The Russellville Democrat., 1881-04-07

l would cease to be the ruling sln of hu manity. If the sense of our own signifi
 canoe could be supplantel by a knowl edge of the vastness of matter and the curiosities of planetary life the effec | would be exalting in the highest degree l The undevout astronomer is mad is { 1 truth never disputed. The soul of { l student of the stars lives in an atmos phere of awe. It loses itself in tho grandeur of the infinite. It was Huxley who said that he measured every mans intellectual capacity by the number O generalities as opposed to personalities which were noticeable in his converse ton. That there is i'll the heavens above | us magic power to soothe anguish and | blot out misery is attested by many ton. gues. This is why hearts grow tenderer l thoughts purer under the mystic light ol the stars. One long look into the sky ol night draws our feet from the weary earth and rests our heads upon the
 vapory pillow of illimitable space. Dur. ing the broad light of day we think less of the wonders which hang over our heads. We cannot look at them against the fierce light of the sun.
 For the glory of his face
 Fills the awful void of space Miss Martineau, writing of the criti- cisms she received for promulgating honest opinion, says: "When 1 stood alone on my balcony, looking up at the stars at midnight it mattered not at all that my neighbors did not speak to me. " Walt. Whitman, the good, gray poet, tells the story of how he drew comfort from the heavens as he walked alone one fine, cold, clear night and thought of .l,v1, ting Paphian, fierce Orion, Sirius, sun of the night, Jupiter, Saturn and the Plei- ades all enclosing and bathing his re- captivity" spoke to him of the great spirit going out into eternity. He says To soothe and spiritualize, and as far as may be, solve the mysteries of death stars at midnight" And further:
 And now that he has gone hence, can it be that Thomas Carlyle soon to chemi- cally dissolve in ashes and by winds, re- mains an identity still? In ways perhaps eluding all the statements. lore, and speculations of ten thousand years eluding all possible statements to mortal sense-does he yet exist definite, vital being spirit, an individual-perhaps now waited in space among those stellar
 
 as they are, merely edge more limitless, far more suggestive systems2 1 have no doubt of it. In silence, of fine night such questions are answered to the soul, the best answers that can be given. With me, too, then depressed by some specially sad event or tearing problem, wait till I go out under the stars for the last voiceless satisfaction"
 Who will grope through the ninety millions of miles which lie between us and the sun and unveil the mystery which now disturbs his fiery heart? The young girl who protects herself from his warm beams by lace-covered parasol, does not care, perhaps, to know anything about the convulsions he suffers from She would rather know how to remove tan and freckles. To the agriculturist the sun is only the nurse which rears his crops. It may have dark spots and gaseous outbursts to its hearts content and he will neither protest nor wonder so long as it rises regularly and does the work he expects of it. The mariner, however, has established greater inti- macy with the sun, and he sees change in it's surface with dread, for he knows that disturbances in its heart will be re- fected in tempests and floods upon the earth, and winds against which brave ships will battle in vain. Superstition which has predicted that this will be a year of disasters, finds an ally in the commotion in the sun, which, already has assisted in producing an unprece- dental era of floods, fires, accidents and diseases.