it paints upon the ceiling are so pure and beautiful, and it is so curious
to see the bright band of red and blue and green dancing from place to
place as you turn your bit of glass, but because you can see in this way
how a ray of light spreads itself out when it passes through this glass
with three sides. The colours are separated from each other because no two
waves of light are of quite the same length; some move slowly and others
fast, and the faster a wave travels the more it is turned aside out of the
straight road.
This is a difficult subject, but I think you will understand that if all
rays were alike, the whole beam would be bent; but as some are more easily
bent than others, as they pass through the prism they are spread out.
Long ago, the great philosopher Newton bought a prism, and thus "analysed"
or broke up the sunbeam, and discovered what is called the "prismatic band"
of colours. He found that what seemed to be white light was made up of
tints really infinite in number; for though we count only seven prismatic
colours, they are shaded off, one into the other, as you see.
Having thus broken up the beam of light, Newton, by means of two prisms,
put together again the rays which he had separated, and the sunbeam was
"white" as before. Perhaps you wonder why we do not always see coloured
light: the reason is that the waves of light, unless interfered with and
turned out of their straight path, all travel together in their rapid,
noiseless course, and so remain unbroken.
You will find it very interesting to make the first of Newton's experiments
yourself, and some day perhaps you will hear what wonderful things about
the sun and the stars are being learnt in our own time by means of the
spectroscope, which is an instrument having a fine slit through which the
ray is passed before it is allowed to fall upon the prism.
And now what do we mean when we talk of things being of different colours?
When we say of snow that it is white we mean that, as the light falls upon
the snow, it is all sent back again. The surface of the snow reflects all
the light, and keeps none. The other day, when I was buying some flowers
to plant in the garden, the woman who was selling them showed me a black
pansy. "I am sure you would like to have this root," she said, "black
pansies are so rare."
[Illustration]
I did not buy the flower, for I did not think it nearly so pretty as the
purple and yellow pansies, which seemed to look up at me with such knowing
little faces; but I was interested to see it, because (and are you not glad
that it is so?) black flowers are very rare. But why was this pansy black?
Ah! it was quite different from the snow; it kept all the light which fell
upon it, and gave away none. You see that God has given to some things the
power of absorbing light and to others that of reflecting it. If it were
not so, our world would be very different from the beautiful world which it
is--as different as an engraving is from a coloured picture, with fields,
gardens, sea and sky all of varied hue. Almost all the flowers are so
beautiful because, while they keep some of the colours from the light which
falls upon them, they do not keep all.
Now look at the flowers in that glass upon the table. The lovely rose keeps
part of its ray of light, but gives us back the red; the larkspur gives
back the blue; and those pure white lilies, which show so fair beside the
roses, give back all the light in its bright whiteness just as it comes to
them, so that a poet, who loved them well, calls them "those flowers made
of light."
And the water in the glass, why is it white?
Because water is what is called transparent; it does not drink in the
light, but lets the whole ray pass through it, as it passes through the
window-pane.
Now my lesson about colours is over, and I will tell you a story. I don't
know whether you have as good a memory as some of my children had, and
whether you remember my promise to explain to you about types. I daresay
you have heard this word used in more than one way, and a word which has
two meanings is rather a puzzle, is it not? I know how it used to set me
thinking, when I heard someone say of a new book that it was pleasant to
read, because of its good type; the word was not new to me, but I had heard
it used in quite another way, the way in which it is used when we say of
the serpent of brass lifted up by Moses in the wilderness, that the dying
people might look at it and live--that it was a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ lifted up upon the cross, as He Himself tells us it was. I daresay,
if I could ask you, you would tell me that "type" used in this sense means
a picture. That was what Chris and Sharley said, but it was because I
wanted the little ones as well as the elder ones to understand that meaning
of the word that I told them this story which a friend of mine once told
me, and which I am sure you will like to hear,
We were saying just now how dark it would be in the deep mines, far
underground, where no daylight can come, if it were not for the lamp which
the miner carries with him wherever he goes. You may think you would rather
like to go down a mine, just for once, if you were quite sure of being
drawn up safely in the miners' cage, but I think you would not go down,
if you thought you would have to stay even a whole week in such a dismal
place.
My story is about a boy who had never been anywhere else, for he was born
in a mine, and all his childhood, while other children were running about
in the fields, looking up at the sky and breathing the fresh air which
makes your cheeks so rosy, this little boy might turn his bright eyes this
way and that, but no trees and houses and gay gardens were to be seen, far
or near; for though he was five or six years old, no one had ever taken him
up to the top of the mine and let him see the sky, and pick the daisies,
and feel the warm sunshine. Poor boy, he was an orphan; both his parents
had died before he could remember, and he had no one to care for him in the
way in which your dear father and mother have always cared for you. At last
one of the miners thought what a sad life it was for a child to be always
down underground, and he began to take notice of the lonely little boy,
who had no father and mother to love him and be good to him, and in the
evenings, when his work was done, he coaxed the child to come on his knee,
and used to tell him stories about that wonderful world above ground which
he had never seen.
Do you not think it must have been very difficult for the kind miner to
talk about the blue sky and the birds, and the grass and trees, and all the
beautiful sights which most children know so well, to a child who had never
seen any of them? It was indeed a difficult task, but you know there is an
old saying about difficulties which tells us that "love will find out the
way" to overcome them. The miner became very fond of his pet, and he found
out a way of making the things of which he spoke seem real to him.
"He could show him pictures," you will say. That was what little May
thought, and it would have been a very good way; but remember that there
were no beautiful picture-books such as you have, down in the mine. How
then could the miner teach his little friend about things above ground?
The only way in which he could do this was by means of things in the mine
which the boy knew well, and had been used to all his life. So he would
take his lamp, and talk to him about it, and show him how its tiny flame
lighted up the darkness, and then he would point upwards, and say that far
above ground there was a great lamp burning all day long, and giving light
to the people who lived in that upper world.
Now you would say that a miner's lamp was a very poor picture of the
glorious sun; still, this child saw that in the under world, where he
lived, it made all the difference between light and darkness whether the
lamps were shining or not; so the lamp was like the sun, at least in that
respect, though it was so poor and dim, and such a tiny likeness of it.
In the same way--when his kind friend made the little boy look at the pails
of water which were swung down into the mine, and explained to him that
above ground, in that new world which he had never seen, the water ran
along quickly in great streams called rivers, and that there was a great,
great world of water called the sea--though you might say that a pail of
water in a mine, water which would soon be used for the miners to drink or
for cooking their food, would give a very poor idea indeed of the mighty
ocean with its rolling waves, where the whales spout, and the ships sail
on their long voyages; still, poor as it was, that water in the pail was a
likeness, a type of the rivers and seas, was it not?
The children were interested in this little boy, and they wanted to know
how long he lived in the mine, and what became of him afterwards; but this
I could not tell them, for I never heard any more about him.
And now I want you not only to be interested in this story, but to remember
why I have told it to you. You understand now, I am sure, that a type is
a figure of something not present; of course, inferior to the thing it
represents, as the miner's lamp was inferior to the sun, or a man's shadow
on the wall is to the man himself, but giving a true idea to a certain
degree.
The light given by the miner's lamp was bright when compared with that
given by one little candle in a cottage window, and yet that feeble ray,
quietly shining night after night, served to guide many a fisherman safely
past a dangerous rock, which juts out into the sea, on the coast of one of
the Orkney Isles. It was a young girl, the daughter of a fisherman, who
lighted that candle and kept it burning. Her father's boat had been wrecked
one wild dark night on "Lonely Rock," and his body washed ashore near his
cottage. The girl, in her grief, remembered other poor fishermen, and when
night came on she set a candle in the window, and watched it as she sat at
her spinning wheel. She did not do this once, or twice, but through long
years that coast was never without the light of her little candle, by which
the men at sea might be warned off the neighbourhood of the terrible rock.
In order to pay for her candles, this lonely girl with a faithful heart
spun every night an extra quantity of yarn--for she earned her own living
by her spinning wheel--and so the tiny flame was kept alight, and she found
comfort in her sorrow by doing what she could, in her unselfish care, for
"those in peril on the sea."
The meanest candle is a luminary in its way, for it possesses light, while
the most brilliant diamond has none in itself, and can give back only what
it receives.
And now that our lesson about the FIRST DAY is finished, we must not forget
what we have been learning.
God, the Creator, alone in creation,
(_a_) "said, Let there be light: and there was light." (_b_) "saw the
light, that it was good." (_c_) "divided the light from the darkness."
(_d_) "called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night."
"And the evening and the morning were the first day."
The astronomer Proctor, in his beautiful book, _Flowers of the Sky_, says
that "light is the first of all that exists in the universe." And we are,
told that the action of light was necessary to prepare the way for all
life; but this is far too great a subject for us to speak of in this little
book. Let us remember that God saw the light, that it was good, and that
He made the division between light and darkness in nature which He uses as
a figure in the New Testament, where we read that the children of God are
called "children of light," and "not of the night nor of darkness"; and
where "goodness, and righteousness, and truth" are spoken of as "fruits of
the light," in contrast with "unfruitful works of darkness."
In all that is around us in this world which God made, if we had eyes to
see, we should find pictures of the things which are unseen, but yet very
real; so in the Book which He has written, He has given us pictures. The
description in verse 2 of the waste empty earth, with darkness upon the
face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters,
is a picture of the condition of everyone born into this world.
In verse 3 we have a picture of God as Light shining into the dark and
empty heart.
In verse 4 we see that God separates good from evil.
Now I want you to think of these things, and as we have been talking of the
words,
God is Light,
God is Love,
I am going to copy for you a hymn, which speaks of them very beautifully;
my children know it well, and often sing it.
"God in mercy sent His Son
To a world by sin undone.
Jesus Christ was crucified;
_'Twas for sinners Jesus died_.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'
"Sin and death no more shall reign,
Jesus died and lives again!
In the glory's highest height--
See Him God's supreme delight.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'
"All who on His name believe,
Everlasting life receive;
Lord of all is Jesus now,
Every knee to him must bow.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'
"Christ the Lord will come again,
He who suffered once will reign;
Every tongue at last shall own,
'Worthy is the Lamb' alone.
Oh! the glory of the grace,
Shining in the Saviour's face,
Telling sinners from above,
'God is Light,' and 'God is Love.'"
H. K. BURLINGHAM.
THE SECOND DAY.
THE OCEAN OF AIR.
"_Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of
Him which is perfect in knowledge?... Hast thou with Him spread out the
sky?_"--JOB xxxvii. 16-18.
"_When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon
the face of the depth: when He established the clouds above: when He
strengthened the fountains of the deep._"--PROVERBS viii. 27, 28.
"_Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out
heaven with the span?_"--ISAIAH xl. 12.
In reading these beautiful verses, let us remember that in the second of
them it is the Lord Jesus Christ who says of that time when God prepared
the heavens, "I was there." And now, as we are going to think about what
God did on the SECOND DAY of Creation, I want you not only very carefully
to read those verses in the first chapter of Genesis which tell us about it
(verses 6-9), but to keep your Bible open at the place, so that you may be
able to refer to them constantly.
When we had read them together, my children noticed that in these verses we
find once more three words which are used to tell us about the work of God
upon the FIRST DAY. You see these words, do you not?
"God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters."
"God divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters
which were above the firmament."
"God called the firmament Heaven."
And there is one word which has not been used before: "And God made the
firmament."
It is quite simple to see this, but I daresay you want to know, as all the
children--even the elder ones--did, the meaning of one very uncommon word
which we find in each of these verses. "What does 'firmament' mean?" they
said.
I told them that the word conveys the idea of something firm and strong and
steadfast; and then I asked Sharley, who has a reference Bible, to look in
the margin, and tell me what word she could find there which might be used
instead of this uncommon one. She found, as you will find if there are
references in your Bible, that the word is there translated "expansion."
And what does that mean?
You can understand something spread out wide, can you not?
Those who turned the Hebrew word into English long ago thought
"firmament"--that which stands fast--was a better word than "expansion,"
which simply means what is stretched or spread out--as the heaven is spread
above the earth "like a curtain." The expanse, then, which God made on the
SECOND DAY, is what we call, the sky, as we look up and see the
"... tapestried tent
Of that marvellous curtain of blue and gold,"
which is high above our heads, and stretches away far, far as our eyes
can reach. And this tent, under whose shadow we dwell, is not firm and
solid, but is really a globe of vapour, which surrounds us everywhere, and
reaches, not all the way up to what we call the blue sky, but very much
higher than any bird could fly or balloon float--as high as forty or fifty
miles above the earth. God has fixed its height; if it were less, every
breath we take would hurt us; if it were much greater, we should be always
tired.
But before we speak of this atmosphere, or globe of air, which surrounds
the earth, I want you to remember, as you read of the work of God on the
Six Days of creation, that each one of these Days led, in a beautiful
order, to the next, and that in all of them God was preparing the earth,
which He had created in the beginning, for the creatures which He had not
yet formed. For each kind of creature a place was found fit for it to live
in, whether that dwelling-place was the earth, or the great and wide sea,
or the boundless fields of air. And each creature, as it came from God's
hand, was fitted to live where God had placed it: for every living thing
the means of living was provided. Thus on the First of His Days God called
for the light. What would the face of all the world be without it? Then on
the SECOND DAY He not only provided the place in which the happy winged
creatures fly and utter their sweet songs, but that by which all living
things, whether they were plants or animals, should be kept alive. I am
sure you know that without air you could not breathe; but perhaps you have
never thought that without it no plant could live, not even the smallest
blade of grass. Every green thing lives by breathing the air, and if there
were no air which it could breathe, it would soon die.
How freely God has given us this great blessing! His air is all around us,
as is His presence. When people wish to speak of what belongs to everyone
alike they sometimes say, "It's as free as the air you breathe"--this
wonderful air, which we cannot see, but which helps to make the sky so
blue, without which no fire could burn, no robin sing to its mate, no lamb
bleat after its mother, no merry voices of boys and girls at play be heard.
God has indeed made it free to us; but let us never forget that we are, as
His creatures, dependent upon Him for every breath we draw.
Now while we speak of the way in which this world was created by God, and
fitted to become the dwelling-place of His creatures, we may remember how
the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples, after He had told them that He would
be only a little while with them, about the place He was going to prepare
for them. This reminds me of a little incident which I should like to tell
you, because it is so beautiful to know that the Lord of glory, who was
allowed no place here, He who
"Wandered as a homeless stranger,
In the world His hands had made,"
has indeed gone to prepare a place for those whom He has, by His death and
resurrection, made ready to dwell there.
In a quiet market-town in the North of England an aged Christian had
invited a number of those of whom our Lord says, "whensoever ye will ye may
do them good," to take tea with him and his friends. After they had enjoyed
what loving hands had made ready, their host took out God's book, and
turning to the second verse of the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel,
read it, and then said, "It comes to me in this way, dear friends: If our
Lord is preparing a place, He wants a prepared people."
He then went on to say that we all need preparing, that is making ready,
to dwell in the place of which the Lord Jesus Christ spoke as "My Father's
house"--the place which was always His own home--and then he told once
again the story which you have so often heard--
"... the old, old story
Of Jesus and His love."
The Lord often spoke to His own disciples about His Father. He said, "I
came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the
world, and go to the Father," and when He spoke of leaving them He said,
"If ye loved Me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father."
But we know that those who had been with their Master for so long did not
rejoice when He spoke of going away: their hearts were filled with sorrow.
When He said to them, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know," Thomas
replied; "Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the
way?"
What did the Lord say?
He said that He was Himself the way to the Father--"I am the way, and the
truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me."
But if the Lord was going back to His Father's House--the place which was
always His home--He was not willing to go alone. He might have gone back at
any time, but if He would have those who could neither cleanse nor clothe
themselves, who were sinful and unfit for that Home of love and light, He
must go by the way of death, giving up His own life, that He might make
them ready to dwell with Him in His Father's house; so that when He said,
"I go to prepare a place for you," He, the Son of God, in His wonderful
love, was going to do that which alone could make anyone fit to enter
there, and be at home for evermore.
But then we sometimes go on as if we were to live in this world for ever,
and do not come to Him who says, "I am the way." Or perhaps we think we can
make ourselves ready by trying to be good--forgetting that the One who is
Himself the Truth said, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that
which was lost," and that if the Lord is preparing a place, He wants a
prepared people.
But we were speaking about the way in which God, when He made this world in
which we live, prepared it for the creatures to whom He would give it to
be their dwelling-place; and especially of the globe of air with which He
has surrounded the earth--that wonderful ocean of air in which we live and
move, just as the fish live and move in their ocean of water.
Let us see if we cannot learn something more about the atmosphere. But
first of all let me ask, What can you tell me about it?
"You cannot see the air; you can feel it, and often hear it."
Yes, indeed we can. How delightfully fresh it comes to us as we swing, or
when we are driving fast, or sailing; and how terrible its force is when
the stormy wind rushes past, driving everything before it! It is then we
can understand that the gentle air, which yields to the slightest touch,
may be a very mighty power indeed.
And now I am going to tell you something about the air which may surprise
you. We often say of a thing that it is "as light as air"; but air is not
really light, it is so heavy that it would press upon us and crush us, just
as a great hammer might crush your little finger, only that this heavy
weight of air presses quite evenly everywhere all through our body, within
and without, upward as well as downward, and yields at once when we move,
so that we do not feel its weight.
Just think of the weight of water which lies above a little fish as it
swims far down in the sea. Why is it not crushed by it? Just for the same
reason; the water is all round the fish, as the air in our ocean is all
round us; and it presses so evenly that it cannot be felt in any particular
part.
Another very wonderful thing about the atmosphere is that what we call the
air is made up of two airs, or gases, as different as possible from each
other, but mixed so as to make exactly that particular sort of air which is
fit for us to breathe.
One of these gases, named oxygen, might well be called "life-sustainer"; it
forms about one-fifth of the air we breathe, and is that part of it which
makes our fires burn and our lamps give light, and keeps us and all the
animals alive. The other gas is called nitrogen; it is a dull gas, with no
life in it, and remains behind when all the oxygen is taken out of the air.
But this part of the air is very useful; it prevents the breathing of men
and animals and the burning of fires and lamps, from going on too fast. If
you had only the life-sustaining part of the air to breathe, you would soon
die; and if the air was all made of that part which burns so well, one
spark falling upon it would be enough to burn up the whole world, for no
one could put the fire out.