the sun, moon, and stars only two days before Adam_.

This is the only astronomical objection to the Bible account of creation which has any foundation of Scripture statement to rest upon; but we shall soon see that here, also, Infidels have not done themselves the justice of reading the Bible with attention.

I have already corrected that confusion of ideas and carelessness of perusal which confounds the two distinct and different words, _create_ and _make_, so as to make both mean the same thing. G.o.d _created_ the heavens, as well as the earth, _in the beginning_; a period of such remote antiquity that, in Bible language, it stands next to eternity.

The sun and moon then came into being. Through what changes they pa.s.sed, or when they were endowed with the power of giving light to the universe, the Bible nowhere declares; but on the fourth day, it tells us, they _were made lights_, or, literally, _light-bearers_, to this earth. The comparatively insignificant place allotted to the stars, in the narrative of this earth's formation, corresponds, with the strictest propriety, to the nature of the discourse; which is not an account of the system of the universe, but of the process of preparation of this earth for the abode of man. Compared with the influences of "the two great light-bearers," those of the stars are very insignificant; since the sun sheds more light and heat on the earth in one day, than all the fixed stars have done since the creation of Adam. It is evident, from the words, that Moses is not speaking either of their original creation, or of their actual magnitude, but of their appointment and use in relation to us, when he says, "And G.o.d made two great light-bearers (the greater light-bearer to rule the day, and the lesser light bearer to rule the night), and the stars. And G.o.d set them in the firmament of the heavens, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness."

Neither here nor elsewhere does he say they were _created_ at this time, but in all the subsequent references uses other words, such as "prepared," "divided," "made," "appropriated," "made for ruling,"

"gave;" a studious omission, which shows that the Author of the Bible had not forgotten how long it was since he had called them into being.

_The Bible, then, does not say that G.o.d created the sun and stars only two days before Adam._

Another correction of careless Bible reading is necessary, that we may be satisfied about what the Bible _does not say_, ere we begin to defend what it does say. The Bible does not say, nor lead us to believe, that the darkness spoken of in the second verse of the first of Genesis had existed from eternity. Darkness is not eternal; it requires the exercise of creative power for its production. Light is the eternal dwelling of the Word of G.o.d.[251] The darkness which brooded over our earth, at the period of its formation, is very plainly described in the Bible as a temporary phenomenon, incident to, and necessary for, the birth of ocean. It is confined by the adverb of time, _when_, to the period of condensation, upheaval, and subsidence, occupied by the birth of that gigantic infant, "_when_ it burst forth as though it had issued from the womb; _when_ I made the cloud a garment for it, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and broke up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors."[252] The sun may have shone for millions of years before upon the earth, or might have been s.h.i.+ning with all his brilliance at that very time, while not a single ray penetrated the thick darkness of the vapors in which earth was clothed. But whether or not, darkness must, from its very nature, be limited, both in s.p.a.ce and time. To speak of infinite and eternal darkness is as unscriptural as it is absurd. The source of light is Uncreated and Eternal.[253]

Further--if my readers are not tired with these perpetual corrections of careless reading and mistaken meaning--the light called into existence in the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis is as evidently a different word from _the two lights_ spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the singular is different from the plural; and the thing signified by it is as distinct from the things spoken of in the fourteenth verse, as the abstract is from the concrete; as, when I say of the first, "light travels 195,000 miles per second," but mean a totally distinct subject when I say, "Extinguish the lights." The Hebrew words are even more palpably different, the word for _light_, in the third verse, being _aur_, while the words for _the lights_, in the fourth day's work, are _maurt_ and _at emaur_; words as distinct in shape and sense as our English words, _light_ and _the lighthouses_.

The locality of the light of the third verse is, moreover, wholly different from that of the light-bearers of the fourteenth verse. That was placed on earth--these in heaven. It was of the earth alone the writer was speaking, in the second verse; the earth alone is the subject of the following verses. It was the darkness of earth that needed to be illuminated; but there is not the remotest hint, in any portion of Scripture, that any other planet or star was shrouded in gloom at this time. But, on the contrary, we are most distinctly informed that the wonders which G.o.d was performing in this world at that very time were distinctly visible amid the cheerful illumination of other orbs, "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy,"[254] as this earth emerged from its temporary darkness. It was not from the light of heaven, but out of this darkness of earth, that G.o.d, who still draws the lightning's flash from the black thunder-cloud, commanded the light to s.h.i.+ne.[255] And it was upon this earth, and not throughout the universe, that it produced alternate day and night. To extend this command for the illumination of the darkened earth, so as to mean the production of light in general, and the lighting of the most distant telescopic, and even invisible stars--which are neither specified in the command itself, nor by any necessity of language or Scripture implied in it, but, on the contrary, excluded, by the express Scripture declarations of the pre-existence of light, and of morning stars--is an outrage alike against all canons of criticism, laws of grammar, and dictates of common sense. The command, "Let there be light," had respect to this earth only.

The Bible does represent this earth as illuminated at a time when the sun was not visible from its surface--perhaps not visible at all. Now, if any one will undertake to scoff at the Bible for speaking of light without suns.h.i.+ne, or of the sun s.h.i.+ning upon a dark earth--as Infidels abundantly do--we demand that he tell us, What is light, and how is it connected with the sun? If he can not, let him cease to scoff at matters too high for him.

If he can tell us, he knows that the r.e.t.a.r.dation of Encke's comet, which every year falls nearer and nearer the sun, has discovered the existence of an attenuated ether in the expanse or firmament; and that the experiments of Arago on the polarization of light have finally demonstrated that our sensation of light is exerted by a series of vibrations or undulations of this fluid,[256] he will then be able to perceive the propriety with which the Author of light and of the Bible speaks, not of _creating_ light, as if it were a material substance, but of _forming_ or commanding its display. And he will be better able to comprehend the beauty and scientific propriety with which he selected the active participle of the verb _to flow_, as the name for the undulations of this fluid; for the primary meaning of the Hebrew verb _ar_ is, _to flow_, or, when used as a noun, _a flood_. "It shall be cast out and drowned, as by the _flood_ of Egypt."[257] And of the like import are the nouns, _iar_ and _aur_, formed from it. "Who is this that covereth up like a _flood_, whose waters are moved like the rivers?"[258] The philosopher, even though he be a skeptic, will cease to mock the Bible when he reads there, that 6000 years ago its Author termed light _the flowing--the undulation_. "In the words of the 'Son of G.o.d,' and the 'Son of Man,' no less than in his works, with all their adaptation to the circ.u.mstances of the times and persons to whom they were originally delivered, are things inexplicable--concealed germs of an infinite development, reserved for future ages to unfold."[259] To the man of learning and reflection, this progressive fullness, and unfathomable depth of the Scripture, is a most conclusive proof that it was dictated by Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

But the ignorant scoffers--the great majority--will mock on, and speak evil of the things they know not. Their mockery is founded on two a.s.sumptions, which they believe to be irrefutable; that the sun is the only possible source of light to the earth; and that it is impossible for the sun to exist without illuminating the earth. Unless they can _prove_ both of these a.s.sumptions to be true, they can not prove the Bible account of creation to be false, nor even show it to be impossible. Neither of these a.s.sumptions can possibly be proved true; for none of them can explore the universe, to discover the sources of light, nor put the sun through every possible experiment, to discover that his light is an inseparable quality. The only thing Infidels can truly allege against the Bible account of the origin of light is, _their ignorance of the process_. The argument is simply this: "G.o.d could not cause light without suns.h.i.+ne, _because I don't know how he did it_. Nor _can I understand_ how the sun shone on a dark earth; therefore, it is impossible."

These arguments from ignorance need no other answer than the questions, Do you know how the sun s.h.i.+nes at all? Is your ignorance the measure of G.o.d's wisdom?

But I shall demonstrate the utter falsehood of both these a.s.sumptions, by showing the actual existence of many sources of light besides the sun, and the perfect possibility of the existence of the sun without suns.h.i.+ne, and of suns.h.i.+ne without any light reaching the earth. Thus, both the alleged _impossibilities_ upon which the argument against the truth of the Bible is based will be removed, and the gross ignorance of natural science displayed by professedly scientific scoffers at the Bible exposed.

Light, so far from being solely derived from the sun, exists in, and can be educed from, almost any known substance. Even children are familiar with the light produced by the friction of two pieces of quartz; and no one needs to be informed how light may be produced by the combustion of inflammable substances. But the number of these substances is far greater than is generally supposed, and light can be produced by processes to which we do not generally apply the idea of burning.

Resins, wool, silks, wood, and all kinds of earths and alkalies, are capable of emitting light in suitable electrical conditions; so that the surface of our earth may have been a source of light in past ages, as it even now is,[260] near the poles and the equator, flas.h.i.+ng its Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis, and sending out its belts of Zodiacal light,[261] far into the surrounding darkness.

Schubert, quoted by Kurtz, says: "May not that polar light, which is called the Aurora of the North, be the last glittering light of a departed age of the world, in which the earth was inclosed in an expanse of aerial fluid, from which, through the agency of electric magnetic forces, streamed forth an incomparably greater degree of light, accompanied with animating warmth, almost in a similar mode to what still occurs in the luminous atmosphere of our sun?"

Again, the metallic bases of all the earths are highly inflammable. A brilliant flame can be produced by the combustion of water. All the metals can be made to flash forth lightnings, under suitable electric and magnetic excitements. The crystals of several rocks give out light during the process of crystallization. Thousands of miles of the earth's surface must once have presented the lurid glow of a vast furnace full of igneous rocks. Even now, the copper color of the moon during an ellipse shows us that the earth is a source of light.[262] The mountains on the surface of Venus and the moon, and the continents and oceans of Mars, attest the existence of upheaval and subsidence, and of volcanic fires, capable of producing such phenomena, and of course of sources of light in those planets, such as exist on the earth. We know, then, most certainly, that there are many other bodies capable of producing light besides the sun. That G.o.d could command the light to s.h.i.+ne out of darkness, and convert the very ocean into a magnificent illumination, the following facts clearly prove. "Capt. Bonnycastle, coming up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the seventh of September, 1826, was roused by the mate of the vessel, in great alarm, from an unusual appearance. It was a starlight night, when suddenly the sky became overcast, in the direction of the high land of Cornwallis County, _and an instantaneous and intensely vivid light, resembling the Aurora, shot out of the hitherto gloomy and dark sea_, on the lee bow, which was so brilliant that it lighted everything distinctly, even to the mast-head. The light spread over the whole sea, between the two sh.o.r.es, and the waves, which before had been tranquil, now began to be agitated. Capt. Bonnycastle describes the scene as that of _a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light_. A long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness to the parts of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base of the high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering, and more intensely obscure. Long tortuous lines of light showed immense numbers of large fish, darting about as if in consternation. The topsail yard and mizzen boom were lighted by the glare, as if gas-lights had been burning directly below them; and until just before daybreak, at four o'clock, the most minute objects were distinctly visible."[263]

The other a.s.sumption, that the sun could not possibly have existed without giving light to the earth, is contradicted by the most familiar facts. The earth and each of the planets might have been, and most probably were, surrounded by a dense atmosphere, through which the sun's rays could not penetrate. It is not at all necessary to prove that such was the fact. I am only concerned to prove the _possibility_; for the Infidel's objection is founded on the presumed _impossibility_ of the coexistence of a dark earth and a s.h.i.+ning sun. Any person who has ever been in Pittsburg, Glasgow, or the manufacturing districts of England, and has seen how the smoke of even a hundred factory chimneys will shroud the heavens, can easily comprehend how a similar discharge, on a larger scale, from the thousands of primeval volcanoes,[264] would cover the earth with the pall of darkness. By the eruption of a single volcano, in the island of Sumbawa, in 1815, the air was filled with ashes, from Java to Celebes, darkening an area of more than 200,000 square miles; and the darkness was so profound in Java, three hundred miles distant from the volcano, that nothing equal to it was ever witnessed in the darkest night.[265] Those who have witnessed the fogs raised on the Banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in the Bay of San Francisco, by the mingling of currents of water of slightly different temperatures, can be at no loss to conceive the density of the vapors produced by the boiling of the sea around and over the mult.i.tude of volcanoes[266] which have produced the countless _atolls_ of the Pacific, and by the vast upheavals of thousands of miles of heated rocks of the primary formations into the beds of primeval oceans. While such processes were in progress, it was impossible but that darkness should be upon the face of the deep.[267] Even now, a slight change of atmospheric density and temperature would vail the earth with darkness. We see this substantially done every time that G.o.d "covereth the light with clouds, and commandeth it not to s.h.i.+ne by the cloud that cometh betwixt," although the sun continues to s.h.i.+ne with all his usual splendor. To understand how there may be a day without suns.h.i.+ne, we need only conceive the whole earth temporarily enveloped in the vapors of the unastronomical atmosphere of Peru, thus described by Humboldt:

"A thick mist obscures the firmament in this region for many months, during the period called _tiempo de la garua_. Not a planet--not the most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere--are visible. It is frequently almost impossible to distinguish the position of the moon.

If, by chance, the outline of the sun's disc be visible during the day, it appears devoid of rays, as if seen through colored gla.s.ses. According to what modern geology has taught us to conjecture concerning the ancient history of our atmosphere, its primitive condition in respect to its mixture and density _must have been unfavorable to the transmission of light_. When we consider the numerous processes which, in the primary world, may have led to the separation of the solids, fluids, and gases around the earth's surface, the thought involuntarily arises, _how narrowly the human race escaped being surrounded with an untransparent atmosphere_, which, though not greatly prejudicial to some cla.s.ses of vegetation, would yet have completely vailed the whole of the starry canopy. All knowledge of the structure of the universe could then have been withheld from the inquiring spirit of man."[268] The sun, then, may have shone with all his brilliancy, for thousands of years, and a single ray never have penetrated the darkness upon the face of the deep.

But we will go further, and show that so far from light being an essential property of suns, it is a very variable attribute, and that in several cases suns have ceased, and others begun, to s.h.i.+ne, before our eyes.

The fixed stars are self-luminous bodies, similar to our sun, only immensely distant from us. Their numbers, magnitudes, and places, are known and recorded. But new stars have frequently flashed into view, where none were previously seen to exist; and others have gradually grown dim and disappeared, without changing their place; and a few which had disappeared have reappeared in the same spot they formerly occupied; while others have changed their color since the era of astronomical observation. In short, there is no permanence in the heavens, any more than on the earth; but a perpetual progress and change is the destiny of suns and stars, of which the most conspicuous indication is the variability of their powers of giving light, of which I shall transcribe a few instances.

"On the eleventh of November, 1572, as the ill.u.s.trious Danish astronomer, Tycho, was walking through the fields, he was astonished to observe a new star in the constellation Ca.s.siopea, beaming with a radiance quite unwonted in that part of the heavens. Suspecting some delusion about his eyes, he went to a group of peasants, to ascertain if they saw it, and found them gazing at it with as much astonishment as himself. He went to his instrument, and fixed its place, from which it never after appeared to deviate. For some time it increased in brightness--greatly surpa.s.sed Sirius in l.u.s.ter, and even Jupiter. It was seen by good eyes in the daytime; a thing which happens only to Venus, under very favorable circ.u.mstances; and at night it pierced through clouds which obscured the rest of the stars. After reaching its fullest brightness, it again diminished, pa.s.sed through all degrees of visible magnitude, a.s.suming in succession the hues of a dying conflagration, and then finally disappeared." "It is impossible to imagine anything more tremendous than a conflagration that could be visible at such a distance."[269]

Astronomers now recognize a cla.s.s of such _Temporary Stars_, which have appeared from time to time in different parts of the heavens, blazing forth with extraordinary l.u.s.ter, and after remaining awhile, apparently immovable, have died away, and left no trace.[270] Twenty-one of such appearances of new suns are on record.[271]

Still further, many familiar suns have ceased to s.h.i.+ne. "On a careful re-examination of the heavens, _many stars are found to be missing_."[272] "There are many well authenticated cases of the disappearance of old stars, whose places had been fixed with a degree of certainty not to be doubted. In October, 1781, Sir William Herschel observed a star, No. 55 in Flamstead's Catalogue, in the constellation Hercules. In 1790 the same star was observed by the same astronomer, but since that time no search has been able to detect it. The stars 80 and 81 of the same catalogue, both of the fourth magnitude, have likewise disappeared. In May, 1828, Sir John Herschel missed the star No. 42, in the constellation Virgo, which has never since been seen. Examples might be multiplied, but it is unnecessary."[273]

The demonstration of the variableness of the light-giving power of suns is completed by the phenomena of the cla.s.s called _Variable Stars_; though the best astronomers are now agreed that _variability, and not uniformity_, in the emission of light, is the general character of the stars.[274] But the variations which occur before our eyes impress us more deeply than those which require centuries for their completion. Sir John Herschel has observed, and graphically described, one such instance of variation of light.

"The star Eta Argus has always. .h.i.therto been regarded as a star of the second magnitude; and I never had reason to regard it as variable. In November, 1837, _I saw it, as usual_. Judge of my surprise to find, on the sixteenth of December, that _it had suddenly become a star of the first magnitude_, and almost equal to Rigel. It continued to increase.

Rigel is now not to be compared with it. It exceeds Arcturus, and is very near equal to Alpha Centauri, being, at the moment I write, the fourth star in the heavens, in the order of brightness."[275] It has since pa.s.sed through several variations of l.u.s.ter. Humboldt gives a catalogue of twenty-four of such stars whose variations have been recorded.

"A strange field of speculation is opened by this phenomenon. Here we have a star fitfully variable to an astonis.h.i.+ng extent, and whose fluctuations are spread over centuries, apparently in no settled period, and with no regularity of progression. What origin can we ascribe to these sudden flashes and relapses? What conclusions are we to draw as to the comfort or habitability of a system depending for its supply of light and heat on such an uncertain source? Speculations of this kind can hardly be termed visionary, when we consider that, from what has been before said, we are compelled to admit a community of nature between the fixed stars and our own sun; and when we reflect, that geology testifies to the fact of extensive changes having taken place, at epochs of the most remote antiquity, in the climate and temperature of our globe; changes difficult to reconcile with the operation of secondary causes, such as a different distribution of sea and land, but which would find an easy and natural explanation in a slow variation of the supply of light and heat afforded by the sun himself."[276] "I can not otherwise understand alterations of heat and cold so extensive as at one period to have clothed high northern lat.i.tudes with a more than tropical luxuriance of vegetation, and at another to have buried vast tracts of Europe, now enjoying a genial climate, and smiling with fertility, under a glacier crust of enormous thickness. Such changes seem to point to causes more powerful than the mere local distribution of land and water can well be supposed to have been. In the slow secular variations of our supply of light and heat from the sun, _which, in the immensity of time, may have gone to any extent, and succeeded each other in any order, without violating the a.n.a.logy of sidereal phenomena which we know to have taken place_, we have a cause, not indeed established as a fact, but readily admissible as something beyond a bare possibility, fully adequate to the utmost requirements of geology. A change of half a magnitude on the l.u.s.ter of our sun, regarded as a fixed star, spread over successive geological epochs--now progressive, now receding, now stationary--_is what no astronomer would now hesitate to admit as a perfectly reasonable and not improbable supposition_."[277]

The most eminent astronomers are perfectly unanimous in their deductions from these facts. They regard _variability as the general characteristic of suns and stars, our own sun not exempted_. "We are led," says Humboldt, "by a.n.a.logy to infer, that as the fixed stars _universally_ have not merely an apparent, but a real motion of their own, so their surfaces or luminous atmospheres are generally subject to those changes (in their "light process") which recur, in the great majority, in extremely long, and therefore unmeasured, and probably undeterminable periods, or which, in a few, recur without being periodical, as it were, by a sudden revolution, either for a longer or a shorter time." And he asks, _Why should our sun differ from other suns?_

In reference to the extinction of suns, he says: "What we no longer see is not necessarily annihilated. It is merely the transition of matter into new forms--into combinations which are subject to new processes.

Dark cosmical bodies may, by a renewed process of light, again become luminous."[278]

In confirmation of the fact adduced in support of this view, by La Place, "that those stars which have become invisible, after having surpa.s.sed Jupiter in brilliancy, have not changed their place during the time they continued visible," he adds, "The luminous process has simply ceased." Bessel a.s.serts[279] that, "_No reason exists for considering luminosity an essential property of these bodies._" And Nichol sums up the matter in the following emphatic words: "No more is light _inherent_ in the sun than in Tycho's vanished star; and with it and other orbs, a time may come when, through the consent of all the powers of nature, he shall cease to be required to s.h.i.+ne. _The womb which contains the future is that which bore the past._"[280]

Here, then we behold astronomy presenting to our observation facts and processes so similar to those which revelation presents to our faith, that all those men who are most profoundly versed in her lore, reasoning solely from the facts of science, and without any reference to the Bible, unanimously conclude that there was such a state of darkness and confusion before our era, as the Bible declares--that its causes were most probably such as the Bible implies--and that the sudden illuminating of dark bodies, and their extinction, and even re-illumination, are facts so perfectly well authenticated as matters of observation in regard to other suns, that no reasonable man can hesitate to believe any credible a.s.surance that our sun has pa.s.sed through such a process. With what feelings, then, are we to regard men who, in defiance of the most common facts, and in contradiction to the demonstrations of science, blaspheme the G.o.d of truth as a teacher of falsehood, because he speaks of light distinct from that of the sun?

Surely, such men are those whom he describes as "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of G.o.d, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts.

In whom the G.o.d of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not."[281]

These facts, of the sudden kindling of stars, their gradual pa.s.sage through all the hues of a dying conflagration, and their final extinction, and present blackness of darkness, are facts of fearful omen to the enemies of G.o.d. They are the original threatenings of Heaven, whence the fearful language of Bible warning is derived. They attest its truth, and ill.u.s.trate its import.

The favorite theory of the unbeliever is the uniformity of nature.

"Where," says he, "is the promise of Christ's coming to judgment; for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were since the beginning of the world?" But the telescope dispels the illusion, exhibits the course of nature as a succession of catastrophes, displays the conflagration of other worlds, and the extinction of their suns, before our eyes, and asks, _Why should our sun differ from other suns?_ It is not the preacher, but the philosopher, who has turned prophet, when--looking back on the period when the Siberian elephant and rhinoceros were frozen amid their native jungle, and icebergs visited the plains of India--he proclaims, "_The womb that bore the past contains the future._"

The threatenings of G.o.d's Word are invested with a mantle of terrible literality by the facts we have been contemplating. Raised at the day of resurrection, in these bodies, and with these senses, and this capability of rejoicing in the light, and shuddering and pining amid outward gloom, physical darkness will be the terrible prison of those who chose darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. The Father of Lights shall withdraw his blessed influences from the hearts, the dwellings, the eyes, of those who say to him, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." The sun shall cease to vivify G.o.d's corn, and wine, and oil, which unG.o.dly men consume upon their l.u.s.ts. The moon shall cease to s.h.i.+ne upon the robber's toil, and the stars to illumine the adulterer's path. The light of heaven shall cease to gild the field of carnage, where men perform the work of h.e.l.l. In the very midst of your worldliness and business, unbeliever, when you are in all the engrossment of buying and selling, and planting and building, and marrying and giving in marriage, without warning or expectation, "the sun shall go down at noon, and the stars shall be darkened in the clear day." As in the warning and example given to the enemies of the Lord in Egypt, thick darkness, that may be felt, shall wind its inevitable chains around you, preventing your escape from the judgment of the great day, and giving you a fearful foretaste of that "blackness of darkness for ever" of which you are now forewarned in the Word of Truth.

"The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars shall fall from the heavens, And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens, And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, With power and great glory."

"Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness; There shall be weeping and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth."