A SUDDEN RETURN TO THE EARTH.
That night, when the doctor and I were alone, I said to him:
“Well, doctor, what do you think of it all?”
“It would take me a long time,” he replied, “to tell what I think. I
confess I am beginning to imbibe a little of the spirit of this place.
I have spent my life in the pursuit of material facts, which we supposed
were the only substantial and valuable things in life Now I find myself
thinking lightly of such matters, with my mind held in the grasp of far
different thoughts. I realize now something of the substance and reality
of unseen things, and believe that man has a spiritual side to
his nature, which must be developed if he is to fulfill the high
expectations of our friends in this world. Taught by Thorwald’s words
and by all I have seen here, I have come to that point where I can say
I am losing my doubts and acquiring a love for things which formerly
did not exist for me. If we ever return to the earth we shall find
occupation enough for the rest of our lives in teaching the lessons we
have learned here.”
“Yes,” I said, “if we ever return. But doesn’t that seem impossible?”
“It certainly is difficult to imagine how it can be accomplished, but
going home ought not to be any more impossible than our coming here.
Perhaps we had better bestir ourselves, for Mars is now getting farther
away from the earth every day. Thorwald says the two planets were nearer
each other at the recent opposition than ever before since their records
began, and this is probably what drew our moon here, so fortunately for
us. For the return trip we might get these generous people to loan us
Demios or Phobos.”
“What are they?”
“Why, don’t you know? They are the little satellites of Mars, named
after the favorite horses of the war god.”
“But seriously now,” I asked, “how are we to get home?”
“Well, seriously, I don’t know,” the doctor answered. “Some accident may
happen to send us away from here in a hurry.”
“You know this is not the right world for accidents,” I said.
“I am not able to see,” he replied, “how they can be sure that they are
entirely free from accidents. They have been so long without them that
it seems to me it would not be strange if a big one should come almost
any day. One must be due, as we say.”
In the morning Thorwald met us with a pleasant greeting, as usual, and
then said:
“I have been surprised that you have not shown more curiosity on one
subject of vast importance to us. You have not once asked to see our
comet.”
“We have talked of it by ourselves,” said the doctor, “but we have been
too much engrossed in studying your history and customs to think much of
a topic so far above our comprehension as the comet. Your civilization
is much higher than we can appreciate, and I am sure we should make
small progress in attempting to investigate a development that is so
much beyond yours.”
“Your excuse,” returned Thorwald, “is as complimentary as it is
ingenious. But should you not like to see an object which possesses so
much interest for us?”
“Certainly,” the doctor made haste to reply; “and just as soon as you
choose to take us. You told us it was at the door of a large city. Is it
far from here?”
“Yes,” Thorwald answered, “a long way in miles, but not far in minutes
if we go by the tubular route. But if it is agreeable to you, suppose we
take the air line and make a leisurely excursion of it.”
We both assured him that we were delighted with the prospect, and I
suggested that Zenith and the children should accompany us.
“Yes,” said Thorwald, “and in anticipation of your consent to go on the
expedition, I invited some other friends of yours last night to share
the pleasure with us. And here they are now,” he continued, rising and
stepping to the door.
The doctor and I hurried forward, and were heartily greeted by Proctor,
the astronomer, and Foedric of the red voice. The latter was accompanied
by a comely-looking ape, which had been trained to act as his body
servant. The animal was intelligent, and quick to understand every word
addressed to him, but quiet and respectful in demeanor, and, to all
appearance, as well fitted to fill the station he occupied as the
servants we had been accustomed to seeing on the earth.
Zenith explained to us that in many households the ape and other
creatures were employed for light services, and were exceedingly useful.
But as for their own house, she said the work that could not be done by
mechanical means she preferred to do herself, assisted by her children.
It was much better that every child should have some stated work to do.
It was not long before we were all on our way to the aerial station,
where we selected a commodious air ship, managed by one of Foedric’s
friends.
When we were seated comfortably and were enjoying once more the
exquisite sensation of sailing so easily through that balmy air,
Thorwald said to the doctor and me:
“We all anticipate a great deal of pleasure in showing you our big
natural curiosity and what it contains. We want to see your surprise
when you look upon its vast proportions, and your growing curiosity as
you try to make out some of its mysteries. Things which baffle our skill
may be plain to you, and perhaps you will even be able to do something
with that puzzling language.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, “if it is beyond your skill we shall no doubt be
able to read it at sight.”
“Well, at any rate,” continued Thorwald, “we shall enjoy the novel
experience of exhibiting the marvel of our whole world to those who
were, until so recently, entirely ignorant of its existence.”
“I hope,” I said, “that our behavior will not be such as to disappoint
you, when we are brought face to face with the object for which you have
so deep a sentiment.
“But, Thorwald, the doctor and I have been talking about going home. Not
that we are tiring of your society, but we are filled with a desire to
tell the people of the earth what we have found on Mars and try to teach
them some of the good lessons you have given us. The doctor, who has a
monopoly of the scientific culture in our party, can see no prospect of
our getting away from your planet. With your more advanced science, can
you suggest any way by which we can take a dignified leave of you?”
“We should regret exceedingly,” replied Thorwald, “to lose you just as
we are becoming well acquainted, but I have no criticism to make on the
excuse you offer for wanting to revisit your home. I must say, however,
that you present to us too hard a problem to solve. With all our
attainments in astronomy and in the navigation of the air, you went one
point beyond us when you took passage from the earth to Mars, for we
have no means by which to express passengers from one planet to another.
“We consider the circumstances of your leaving the earth and your
journey hither the most remarkable thing of the kind ever heard of, and
we have nothing in our experience on which we can begin to build any
scheme for sending you off on so long a flight through space. If you
will only be content to stay here till we have progressed further with
our investigations of the high civilization brought to light in our
comet, perhaps we can help you. The remarkable people whose exalted
condition is there represented may have had powers in this direction
of which we cannot conceive. The subject will add even more zest to our
researches.
“Why do you desire to leave us so soon? You have seen but few of our
notable improvements, and learned comparatively little of the practical
workings of our high civilization. And then I have been hoping the
doctor would come fully into our belief before he went away.”
“If you could hear what he has told me,” I said, “you would see that
he is already fit to be sent as a foreign missionary from this blessed
world to the struggling earth.”
“Good!” cried Thorwald. “I am delighted to hear it. If anything could
reconcile us to the loss of your society, it is the knowledge that you
will both he glad messengers of hope to your promising race. I rejoice
that I have had a share in the work of preparing you for your mission.
“And now, suppose we all humor your conceit and give you our parting
words, as if the ship were at hand which was to sail the mighty void,
and bear you safely to your distant home.
“Come, wife, friends, the day is young and the air delightful. There is
nothing to hasten us on our way. Let us ride leisurely along and take a
little time to speed these earth-dwellers on their prospective journey
with a few words of cheer.
“Foedric, what advice have you to offer them before they take their
leave of us?”
Foedric was modest, as we had learned before, but he entered into
Thorwald’s plan with evident pleasure, and said, addressing the doctor
and me:
“My friends from foreign skies, you do not need advice from me after you
have been so long with Thorwald and Zenith, but I will send a message to
your unfortunate fellow beings who have never had the pleasure of their
acquaintance. When you have related your experiences and told them the
condition in which you have found us, ask them to call us no longer
Mars, but Pax, the world of peace. Our planet is red, but not with
war. Its red is rather the blush of the dawn that ushers in the day of
universal love. My word to men is to expect the advent of that day, and,
expecting, to prepare for it. Useless, cruel, inhuman war must cease,
with all strife and hatred and envy and bitter feeling; and then shall
you begin to see the full measure of beauty in the song of the angels of
which you have told us, and ‘Peace on earth’ will be a blessed fact and
not a prophecy. Thorwald, I have finished.”
“You have spoken well, Foedric,” said Thorwald. “And now, what wise
counsel will you give, Proctor?”
“From what I have learned in regard to the people of the earth,” replied
Proctor, “it seems to me they will be obliged to have a great deal of
war there yet--war against a world of evils, which must be driven out
with a strong hand before they can have peace. When each individual has
subdued his own spirit, then there will be no more war, and no other
enemies to conquer.”
“Study the majesty and power of God as exhibited nightly in the starry
sky, and learn to revere a being who holds in his hands a million
worlds, and not only guides their movements but directs with a heart of
love the minutest affairs of all their inhabitants. Look over the broad
field of creation, and think of the earth, grand and beautiful as it
is, as only one among the vast number of peopled orbs, all swinging in
unison, parts of one plan, every one in its day sending forth a song of
praise to its maker. So shall your hearts expand and burst the narrow
bounds of selfish desire and trivial occupation, and you will begin to
grow into the full stature of the sons of God.”
Proctor spoke with such feeling that the doctor and I now began to think
that these people must be in earnest and were really preparing to send
us home in some way, but the latter idea was, as will speedily be seen,
an unjust suspicion.
“Zenith,” said Thorwald, “will you take your turn, after Proctor’s
inspiring words?”
“If we were in truth making our farewells to these friends,” replied
Zenith, “I should feel more sadness than I am conscious of now.
“My message, O men, shall be a plea for purity. If you would seek to
make your world the better for your visit here, teach men everywhere to
be pure, a hard lesson to learn, but one that will bring a rich reward.
First make the fountain sweet. Be pure in heart, and then your lives,
and even your thoughts, will be pure. When you can fully obey the
command, ‘Think no evil,’ you will need no other commandment to keep
your lives unspotted. Such a requirement no doubt seems too difficult
for you now, but the earth must come to its maturity by following the
same high ideal which has ever been set before us. There is one law
for all worlds, an infinitely pure and holy God commands us all to be
perfect even as he is perfect, although to that perfection nor earth nor
Mars, nor, perhaps, any other world, has yet attained.”
“But, Thorwald, I fear you will not have time to give your farewell
words before our friends depart.”
“I shall not require much time,” replied Thorwald, “but I should not
like to lose the opportunity of adding something to what has already
been said. I think we have been wise in having this talk, for those who
could take advantage of such a novel way of coming to us may discover
some means of going home again before we suspect it.”
Then, turning to us, Thorwald continued:
“Go back to the earth, my brothers, and tell men to despair not in their
conflict with evil; for God reigns, therefore the good will triumph.
Tell them you found a race of happy beings here, not perfect, but aiming
toward perfection, having escaped many of the perils that belong to an
earlier stage of existence. The earth, too, will one day be old. Will it
be happy then? Your generation can help to make it so. With our history
to guide us, and with the knowledge you have given us of the earth’s
present condition, we have high hopes of your race, and I venture the
prediction that your world will see, in the near future, such an advance
as you have never dreamed of. The era of a united effort to overthrow
the evil forces is approaching, when all will press with eager, sincere
hearts into the work, when money will be poured out like water, when men
will begin to lose their selfishness and take each other by the hand as
brothers, and when the dark places of the earth will grow bright with
the light of the gospel.
“I do not wonder you want to get back there. I hope I should have the
same desire if I were in your place. What a time in which to live, with
so much good work to do, and such encouragement and sure reward!”
Thorwald’s enthusiasm made him eloquent, and we all regarded him
intently as he spoke. How well I remember that group of persons:
Proctor, the devout astronomer; the stalwart and earnest Foedric;
Zenith, the queen of all womanly graces; and Thorwald himself, our
friend and brother, the rich fruit of an advanced development.
My companion and I were deeply impressed with the words we had heard,
and could hardly realize that these friends were not aware that our life
in Mars was nearly over, their farewells were so genuine.
But, hark! Thorwald is still speaking:
“Go back to the earth, I say, and--” a crash, a sensation of falling, a
dull pain in my head, a new voice at my ear, saying,
“Why, Walter, are you hurt?”
During the effort to recover full consciousness I said:
“There, Doctor, the accident you expected has certainly come.”
And then I opened my eyes and discovered that I was sitting in an
undignified position on the deck of a vessel of some kind.
Again the voice, now more familiar and identified with a lovely face,
said:
“You must have had that broken chair; I knew it would let you down some
time. Don’t you know me, Walter?”
“Why, yes, it’s you, Margaret, isn’t it? But where’s the doctor?”
“Oh, how are you hurt?” cried Margaret in alarm. “Tell me, and I will
run for the doctor at once.”
This conversation had all passed in a moment, and by the time it was
finished I had extricated myself from the broken chair with Margaret’s
assistance, and was now wide awake. I had never expected to leave Mars
without the doctor; but now he was gone with all the rest, and I was
well content to find myself back by Margaret’s side, and to hear her
pleasant words, the words of a plain inhabitant of the earth, not too
good to love me a little selfishly. A wave of intense happiness in the
possession of such a love passed over me. It was a feeling I had never
before experienced in my waking moments and it must have illumined my
face, for Margaret continued:
“I don’t believe you are hurt at all. You look too happy to be in pain.
What have you been dreaming about, that makes your face shine so? How
thankful I am for this bright moonlight. I never saw you have so much
expression before.”
“Margaret,” I replied, as soon as she would let me speak, “don’t you
remember you sent me on a quest for my heart? Well, I have found it and
brought it back to you.”
“How lovely to find it so soon,” she exclaimed; “and I know by your
looks it’s a large one and full of love. But tell me about it. How did
it happen?”
“Why, I fell in love with a voice.”
“With a voice? Whose voice?”
“Well, it didn’t seem to matter much. First it belonged to Mona and then
to Avis, and part of the time to both of them.”
“You make me jealous,” said Margaret.
We were now standing, hand in hand, leaning on the rail of the vessel,
in the full enjoyment of our new-found happiness.
“You will not be jealous,” I answered, “when you know all about it. I
have enough to tell you, Margaret, to occupy a week, I should think.
I have seen and heard a great deal, and seemed to be living amid other
scenes for many months, and yet I notice the moon is but two or three
hours higher than when you left me there in the chair to go and find
your book. I shall take great pleasure in relating to you the entire
experience when we have time. Perhaps I will write it out for you. I
have been stirred as I never expected to be, but I assure you I have
brought back my whole heart to you. Only,” I added, as a sudden flash of
memory startled me with its vividness, “I should like to hear that voice
once more.”
“Ah,” said my companion, “why do you think of that so much? I fear you
are not quite heart whole. What was there peculiar about the voice?”
“Margaret, it was the most exquisite music anyone ever dreamed of. I
cannot describe my emotions or the intensity of my enjoyment whenever I
heard it. First the voice belonged to a beautiful girl whom I thought we
met on the moon, and who talked only in the language of the birds. Then
she went to Mars with us, and there I heard the same sweet voice also
from one of the noble women of that happy planet.
“Oh, what queer things we do in our sleep, and how supremely selfish
a dreamer is. I once had a theory that we are all responsible for the
character of our dreams, but I hope, my dear, that you will not call me
to too strict an account in this case, I should blush to tell you how I
loved each singer, and yet I know now it was only the voice that charmed
me. I shall seek my pillow with delight to-night, to try and catch in my
sleep some faint echo of that song, for I never expect to hear its like
in my waking hours. You are laughing at me, and I don’t wonder. Let me
see. I dreamed that I dreamed that you and Mona and Avis were all one
grand, sweet singer. I wonder what would have happened if I had staid
there long enough to tell Avis something that was on my mind. Perhaps I
never should have come away.
“But forgive me, dear Margaret, for my enthusiasm for simply a memory,
and put the blame on my sensitive ears. And now, tell me what you have
been doing during these long hours. Did you find the professor and get
your book?”
“Yes, but I had to stay a few minutes and hear him talk. I hurried back,
however, to be with you, and for my reward found you fast asleep.”
“I was only dozing. But what did you do then?”
“Oh, I sat quiet for a while, and then took up the amusement I usually
follow when I find myself alone.”
“What is that? Pray tell.”
“Singing, of course.”
“Singing?”
“Why, yes, didn’t you know I could sing?”
“Do you mean to say you were singing all those two or three hours?”
“Not all the time, but at intervals. I sang so loud sometimes that I
thought I should wake you.”
“Then,” I exclaimed with feeling, “it was you that I heard. You know my
ears are never fully asleep. Margaret, it was your voice that I have
been falling in love with.”
At this Margaret laughed heartily, as she answered:
“You have been a good while finding it out. I knew it all the time.
That’s what I sang for, and I had my pay as I went on, for every time
I began, whether soft or loud, I could see your face light up with the
light of your soul, and then I knew my voice was finding its way to some
corner of your brain.”
“How stupid of me,” I said, “not to wake up the very first time I heard
you; but I thought it was Mona. Oh, how it did thrill me! And to think
I am to hear it again when I am really awake. Come, why do we waste all
this time in talking when I have that great happiness still unfulfilled?
May I not hear you sing now?”
“Oh, you might be disappointed, after all. My idea is that you enjoyed
my singing because all your critical faculties were dulled in sleep, and
you heard only through your heart, as it were. Don’t you think it would
be better to live awhile on the pleasant memory you have brought back
with you?”
“Not at all. I can retain the memory, and have the present happiness
besides.”
“But you said you never expected to hear such music in your waking
hours.”
“Do not be so cruel, Margaret, as to recall those words against me,
although they were really a tribute to you, for it was your own voice
that forced me to utter them. But what can I do to induce you to sing?”
“Go to sleep,” she replied. “I will sing for you all you please when you
are asleep, and you can hear me and think of Mona at the same time. That
will be a double pleasure.”
“My dear, I prefer to think of you. Mona was a beautiful girl, but she
could never love me as you do.”
“Why so? Wasn’t her heart large enough?”
“Yes, it was too large--so large that she loved everybody, and one no
more than another; while you, darling, have chosen me, out of all the
people in the world, as the object of your highest and deepest love, and
yet in doing that have only increased your power of loving others. Now
what will you do to pay me for that speech?”
“Well, I’ll relent. But you must at least pretend to be asleep. Come
back and find another chair that you can rest in easily, and I will sit
beside you. There, that will do. Now turn your head away from me, close
your eyes, and promise me you won’t open them till I tell you to do so.
I intend to have the calm judgment of your ears uninfluenced by your
sight or any other sense. If you can manage to fall asleep while I am
singing, so much the better.”
“Margaret,” I replied, “I shall try hard to keep my eyes closed, but
there isn’t a drug in the ship’s dispensary powerful enough to put me to
sleep.”
“Then keep quiet and think of Mona. That will be the next best
occupation for you. Stop laughing, or I shall disappoint you, after
all. I should think the memory of the first time I sang for you would be
enough to sober you. Now I am going to turn away my head, so that if you
do look around you won’t see my face.”
I said nothing in reply, being too eager to have her begin. And now I
had not long to wait for the fulfillment of my oft-expressed desire.
Sweet and low came the first accents of her song, and, with all my
anticipations and with the foretaste I had had in my sleep, I was not
prepared for the effect they had on me. It was Mona’s voice, but with
every fine quality so exaggerated that all my faculties, now in the
fullest sense awake, were completely taken captive. I made no movement,
except to turn my head slightly so that I might drink in the sweet
sounds with both ears. As the notes increased in volume my pleasure grew
to rapture. Not only was my critical taste fully satisfied, which of
itself was almost bliss, but that other and higher effect followed--my
heart was enlisted. I had never known love till that hour. We had been
introduced to each other years ago and had kept up a cold and formal
acquaintance, and in my recent sleep we had made notable progress,
but only now did love and I really clasp hands in a warm and lasting
embrace.
If I had loved Margaret before, then the feeling I now had was something
else, it was so different. But it was nothing else, and, therefore, I
was obliged to conclude that I had lived all these years with a false
notion in my head. As the song changed now and then, but did not
stop, my heart swelled with its strong emotion, and I had the greatest
difficulty to keep my promise and remain quiet. At length the music
ceased, and I jumped from my chair with the intention of giving Margaret
some palpable sign of my new love, when I was arrested by her warning
hand and these words:
“Wait, Walter, someone is coming. I can see all you want to tell me in
your face.”
I was obliged to stop, and reserve for a more private place any violent
manifestation of my exuberant affection, but answered quietly:
“Not all, dear Margaret. You will never know all my love.” There was now
more or less passing back and forth by the passengers, preparing for the
approaching landing, but yet we were able to continue our conversation.
At Margaret’s request I told her more about Mona and Avis, and the
principal incidents of what seemed to me a real experience, reserving
the graver parts of the story for other occasions. Her sympathies went
out particularly toward Mona, and suggested the question:
“Did not the poor child recover her voice?”
“I think she did soon after we left,” I replied. “I neglected to tell
you that, the morning we started for our last aerial trip, Antonia told
me she was teaching Mona the use of the vocal organs, and the results
were already such that she believed she would in a short time be
entirely successful.”
“How fortunate for me,” said Margaret, laughing, “that you came away
just then.”
“Oh, Margaret,” I exclaimed as loud as I dared, “I thought I was happy
last night, but what shall I call my condition now? Do you have that
intensity of feeling for me which is nearly bursting my heart?”
“Yes, my dear, I have had it for years. But my love is certainly
increasing now, when I see yours flowering out so luxuriantly.”
In such sweet converse the time passed rapidly. Steadily our noble
vessel carried us every moment nearer home. And with the last words of
Thorwald, “Go back to the earth,” still ringing in my ears, we steamed
amid familiar scenes--the lights from Long Island, New Jersey, Staten
Island, and soon Liberty’s torch, Governor’s Island, and the great city
in front of us. This voyage was ended, but our life’s voyage seemed to
be just beginning as I led Margaret forth with wonderful tenderness and
whispered in her ear, passionately, the magic words, “I love you.”
POSTSCRIPT.
Every book should have a purpose. Notwithstanding the popular character
of much that is contained in these pages, the purpose of this volume is
a serious one.
I acquired the belief in the habitability of other worlds when quite
young, and it long ago grew into a settled conviction.
Firmly held by this idea, what is called the astronomical difficulty in
theology gave me great concern. When I considered the vast extent of the
universe, and saw, with but little imagination, millions on millions of
habitable worlds, I felt the force of the old objection, How could our
tiny earth have been chosen for such peculiar and high honor as we read
of in the gospel story?
Thomas Chalmers, in the preface to his astronomical discourses,
states the difficulty in these words: “This argument involves in it an
assertion and an inference. The assertion is, that Christianity is a
religion which professes to be designed for the single benefit of our
world; and the inference is, that God cannot be the author of this
religion, for he would not lavish on so insignificant a field such
peculiar and such distinguishing attentions as are ascribed to him in
the Old and New Testaments.”
And then Dr. Chalmers proceeds in his able manner to overthrow both
assertion and inference. He shows that it is only presumption for the
infidel to claim that Christianity is designed solely for this world,
and asks how he is able to tell us, “that if you go to other planets,
the person and religion of Jesus are there unknown to them.” “For
anything he [the infidel] can tell,” the writer continues, “the
redemption proclaimed to us is not one solitary instance, or not the
whole of that redemption which is by the Son of God;... the moral
pestilence, which walks abroad over the face of our world, may have
spread its desolation over all the planets of all the systems which the
telescope has made known to us.... The eternal Son, of whom it is said
that by him the worlds were created, may have had the government of many
sinful worlds laid upon his shoulders.”
In this and in all the rest of his argument Dr. Chalmers, while
intimating that the redemption may include other worlds, retains the
belief that the actual occurrences related in the gospel took place only
on this globe. Others may have heard the story, or, as he beautifully
says: “The wonder-working God, who has strewed the field of immensity
with so many worlds, and spread the shelter of his omnipotence over
them, may have sent a message of love to each, and reassured the
hearts of its despairing people by some overpowering manifestation of
tenderness.... Angels from paradise may have sped to every planet their
delegated way, and sung from each azure canopy a joyful annunciation,
and said, ‘Peace be to this residence and good will to all its families,
and glory to Him in the highest, who from the eminence of his throne has
issued an act of grace so magnificent as to carry the tidings of life
and of acceptance to the unnumbered orbs of a sinful creation.’”
But, as Dr. Chalmers truthfully says, it is not the infidel alone that
raises this question. It is asked by many sincere believers, generally
in communion with their own minds, and has disturbed, if not hindered,
their faith. These brilliant discourses left me still perplexed on the
main point, and I was forced to ask myself again if it was at all likely
that one world could be made so unlike all others as to become the only
scene of such a wonderful event as the death of the Son of God. And even
if this could be made to seem probable, what an infinitesimal chance
there would be that our earth would be the one chosen for this
exhibition, out of the unnumbered worlds that fill the immensity of
space.
As a feeble hint toward a possible solution of this difficulty, this
volume is offered. The argument may not be acceptable to a single
reader. I do not say that I believe it myself; but the thought has
helped to satisfy my mind and may be of assistance to some other soul.
I will merely say that, of course, I do not believe the analogy between
any two worlds is so close as I have made it, for the purposes of the
story, between Mars and the earth.
In my effort to relieve the book of dullness, I have exaggerated some of
the situations, as in the treatment of the woman question for example,
but the intelligent reader will easily discover whether there be
anything of value remaining after the extravagance has been brushed
away.
Alvan Clark & Sons, the celebrated makers of telescopic lenses, in view
of their recent successes in casting larger object-glasses than was once
thought possible, now assert that they can place no limit to the size
these glasses may reach in the future. It is only a question of time,
skill, patience, and money.
Is it, then, presumptuous to believe that the day will dawn when this
world will know whether Venus or Mars is inhabited? And if either or
both of them shall be found to be peopled, among the many questions of
engrossing interest to be studied it seems clear to me that the most
important will be the moral and spiritual condition of the inhabitants.
THE AUTHOR.
End of Project Gutenberg’s Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World, by James Cowan