Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/738

722 Before he shall return from the house of God, a cloud may overcast the sky, and the celestial disclosure may be lost for a century!

He asks his conscience what he must do. The inward voice seems to tell him that the Creator himself is more worthy of worship than the phenomena he has instituted of admiration. He resolved, if need be, to lose the vision, and keep his eye single to the glory of God alone.

When he returned from the service, he went to the darkened room. The sun was still shining clearly. He approached the paper. It was there—the round shadow on the luminous image.

He sat down, overcome with the fulness of his emotions. The shadow crept slowly along the bright centre, like the finger of the Invisible. Then he knew that the great principles of astronomy were true, and he saw that a new revelation of scientific truth awaited mankind.

There are moments in human experience that repay the toils and struggles of a lifetime. Such were those of Galileo when he raised the newly-made telescope to the heavens; such were those of Rittenhouse, when, a century after the discovery of Horrox, he saw the shadow of Venus again crossing the disk of the sun; and such were those that the boy-astronomer himself felt as he watched the dark spot—the mighty shadow of a planet in the far abyss of space almost imperceptibly stealing across the circumference of the reflected circle on the paper. The sublimity of the youth's vision was as grand as the moral greatness of his soul.

His friend Crabtree, to whom he had communicated the secret, made the same discovery, by the same means, in a different place of observation.

The report of the discovery awakened a new interest in astronomical science throughout the world. Horrox was censured by men of culture for suspending his observations during the Sabbath service. He answered: "I observed the sun from sunrise to nine o'clock; again a little before ten, and lastly at noon, and from one to two o'clock—the rest of the day being devoted to higher duties!"

His work was ended. He fell a martyr to science, at the age of twenty-two. His companions in astronomical study also perished at an early age, two of them in the civil wars, and one of these at Marston Moor, fighting in defence of the crown.

The twilight of his young life was serene and cloudless. As his bodily strength decayed, he felt that his soul would soon rise in triumph over the glittering orbs on high, and join the pure in heart.

Nearly one hundred and thirty years passed before the transit of Venus was again visible. A transit had indeed occurred in 1761, but it did not fall within the observation of the astronomer.

The transit in 1709 was eagerly looked for because it was predicted. Expeditions were fitted out by the British, French, and