Can we believe that the inspired writer had any idea of the size of the
sun? Draw a circle five inches in diameter, and by its side thrust a pin
through the paper. The hole made by the pin will sustain about the same
relation to the circle that the earth does to the sun. Did he know that
the sun was eight hundred and sixty thousand miles in diameter; that it
was enveloped in an ocean of fire thousands of miles in depth, hotter
even than the Christian's hell? Did he know that the volume of the Earth
is less than one-millionth of that of the sun? Did he know of the one
hundred and four planets belonging to our solar system, all children of
the sun? Did he know of Jupiter eighty-five thousand miles in diameter,
hundreds of times as large as our earth, turning on his axis at the rate
of twenty-five thousand miles an hour accompanied by four moons making
the tour of his orbit once only in fifty years?