The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-17
BISHOP FOSTERS LECTURE.
An Interesting Talk to a Large Audi.
ence Last Night About the Universe.
It's immensely and It's Wonders Eloquently
and Entertainingly Described by One of
the Greatest Of Americas Diyines.

Bishop Randolph 5. Foster, OF the Methodist
Episcopal Church, lectured last night to highly
intelligent audience, at the Meridian street
church, on THE Universe" He began by say
ing the theme Of the evening, 'The Universe"
is an ambitious one It is so broad. so deep, 80
high, so great in every respect, that it would
seem to be almost preposterous for such Great
ure as man. even after study Of many thou
sands of years, to undertake to unfold and ex-
pound. Science has developed and unfolded
great deal of knowledge in respect to the uni
verse; has penetrated many of its secrets. Most
of our popular notions derived from science and
propagated through the public press are unas-
simulated ideas. forms and phrases without con-
text and meaning. The speaker said it was his
desire to put those platitudes to school boys and
girls in form that would show what the uni
verse really is.
About six thousand years ago, more or less,
perhaps more, possibly considerably more, there
appeared upon this planet the first being of our
kind-the first being endowed with faculties and
intelligence pitched to acquire some knowledge
of his surroundings. endowed with strange
powers to penetrate hidden meanings and
secrets. 1t was natural, being the first born
and head of the race that he should be seized
with the idea, as he was without source of in
formation instruction, that he was at the
head and front of things, and the universe was
born when he, himself, was born. And this ira
ditonal idea has prevailed from the oldest Of the
race that the universe was ITSELF about
six thousand, or perhaps ten thousand or
more years old. There were disturbing specu-
lators from time to time, thought to be specu-
lators of infdelity, and of irreverence for relig
ion, and so they found no favor among Christian
scholars. But the vigilant and earnest mind of
man has come to the knowledge of some facts
that seemed not to fit into that information
some facts that indicated much greater antia-
nifty for this earth. The question having arisen
upon scientific grounds, could not be put to rest,
and it is now come to be we'll known, not merely
supposed, that the world we inhabit is q very
ancient one, dating back to far more remote
period than that to which tradition gave credit.
He told how the story of the earth's life had
been written upon the globe itself, and that this
past was incompatible by human arithmetic.
He next took up the size of the earth and showed
how little we appreciated its extent, and the
moon, which varied in its suggestion OF size SO
i
every school-child now that these appearances of
the moon and the sun are an illusion Of the
sense, and that the objects we gaze upon la the
sky are not what they seem to US, but are really
worlds like ours, and it is known to those
who are diligent in study, that they are vastly
greater than our world. Though we are con-
Btantly taught this, we yet live in denial of 1t,
and the universe is to us only what is given to
20 the eye. We are not at pains to penetrate 1t,
to construe it, to make real in our thoughts
60 psx- in he onAf v,o
investigation, and we go on without knowledge
of the great systems that surround us.
To get an idea of the universe will take some
effort of mind, to set these planets, these mi
give them their real characters, and from them
feel our way outward to the fixed stars. Sc we
begin with our own planet and so we can trans
fer the world idea &c these other bodies If
they do not look like worlds we must become
acquainted with the fact that they are worlds,
and that our world that seems 80 large is very
diminutive one. We are all familiar with the
accredited dimension of the sun, and yet we still
I've In the senses, and do not think of 1t as what
1t is, and if we do not thiEk of it as what it is
We might as we'll not think Of it at all This
sun is $4,000 miles in diameter. We must
Try to construe that. Suppose we should
make it hollow, with crust q thousand miles
thick. Then let Us bore hole into the hollow
with an augur 1000 miles In diameter, 800, 600
worlds like this could be poured into it, and they
would then rattle about like seeds in gourd.
Suppose we drop our earth in at the hole, and
that it settles in the center of this cavity. Then
let as drop in the moon and let it fall into its
relative position to the earth, and it will 60 spin
ning around our earth and the path it describes
will be Just as far from the rim of the sun as it
is from the earth itself
This is merely to stretch our faculties Try to
broaden your minds u little and think of this
sun with the earth and moon.in its interior. Our
system consists of nine planetary bodies. We
belong to the gyspy tribe OF the universe, to the
marching company of the Skies We are all the
children of the sun, and that great body once
embraced us. We constituted one great globe
and at different periods in the far-back past,
millions of years ago. Neptune rolled off from
the surface of the sun, newborn planet and
the family history began to be recorded.
Awhile ago We found another, Vulcan,
the youngest, which perhaps had been born
some time. Jupiter is eighty thousand miles in
diameter, the sun eight hundred and eighty thou
sand and the earth eight thousand. Vulcan is
near the paternal mansion, only eighteen million
miles away, and we are ninety-fve millions,
Mars one hundred and forty millions. the Aster
oids two hundred and eighty millions Jupiter
1--WE hundred millions, Saturn nine hundred mill
ions, Herschel or Uranus, one thousand eight
hundred millions, Neptune three thousand mill
ions OF course cannot think of these great
distances without help Let us put
locomotive a tramway reaching from
the sun to the earth and beyond, and run the
locomotive without stopping an instant 383 miles
an hour, and attach to the engine o Pullman
sleeper, with Adam and Eve in it, upon their
wedding day The first object they pass is Vul-
can. which they would strike in fifty years; next
Mercury, III 116 years; Venus in $50 year; next
our own home, in 300 years; Mars in 440 years,
the Asteroids in 800 years, Jupiter in 1900 years
Saturn in $500 years; next Herschell or Uranus
in 5000 years. and the next they would come
to would be Neptune, in 5000 years
And in the time that train would have been run
ming these 5000 years, enough people would
have been born on that wedding trip to require a
train of cars five times as long as from this
earth to the sun.
He then illustrated the great distance that re-
manned to the first fixed stars which are like our
sun, and on to the milky way. When we look
into the vast heavens and see those beautiful
bodies rushing through the great spaces, and COM
ing to their appointed home. we see the instru-
ments and behind all is the Being who.
by thought hurled them out into the