“What makes the seeds grow, Ranald—the oats, and the wheat, and the barley?”
“The rain, father,” I said, with half-knowledge.
“Well, if there were no sun, the vapours would not rise to make clouds. What rain there was already in the sky would come down in snow or lumps of ice. The earth would grow colder and colder, and harder and harder, until at last it went sweeping through the air, one frozen mass, as hard as stone, without a green leaf or a living creature upon it.”
“How dreadful to think of, father!” I said. “That would be frightful.”
“Yes, my boy. It is the sun that is the life of the world. Not only does he make the rain rise to fall on the seeds in the earth, but even that would be useless, if he did not make them warm as well—and do something else to them besides which we cannot understand. Farther down into the earth than any of the rays of light can reach, he sends other rays we cannot see, which go searching about in it, like long fingers; and wherever they find and touch a seed, the life that is in that seed begins to talk to itself, as it were, and straightway begins to grow. Out of the dark earth he thus brings all the lovely green things of the spring, and clothes the world with beauty, and sets the waters running, and the birds singing, and the lambs bleating, and the children gathering daisies and butter-cups, and the gladness overflowing in all hearts—very different from what we see now—isn’t it, Ranald?”
“Yes, father; a body can hardly believe, to look at it now, that the world will ever be like that again.”
“But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken it. He has only drawn away from it a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. If he were to go, not one breath more could one of us draw. Horses and men, we should drop down frozen lumps, as hard as stones. Who is the sun’s father, Ranald?”
“He hasn’t got a father,” I replied, hoping for some answer as to a riddle.
“Yes, he has, Ranald: I can prove that. You remember whom the apostle James calls the Father of Lights?”
“Oh yes, of course, father. But doesn’t that mean another kind of lights?”