The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1892-08-12
= MARS OUR TEACHERq

How wonderful is the intellect OF
man! A world floats IN space
thirty-five millions of miles away
so far the ancients called 1t "a STAR
and yet the genius of the man OF Co
day has brought it so near we can al
mos, see the snow that tops its tower
ing mountains, the canals DER which
IT'S boats and people float, its green
lands and silver lRKes! Mans mlnd
has measured #, sized 1t, computed
its orbit to q second; learned the
length of It's days aud nights, the
number of it's moons and their rotS-
tions. seen it's seas aud it's mountains,
and by the power OF the great tele-
scope has contracted the endless
sweep OF thirty-five millions OF ARD
miles to less than twenty thousand,
and brought it's Iuddy surface 80 near
that they now declare, that perhaps
the three new lights now seen on its
surface are the electric lights OF a
new and wonderful race OF men liv-
ing in a now and glorious world
How wonderful it is.
Mars, they say, Is nine million
years older than our world. AND
why should it not be nine million
wears ahead OF ours in science, IL
knowledge, in art? Gods plans are
unvarying; unity is the law OF the
universe; order is heavens first law
The planets are all governed by thu
same great laws-centripetal and cen
trlfugal force. They all go round II
: the same mysterious circle-th
ellipse-some in longer, others II
shorter ones. They are all, by spec
trail analysis, composed OF tn
: similar or the same elements
they rotate on their axes alike
: they have moons alike; the
follow the same sun and live
its heat and warmth; many ar
known like Mars and Jupiter to hav
; clouds, and hence an atmosphere
e Mars has mountains, and seas an
3 green land and snow at it's poles an
air and moons! Mars is just like GU
. earth in all Of these, but older an
s more beautiful; and again we say
: why should it not be peOpled with
!, race OF men and women compared
whom we are the veriest pigmies an
= who may even now, by the grea
: ness and superiority of their 81
perinr minds, have set up thos
three mysterious lights az a beaco
and a sign to us? We know they Sc
us ten times palmer than we see thel
because we are ten times larger tina
thew are. But they are, tits sal
millions Of years older THAI we. l
y two hundred years we have startle
II ourselves with the wonder OF OF
II own achievements. We have brougl
Mars to our veIy door and turn'
what our forefathers called a ray
h light into a grand and beautif'
n world, Suppose the science OF I
a day goes on a million years imPro
ing, learning, reaching out as it hi
i'm the past few centuries? VIII
i will it not grasp, what will it not VI
rs raveI. what will it not know? Ill
d Mars done this? All, who knows
n Who kno US but that that beautif
world, older and more learned tina
ours, seeing US. plainly, skilled
10 learning and equipped with scien
g. compared to which our is nothln
:. is not now reckoning to US, thrown
q out lights which penetrate thlrt
~ five millions OF miles to tell us
are not alone? To tell us that by t.
laws of analogy, the planets are l
10 habited, that we are not the on
h souls IN space; and to give us t
" first lessons of system of signs
re which is the beginning of a seri
ct every fifteen years that shall lift o
a. feeble minds from darkness to t
light a superior, age, of intini
20 knowledge! Who knows?
"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform"