Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/141

Rh power that is to propel a floating palace across the ocean with the swiftness of a race-horse. Intellect thus enables man to multiply indefinitely the strength of his body.

Let us now turn to the structure of the vast furnace which supplies us with all our moving power. It is strange how little attention has been paid till recently to this function of the sun. The human mind seemed to be quite satisfied with the grand discovery of Newton, that the sun is the centre of gravitation in the solar system; and can we wonder that it should, for a time, be entranced with the discovery, so that still more interesting relations of the sun to man should be overlooked? The attention of physicists has now been fairly arrested by this subject, and much light has already been thrown on the constitution and structure of the sun.

Much of our ignorance of the constitution of the sun may be ascribed to the awe and mystery with which it has always been regarded. The oriental worshipper of the luminary would shrink from the idea of unravelling the mystery of the universe by too curious a scrutiny, and a similar feeling appears to have restrained the prying eye of the astronomer. The spell of mystery is now broken, and the sun must submit to examination like any of his subject planets.

It is almost incredible that there is no authentic account of observations of the spots on the sun till a