Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/750

728 the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring." As to what comets are, he cites a multitude of ancient philosophers, and, finding that they differ among themselves, he uses a form of argument very common from that day to this, declaring that this difference of opinion proves that there is no solution of the problem save in revelation, and insisting that they are "signs especially sent by the Almighty to warn the earth." An additional proof of this he finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of a trumpet; another, of a spear; another, of a goat; another, of a torch; another, of a sword; another, of an arrow; another, of a saber; still another, of a bare arm; and so on. From these forms of comets he infers that we may divine their purpose. As to their creation, he quotes John of Damascus and other great church authorities in behalf of the idea that each comet is a star newly created at the divine command out of nothing, and that it indicates the wrath and punishment of God. As to their purpose, having quoted largely from the Bible and from Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as God can make nothing in vain, comets must have some distinct object: then from Isaiah and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew, Mark, and Luke among the Evangelists, from Origen and St. John Chrysostom among the fathers, from Luther and Melanchthon among the Reformers, he draws various texts more or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil and only evil, and he cites Luther's Advent sermon, to the effect that, though comets may arise in the course of nature, they are still signs of evil to mankind.

In answer to the theory of certain naturalists, that comets are made up of "a certain fiery, warm, sulphurous, saltpetery, sticky fog," he declares, "Our sins, our sins! they are the fiery heated vapors, the thick, sticky, sulphurous clouds which rise from the earth toward heaven before God."

Throughout the sermon contempt was poured over all men who simply investigated comets as natural objects, and special attention was called to the fact that a comet then in the heavens resembled a long broom or bundle of rods; and Dieterich declared that he and his hearers would only consider it rightly "when we see standing before us our Lord God in heaven as an angry father with a rod for his children."

In answer to the question, what comets signify, he commits himself entirely to the idea that they indicate the wrath of God, and therefore calamities of every sort. Page after page is filled with the record of evils following comets. Beginning with the creation of the world, he insists that the first comet brought on the deluge of Noah. He cites a mass of authorities ranging from Moses and Isaiah to Albert the Great and Melanchthon, in support of the view that comets precede earthquakes, famines, wars, pestilences, and every form of evil. Page after page is filled with this sort of historical proof. He