Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/136

 natural luminaries correspond. And since we are, as to our spirits, now and always in the spiritual world, therefore we are ever under the influence of the spiritual Sun. We receive from it all our spiritual light and warmth. But its light does not appear to our outward sense as light (as it does to the eyes of angels), but manifests itself by a certain internal illumination—that kind of enlightenment which spiritual truth, when received, furnishes to the understanding. Nor is its heat sensibly perceived by us as heat, but manifests itself by a certain warmth of feeling, or a kindling in the heart of the emotion of love—love of whatever is just, sincere, good and true. Thus do the beams of the spiritual Sun reach and affect the spirits of people yet in the flesh. But when may that Sun be said to be darkened?

The natural sun always shines with undiminished splendor. Yet he undergoes apparent changes. Sometimes he is wholly or partially eclipsed. Sometimes he is obscured by the vapor and smoke in the earth's atmosphere. He sinks beneath the horizon, and his face is hidden from our view. And in familiar language all such changes are predicated of the sun itself. When suffering an eclipse, we say the sun is darkened. Seen through mist, dust, or smoke, we say the sun is pale, dim, or red. When his face appears in the east, we say he is rising; and when, again, he approaches the western horizon, we say he is going down. All such language, we know, expresses not the absolute but only the apparent truth. For the sun itself does not change. His apparent changes in respect to light, heat, and diurnal motion, are all caused by our atmospheric conditions