The theory of the early Christian Church was that the Earth was flat,
like a plate, and the sky was a solid dome above it, like an inverted
blue basin.
The Sun revolved round the Earth to give light by day, the Moon revolved
round the Earth to give light by night. The stars were auxiliary lights,
and had all been specially, and at the same time, created for the good
of man.
God created the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Earth in six days. He created them
by word, and He created them out of nothing.
The centre of the Universe was the Earth. The Sun was made to give light
to the Earth by day, and the Moon to give light to Earth by night.
Any man who denied that theory in those days was in danger of being
murdered as an Infidel.
To-day our ideas are very different. Hardly any educated man or woman
in the world believes that the world is flat, or that the Sun revolves
round the Earth, or that what we call the sky is a solid substance, like
a domed ceiling.
Advanced thinkers, even amongst the Christians, believe that the world
is round, that it is one of a series of planets revolving round the Sun,
that the Sun is only one of many millions of other suns, that these
suns were not created simultaneously, but at different periods, probably
separated by millions or billions of years.
We have all, Christians and Infidels alike, been obliged to acknowledge
that the Earth is not the centre of the whole Universe, but only a minor
planet revolving around, and dependent upon, one of myriads of suns.
God, called by Christians "Our Heavenly Father," created all things. He
created not only the world, but the whole universe. He is all-wise,
He is all-powerful, He is all-loving, and He is revealed to us in the
Scriptures.
Let us see. Let us try to imagine what kind of a God the creator of
this Universe would be, and let us compare him with the God, or Gods,
revealed to us in the Bible, and in the teachings of the Church.
We have seen the account of the Universe and its creation, as given in
the revealed Scriptures. Let us now take a hasty view of the Universe
and its creation as revealed to us by science.
What is the Universe like, as far as our limited knowledge goes?
Our Sun is only one sun amongst many millions. Our planet is only one of
eight which revolve around him.
Our Sun, with his planets and comets, comprises what is known as the
solar system.
There is no reason to suppose that his is the only Solar System: there
may be many millions of solar systems. For aught we know, there may be
millions of systems, each containing millions of solar systems.
Let us deal first with the solar system of which we are a part.
The Sun is a globe of 866,200 miles diameter. His diameter is more than
108 times that of the Earth. His volume is 1,305,000 times the volume
of the Earth. All the eight planets added together only make
one-seven-hundredth part of his weight. His circumference is more than
two and a-half millions of miles. He revolves upon his axis in 25 1/4
days, or at a speed of nearly 4,000 miles an hour.
This immense and magnificent globe diffuses heat and light to all the
other planets.
Without the light and heat of the Sun no life would now be, or in the
past have been, possible on this Earth, or any other planet of the solar
system.
The eight planets of the solar system are divided into four inferior and
four superior.
The inferior planets are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars. The
superior are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
The diameters of the smaller planets are as follow: Mercury, 3,008
miles; Mars, 5,000 miles; Venus, 7,480 miles; the Earth, 7,926 miles.
The diameters of the large planets are: Jupiter, 88,439 miles; Saturn,
75,036 miles; Neptune, 37,205 miles; Uranus, 30,875 miles.
The volume of Jupiter is 1,389 times, of Saturn 848 times, of Neptune
103 times, and of Uranus 59 times the volume of the Earth.
The mean distances from the Sun are: Mercury, 36 million miles; Venus,
67 million miles; the Earth, 93 million miles; Mars, 141 million miles;
Jupiter, 483 million miles; Saturn, 886 million miles; Uranus, 1,782
million miles; Neptune, 2,792 million miles.
To give an idea of the meaning of these distances, I may say that a
train travelling night and day at 60 miles an hour would take quite 176
years to come from the Sun to the Earth.
The same train, at the same speed, would be 5,280 years in travelling
from the Sun to Neptune.
Reckoning that Neptune is the outermost planet of the solar system, that
system would have a diameter of 5,584 millions of miles.
If we made a chart of the solar system on a scale of 1 inch to a million
miles, we should need a sheet of paper 465 feet 4 inches wide. On this
sheet the Sun would have a diameter of less than 1 inch, and the Earth
would be about the size of a pin-prick.
If an express train, going at 60 miles an hour, had to travel round the
Earth's orbit, it would be more than 1,000 years on the journey. If the
Earth moved no faster, our winter would last more than 250 years. But
in the solar system the speeds are as wonderful as the sizes. The Earth
turns upon its axis at the rate of 1,000 miles an hour, and travels in
its orbit round the Sun at the rate of more than 1,000 miles a minute,
or 66,000 miles an hour.
So much for the size of the solar system. It consists of a Sun and eight
planets, and the outer planet's orbit is one of 5,584 millions of miles
in diameter, which it would take an express train, at 60 miles an hour,
10,560 years to cross.
But this distance is as nothing when we come to deal with the distances
of the other stars from our Sun.
The distance from our Sun to the nearest fixed (?) star is more than
20 millions of millions of miles. Our express train, which crosses the
diameter of the solar system in 10,560 years, would take, if it went 60
miles an hour day and night, about 40 million years to reach the nearest
fixed star from the Sun.
And if we had to mark the nearest fixed star on our chart made on a
scale of 1 inch to the million miles, we should find that whereas
a sheet of 465 feet would take in the outermost planet of the solar
system, a sheet to take in the nearest fixed star would have to be about
620 miles wide. On this sheet, as wide as from London to Inverness, the
Sun would be represented by a dot three-quarters of an inch in diameter,
and the Earth by a pin-prick.
But these immense distances only relate to the _nearest_ stars. Now, the
nearest stars are about four "light years" distant from us. That is to
say, that light, travelling at a rate of about 182,000 miles in _one
second_, takes four years to come from the nearest fixed star to the
Earth.
But I have seen the distance from the Earth to the Great Nebula in Orion
given as _a thousand light years_, or 250 times the distance of the
fixed star above alluded to.
To reach that nebula at 60 miles an hour, an express train would have to
travel for 35 millions of years multiplied by 250--that is to say, for
8,750 million years.
And yet there are millions of stars whose distances are even greater
than the distance of the Great Nebula in Orion.
How many stars are there? No one can even guess. But L. Struve estimates
the number of those visible to the great telescopes at 20 millions.
Twenty millions of suns. And as for the size of these suns, Sir Robert
Ball says Sirius is ten times as large as our Sun; and a well-known
astronomer, writing in the _English Mechanic_ about a week ago, remarks
that Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuze) has probably 700 times the light of our
Sun.
Looking through my telescope, which is only 3-inch aperture, I have seen
star clusters of wonderful beauty in the Pleiades and in Cancer. There
is, in the latter constellation, a dim star which, when viewed through
my glass, becomes a constellation larger, more brilliant, and more
beautiful than Orion or the Great Bear. I have looked at these jewelled
sun-clusters many a time, and wondered over them. But I have never
once thought of believing that they were specially created to be lesser
lights to the Earth.
And now let me quote from that grand book of Richard A. Proctor's, _The
Expanse of Heaven_, a fine passage descriptive of some of the wonders of
the "Milky Way":
There are stars in all orders of brightness, from those which
(seen with the telescope) resemble in lustre the leading glories
of the firmament, down to tiny points of light only caught by
momentary twinklings. Every variety of arrangement is seen.
Here the stars are scattered as over the skies at night; there
they cluster in groups, as though drawn together by some irresistible
power; in one region they seem to form sprays of stars like
diamonds sprinkled over fern leaves; elsewhere they lie in
streams and rows, in coronets and loops and festoons, resembling
the star festoon which, in the constellation Perseus, garlands
the black robe of night. Nor are varieties of colour wanting
to render the display more wonderful and more beautiful. Many
of the stars which crowd upon the view are red, orange, and yellow
Among them are groups of two and three and four (multiple stars
as they are called), amongst which blue and green and lilac and
purple stars appear, forming the most charming contrast to the
ruddy and yellow orbs near which they are commonly seen.
Millions and millions--countless millions of suns. Innumerable galaxies
and systems of suns, separated by black gulfs of space so wide that no
man can realise the meaning of the figures which denote their stretch.
Suns of fire and light, whirling through vast oceans of space like
swarms of golden bees. And round them planets whirling at thousands of
miles a minute.
And on Earth there are forms of life so minute that millions of them
exist in a drop of water. There are microscopic creatures more beautiful
and more highly finished than any gem, and more complex and effective
than the costliest machine of human contrivance. In _The Story of
Creation_ Mr. Ed. Clodd tells us that one cubic inch of rotten stone
contains 41 thousand million vegetable skeletons of diatoms.