I remember walking in Switzerland, late in the evening in a
raging thunder-storm. The darkness could be felt as well as
the rain. Little points of light now and then by the roadside
attracted my attention. On stopping to examine, there was a
glowworm whose little flame had hollowed out of the immensity
of darkness a small sphere of light, into which the grasses
bent, all beaded with crystal drops. A most exquisite picture.
Shelley speaks of a “glowworm golden in a dell of dew.” To
go back to our camp-fire: After supper I stept down to the
shore of the lake and there, far across its invisible surface,
gleamed a little point of light. I knew that other campers were
making themselves comfortable and happy in the little sphere
of light and warmth which their fire had hollowed out of the
all-embracing darkness.
Now, that precisely is the business of a sun. It is nothing more or
less than a great fire built, as only God knows how, for the purpose
of hollowing out of the eternal darkness and cold of space a sphere of
light and warmth large enough for a group or family of worlds to live
in. The sun is as purely a mechanical contrivance as your household
fire. In fact, it is just that. Our sun is the family hearth, in whose
light and heat our group of worlds live as in a home.--JAMES H.
ECOB.
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