If you will refer to the sketch I will try and point out the various positions.
June 13, 1887, Venus began to appear low down towards the western horizon as an "evening star," but as the evenings were then light I suppose it did not attract public attention. Daily, however, the planet for a time was seen—after sunset—higher and higher in the western sky, until August 16, when it arrived in such a position with respect to the earth that it sent towards us the greatest amount of reflected light that it is possible it can send at any given time. The planet travelling through space in her orbit at the rate of sixty-nine thousand miles an hour overtook the earth (which is travelling in the same direction at fifty-eight thousand miles an hour) on September 21, when she was exactly in a straight line between us and the sun—called astronomically, "inferior conjunction." The moment she passes this point she becomes a morning star. She still moves on and leaves the earth behind, and when she arrives at the position shown on October 28 she is at her greatest brilliancy as a morning star. From this time the planet's distance from us is rapidly increasing, and consequently her apparent size and brilliancy are as rapidly decreasing, and she is soon altogether lost in the rays of the sun and can only be seen by the aid of a telescope.
Venus makes a complete revolution round the sun in 224 days and 17 hours, but as the earth moves in the same direction but at a slower rate the planet overtakes the earth in about nineteen months, when we have her again as an evening and morning star respectively as before, and so on continually.
And this is the Star of Bethlehem which has caused such a stir within the past two months. All sorts of ridiculous speculation and superstitious nonsense have been said concerning it. Verily in this our day of rapid advancement we are almost, if not quite, as ignorant of astronomical matters as were the "wise men" of the East nearly two thousand years ago, or the natives of Zululand of the present day.
I hope I have made this plain to you; or if there is anything you do not understand, just ask the question and I will endeavour to supply the information.
Yours affectionately,
R. Langdon.
PS.—It is rather singular that Venus rotates upon her axis in such time as to produce a Leap Year once in four years as with us.—R. L.