Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/200

178 shall find more points of resemblance than of difference.

The central position of the sun may seem to claim for it a distinctive character, but it is really only the last of a series. The link that terminates a chain is nothing: more than a link. The innermost case of a mummy is only a mummy case, though painted with brighter hieroglyphics. The last of a nest of boxes enclosing a jewel, though immediately enveloping the precious object, is only one of the set. The centre of the solar system is the jewel, and the sun revolves around it just as the planets do. The only difference is, that its circle is the narrowest.

It may be urged that the structure and constitution of the sun completely separate it from the planets, but there is evidence to shew that there is a type to which the planets and the sun equally belong. The sun, no doubt, is an intense furnace, while the planets are in themselves dark bodies, but the structure may be still alike. If you saw only one furnace in action at an iron-work, you would not conclude that the others, which have been put out, belong to a quite different class of buildings. The hot-blast apparatus, the tuyeres, the furnace-bars, the well, and the slag before the furnace, would at once shew the purpose of the erection, and prove that it had been used as a furnace. Though the sun is now the only body of the system in active operation as a furnace, there are evident indications that the planets were at one time