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make the sun's volume more than a million times greater than the earth's.

As illustrations in the text-books and in the lecture-room usually fail to give anything like a correct idea of this enormous difference in magnitudes, we will now give a scaled perspective of those bodies, based on present estimates:

We will let the disc S, (see plate of apparatus at close of this chapter), represent the sun. It is exactly nine feet one inch, or 109 inches in diameter; then the little dark dot E, on its face, which is 1 inch in diameter, will represent the earth.

Here we have man's estimate of the relative magnitude and importance of this, our globe. Such a sun created to give light on such an earth? Why! it would comparing small things with great-be like setting all of Greater New York on fire to light the statue of "Liberty" in the harbor. Oh! may we not pause and reflect? Let us seek for more light (and a little less sun), before we longer persist in our wholesale depreciation of so grand a work of God.

When our renowned American sculptor, Hiram Powers, had given the last finishing touch to his great master-piece, the "Greek Slave," and withdrew the screen to admit his admiring friends, had they passed indifferently by his crowning effort, and fallen to admiring some insignificant plaster cast in his studio, oh! how would the talented artist's heart have sunk in his bosom, for lack of that appreciation which he strove so hard to merit:

Our Heavenly Father has given to man this great and beautiful world, filled with untold wonders and blessings, for his habitation and home. Like a spoiled child, he turns from its beauties to contemplate its auxiliaries, the stars; and to magnify them in his imagination, into proportions deeply disparaging to this world of ours; thereby confounding a portion of God's Word, and leading the children of men to doubt. Can God be pleased?

But says the freethinker, "I don't know about this Moses' history of the Creation! Many profound men of the present day tell

us that some portions of the Old Testament, particularly its first books, are not too well authenticated!" We will produce the testimony of two witnesses, to break up this stronghold of skepticism and then we will rest this side of our cause:

THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT.

First, we will call the real Christian; the immortal being who has experienced that mystic transformation which was explained to Nicodemus of old:

Don't you remember how, before that important event of your life, you regarded the Bible as a book of enigmas, and perhaps of contradictions, and in great part beyond the scope of your comprehension; while adverse criticisms and charges of faulty translations seemed to you, just and tenable?

Don't you remember how demonstrations of physical science appeared to your mind, fairly and substantially to disprove many of those passages which men must receive, if at all, on their simple faith?

But there came a time in your history,

which comes once to every man and woman, when you were impressed with a deep sense of your obligation to that Supreme Author of your being whom we call God; and with a desire to gain his pardon and favor.

Unlike many of your fellow beings, you entertained that angel visitor, and after due repentance, earnest seeking, and a humble compliance with the conditions laid down in God's Word, the burden was rolled from off your soul, and the glad light of the Gospel shone in-"As the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." O, blissful transition! O, foretaste of Heaven!

Don't you remember, when a child at school, you pondered vainly some difficult problem, which seemed entirely made up of puzzles and contradictions, till your teacher came along, with gentle touch, a kind word of encouragement, changing a figure here and there, when lo! the solution burst on your glad vision, just as the wind bloweth where it listeth? "O, yes!" you then said,

"I can see it all now-so plain and beautiful, so consistent and true! Strange I could not see it before!"

In like manner, when God's hand was stretched down to you, and the beautiful Heaven seemed just a little overhead, did not all doubts and perplexities vanish? And as his finger traced the sacred lines in review for you, from the last page of Revelation, back to the first page of Genesis, did not a sweet harmony run through it all, and a deep consciousness take possession of you that the Bible throughout-from beginning to end--was glorious, consistent, all true? A consciousness that surpassed belief, and that was more than simple faith;-it was

KNOWLEDGE!

OUR CHIEF DEFENSE.

One more, our principal witness and chief defense, and then we shall deem cultured criticism, from a biblical standpoint, fully answered. Would you know who this important witness, and whence he comes?Then give me your attention:

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