Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/314

 case was the same also with our corresponding world in each of the other two members of this ternary system. Our rule, in fact, was to prefer introductions to those worlds whose relative position in their respective systems came nearest to our own. We have found, by growing experience, that, one thing with another, in the greater similarity of circumstances, we get on best with those so placed, each world understanding the other better than in the case of orbs either further inside or further out. Those similarly placed worlds are indeed our "flesh and blood" in a literal sense, to which most of the others, on climatic and other grounds, affecting corporeal composition, could not lay claim.

The midnight sky of each of these worlds, in their respective systems, affords, to the respective peoples beneath, a grand and impressive spectacle, which could hardly fail to enter into the religious sentiment in each case. To the Red population, the two surpassingly bright stars, of respectively blue and green hue, seemed to be the heaven and hell of future life. The earlier records show green heaven and blue hell to have been the prevailing orthodoxy; but, after long sway, this belief began to be undermined for that which advancing intelligence rather favoured, namely, a blue heaven and a green hell; which doctrine, after many years' contention, characterized by infinite zeal, cruel contention, and bloodshed on both sides, acquired at last the chief predominance.