THE MOST VALUABLE AND MOST WONDERFUL TELESCOPE.
Suggestion:—The objects used are a field-glass or opera-glass, spy-glass and sun-glass.
MY DEAR LITTLE MILLIONAIRES: You know that when people are very wealthy, have hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are spoken of as millionaires. Oftentimes these rich people do not have any more actual money than poorer people, but they have property which is supposed to be worth a great deal of money. Now, I want to show you to-day that each one of you possesses that which is worth millions of dollars.
Field-glass, Spy-glass and Sun-glass.
I want to talk to you about your eyes, and I hope that you will be able to understand that they are worth hundreds and thousands, yes millions of dollars to each of you. In order that I may better illustrate a few of the many wonderful things about the human eye, I have brought this field-glass, and here is a small spy-glass, and also a magnifying lens, or sun-glass, as boys sometimes call them. Inside of this spy-glass and these field-glasses are lenses or magnifying glasses, similar to this sun-glass. They are, however, more perfect, and are so adjusted or related to each other, that when I place this smaller lens of the spy-glass to my eye I also look through the larger lens which is at the further end of the instrument. When properly adjusted, it enables me to see objects which are at a great distance, and to so magnify them as to cause them to seem much nearer to me than they really are.
Now, if you take this spy-glass and look at the stars, it will not make them appear any larger than they appear to the eye without the spy-glass. It will assist the eye when I look at the moon or the planets, but not at the stars which are so much further removed from the earth than the moon and the planets. Astronomers have desired something larger and more satisfactory, and so have made the great telescopes, which are simply large spy-glasses. The telescope and the spy-glass, and the field-glasses, are all imitations of the human eye; the same as many of our greatest inventions are only copies of that which God has already created, and which we have but feebly imitated. The eye is a more wonderful instrument than even the largest telescopes which have ever been made.
If you desired to look through a telescope at one of the stars or a planet, or the moon, you would have considerable difficulty in directing it so as to be able to see the desired object. Even with this small spy-glass it is very difficult so to direct it as to find a particular star in the heavens at night. It is not easy, even to find a distant object upon the earth. But with these wonderful eyes, with which God has endowed us, you and I can look almost instantly from one star to any other star, and find instantly upon the earth any object which is distinctly pointed out to us. It takes a very experienced person successfully to operate a telescope, but the smallest child can direct and control and use his own eyes successfully.
The large telescopes have to be turned and adjusted by machinery, and when it is desired to direct them from one star to another star on the opposite side of the heavens, they even have to turn around the entire roof or dome of the observatory. But you and I do not need any ponderous machinery to adjust our eyes, or to turn them about in order to look in a different direction. We can easily turn our heads by bending our necks, or, if necessary, we can turn our entire body around and look in an opposite direction. In looking from one object to another, our eyes change their direction so quickly that we are not conscious of any effort upon our own part.