Recreations in Astronomy / With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work

by Henry White Warren

So eminent an astronomer and so true a Christian as General Mitchell, who understood the voices in which the heavens declare the glory of God, who read with delight the Word of God em bodied in worlds, and who fed upon the written Word of God as his daily bread, declared, "We find an aptness and propriety in all these astronomical illustrations, which are not weakened, but amazingly strengthened, when viewed in the clear light of our present knowledge." Herschel says, "All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths that come from on high, and are contained in the sacred writings." The common authorship of the worlds and the Word becomes apparent; their common unexplorable wealth is a necessary conclusion.

Since the opening revelations of the past show an unsearchable wisdom in the Word, has that Word any prophecy concerning mysteries not yet understood, and events yet in the future? There are certain problems as yet insolvable. We have grasped many clews, and followed them far into labyrinths of darkness, but not yet through into light.

We ask in vain, "What is matter?" No man can answer. We trace it up through the worlds, till its increasing fineness, its growing power, and possible identity of substance, seem as if the next step would reveal its spirit origin. What we but hesitatingly stammer, the Word boldly asserts.

We ask, "What is force?" No man can answer. We recognize its various grades, each subordinate to the higher—cohesion dissolvable by heat; the affinity of oxygen and hydrogen in water overcome by the piercing intensity of electric fire; rivers seeking the sea by gravitation carried back by the sun; rock turned to soil, soil to flowers; and all the forces in nature measurably subservient to mind. Hence we partly understand what the Word has always taught us, that all lower forces must be subject to that which is highest. How easily can seas be divided, iron made to swim, water to burn, and a dead body to live again, if the highest force exert itself over forces made to be mastered. When we have followed force to its highest place, we always find ourselves considering the forces of mind and spirit, and say, in the words of the Scriptures, "God is spirit."

We ask in vain what is the end of the present condition of things. We have read the history of our globe with great difficulty—its prophecy is still more difficult. We have asked whether the stars form a system, and if so, whether that system is permanent. We are not able to answer yet. We have said that the sun would in time become as icy cold and dead as the moon, and then the earth would wander darkling in the voids of space. But the end of the earth, as prophesied in the Word, is different: "The heavens will pass away with a rushing noise, and the elements will be dissolved with burning heat, and the earth and the works therein will be burned up." The latest conclusions of science point the same way. The great zones of uncondensed matter about the sun seem to constitute a resisting medium as far as they reach. Encke's comet, whose orbit comes near the sun, is delayed. This gives gravitation an overwhelming power, and hence the orbit is lessened and a revolution accomplished more quickly. Faye's comet, which wheels beyond the track of Mars, is not retarded. If the earth moves through a resisting substance, its ultimate fall into the sun is certain. Whether in that far future the sun shall have cooled off, or will be still as hot as to-day, Peter's description would admirably portray the result of the impact. Peters description, however, seems rather to indicate an interference of Divine power at an appropriate time before a running down of the system at present in existence, and a re-endowment of matter with new capabilities.

After thousands of years, science discovered the true way to knowledge. It is the Baconian way of experiment, of trial, of examining the actual, instead of imagining the ideal. It is the acceptance of the Scriptural plan. "If a man wills to do God's will, he shall know." Oh taste and see! In science men try hypotheses, think the best they can, plan broadly as possible, and then see if facts sustain the theory. They have adopted the Scriptural idea of accepting a plan, and then working in faith, in order to acquire knowledge. Fortunately, in the work of salvation the plan is always perfect. But, in order to make the trial under the most favorable circumstances, there must be faith. The faith of science is amazing; its assertions of the supersensual are astounding. It affirms a thousand things that cannot be physically demonstrated: that the flight of a rifle-ball is parabolic; that the earth has poles; that gages are made of particles; that there are atoms; that an electric light gives ten times as many rays as are visible; that there are sounds to which we are deaf, sights to which we are blind; that a thousand objects and activities are about us, for the perception of which we need a hundred senses instead of five. These faiths have nearly all led to sight; they have been rewarded, and the world's wealth of knowledge is the result. The Word has ever asserted the supersensuous, solicited man's faith, and ever uplifted every true faith into sight. Lowell is partly right when he sings:

"Science was Faith once; Faith were science now,
Would she but lay her bow and arrows by,
And aim her with the weapons of the time."

Faith laid her bow and arrows by before men in pursuit of worldly knowledge discovered theirs.

What becomes of the force of the sun that is being spent to-day? It is one of the firmest rocks of science that there can be no absolute destruction of force. It is all conserved somehow. But how? The sun contracts, light results, and leaps swiftly into all encircling space. It can never be returned. Heat from stars invisible by the largest telescope enters the tastimeter, and declares that that force has journeyed from its source through incalculable years. There is no encircling dome to reflect all this force back upon its sources. Is it lost? Science, in defence of its own dogma, should assign light a work as it flies in the space which we have learned cannot be empty. There ought to be a realm where light's inconceivable energy is utilized in building a grander universe, where there is no night. Christ said, as he went out of the seen into the unseen, "I go to prepare a place for you;" and when John saw it in vision the sun had disappeared, the moon was gone, but the light still continued.

Science finds matter to be capable of unknown refinement; water becomes steam full of amazing capabilities: we add more heat, superheat the steam, and it takes on new aptitudes and uncontrollable energy. Zinc burned in acid becomes electricity, which enters iron as a kind of soul, to fill all that body with life. All matter is capable of transformation, if not transfiguration, till it shines by the light of an indwelling spirit. Scripture readers know that bodies and even garments can be transfigured, be made αστραπτων (Luke xxiv. 4), shining with an inner light. They also look for new heavens and a new earth endowed with higher powers, fit for perfect beings.