The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-12-18
LIFE AND DEATH OF A WORLD"
Interesting Address Of DR.. Henry Louis
Smith, Of Davidson.

~ VIZ
Dr. Henry Louis Smith, of Davidson
college, lectured to a large audience
IN 1.-THE Life and Death of a World"
He was was introduced to the audi
ence by Mr.. Hugh W. Harris. DR..
Smith said:
Our subject brings us face to face
with two infinities. We must travel
through infinite space and examine
these words, some in the fire mist of
tormless infancy, some in the vigor
of maturity, others still and desolate
in death. More awful still is it to
stand in the presence of infinite time
to look back to that far-of epoch
when the morning stars sans to-
gether and an almighty Hand shaped
our planet in the abyss of space, and,
lifting the curtain that hangs be-
tween US and the illimitable future,
to see our world. now teeming with
life and beauty, still speeding on
ward in its mighty orbit, but a vast
sepulchre rushing through midnight
darkness, itself given over to the
silence of death, and frozen in the
grasp of an eternal winter.
"Most changes on our earth are
cyclonic in their nature, but not so
in the life of a world. The thousand
changes on its surface are nearly all
self-restoring, yet the great earth
itself, on it's long straight road to
death, never retraces a single foot
step.
The history of any individual life
naturally divides itself into five
stages, infancy, youth, maturity, old
age and death. A butterfly runs
through all five in a day or two man
stretches them over three score years
and ten a world counts each stage
in myriads of centuries. AS each of
these stages may be represented in a
human family, from the lettering
grandsire to the newborn babe, so in
our family of worlds, consisting of
the sun and his eight circling plan
cts, with their satellites, we may,
with telescope and spectroscpe, study
d world in each of these stages, and
this will be our task tonight"
The speaker then traced the pro-
gress of a planet through each of its
five stages.
First, the infancy of a planet, the
solar, gaseous stage, when the shrink
ing nebula has developed rotation,
and the heat due to contraction has
vaporized the mass, thus making it
a brilliant self-luminous globe of gas
like our sun.
Second, the youth of a world, when
it's crust has formed, but is still hot,
and all it's oceans are in the firma-
ment. The giant planet of Jupiter
is our example of this stage.
Third, the stage Of planetary
maturity, with cool crust and abund-
ant water and atmosphere, like our
own earth.
Fourth, q planets old age, with
diminishing water and air, and loss
of internal heat. Here the lecturer
dweIt at some length on the surface
phenomena of Mars, which is passing
through this stage.
Fifth, planetary death, when there
is no water, air, life or motion, a
dead ball frozen through and through,
like our mOO
Some of the lecturers closing re-
marks were as follows:
s'Thus our old, gray, battle-scarred
earth itself, with it's heart of fire
and fields of snow, with its rolling
oceans and rock-ribbed hills, and
granite floor; mother, nurse and
sepulchre of US all, symbol of per-
manence, type of eternity-she, too,
like her feeting children of an hour,
is but the p%laything of pitiless time,
and through illimitable ages, is roll
ing onward toward an memorable
doom.
Earthly science, with telescope
vision sweeps the depths of space,
searching among it's million worlds
for n exempt from the common
lOt-alas, in vain! Death reigns tri-
Qmphant TO the farthest star. But
as we lay aside our futile instruments
and close our eyes in despair, faith
opens to our spiritual vision a new
heaven and a new earth through
the mists of twenty centuries we see,
issuing from an impOtent Judean