Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-06-27
Aamrastrr futel!igenrer.
MONDAY EVENING. JUNE ~. 1881.

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MONDAY EVENING. JUNE ~, 1881.
The Wonderful Comet.
The comet is too much for the astron-
omers, and the astronomers and the
comet together are quite too much Tor
the people. To have the visitor discov-
cred by the naked eye in all parts of the
country before the wise men had caught
it in their telescopes, is such reflection
upon their alertness as to cause them
great chagrin; which is not modified by
the fact that they don't know anything
about the thing now that they have seen
it. In their perturbation they overwhelm
us with a great deal of information
about comets in general, which we are
compelled to swallow, because we don't
known any better, although these
stories are marvellous enough to severe
ly test our credulity. The comets are
SO big, their orbits so immense, their
speed so terrific and their conduct so &C.
centric, that we have need of all of our
faith to accept the astronomers tales as
true. They say they all travel towards
the sun at killing pace, and when
they get there, after a hundred or
a thousand years, more or less,
they whisk suddenly around and
travel back again as fast as they ap-
preached /; only this time the tail goes
ahead. And that last seems to be a
particularly stunning munchausenism ;
taken in connection with the other
things we are asked to believe about
these celestial visitors. For we are told
that the tail is SO thin that it affords no
obstacle TO the shining through it of the
stars upon the further side; that it is
moreover eight millions of miles long.
The last fact is quite sufficient, one
would think, to he offered single and
alone for our mental digestion in one day,
since the apparent length is but about
eight feet and the difference between
eight feet and eight million miles of
itself takes quite little mental effort to
grasp. In fact We don't grasp it; any
more than we do molten iron, which they
tell us won't burn our fingers at a certain
shade of its color. We cheerfully
take these statements OH faith since
we are all i'm the same boat and
if we are too credulous no one of us is a
bigger goose than another. But TO get
eight millions Of miles of gaseous tail to
travel ahead of a comet that is speeding
along ut rate-well--what is the rate
. 1t is so small part of second to a mile
that you can never realize the speed from
the fisures--quicker than in the twink.
ling OF al eye it is, anyway. The near.
est approach to comprehensive idea
of the speed is given by prac.
tical cOmetian--cOmedian we had
almost spelled it-whO says that
the slow old comet which burst upon
Rome in the year that Caesar fell
would get across this continent from
New York to San Francisco ip the lin.
tied express time of Il trifle under three
seconds. And that must be slow time
for comets, as this one of C;esar's takes
they say, five hundred years to get
around. But to return is there no es
cape for us from humbly accepting the
assurance that SO thin and so long a tai
gets ahead and goes ahead of so very fast
4 head !? We are familiar with the fact
that i tail can sometimes wag head, by
reason of its superior spryness and i'm
putlence, and sometimes unlimited gasi
ness, when it is very light tail indeed.
But it is not Il physical tail that does
this, but Il mental or a spiritual one ;
closely resembling, perhaps, the astro
nOmical tale which demands from us
implicit belief in Il very thin comet tail
going eight million miles ahead of it.
head.
We ought to Ike very good Christian:
after the astronomers get through will
us and this comet. Our faith should bt
grown away up out of mustard seed mag
ni:ude, and there should be nothing thai
preachers can tell us to challenge oul
belief, if they don't ask us to believe
different things and don't tamper toe
much with long accepted doctrines by
revised editions Of the Testament. The
astronomers, too, must be cautious they
are likely to be caught tripping i'm error
by this present visitor of ours. For they
say it looks very much like that of 1907
and they think it must he the same but
then that one they predicted would not
turn up again for thousand years and
if it should he here in but Seventy-fOur,
what will We think of astronomical
science ?
Yet, seriously, what overwhelming con.
viction of Almighty power does not the
contemplation of this wonderful comet
inspirel There it is, after travelling for
many years through space at a
rate which the mind cannot grasp,
and with its route only through oul
own solar system; and our own is only
one of an innumerable number, of each
of which one of the fixed stars is cen.
tire. We believe the accepted theory is
that the fixed stars are suns, and as we
understand that our comets are drawn
to us by the attraction of our own sun,
We assume that they don't wander out
of our solar system else how would
they get away from the other suns The
mind quails in viewing the immensity OF
space thus opened to it; and acknowl.
edges Almighty power.