The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-08-10
App's Letter.

will answer briefly that there are no dog
days. 1t is nothing but a superstition
that has come down to us from the an
clients. The Dog star or Sirius has its
time to appear in the heavens and rise
and set like other stars, but it is a
very irregular time and so what we call
dog days may begin the first of July or
many days later. The rising of Sirius
in line with the sun begins now on the
3rd of July and will continue until the
18th of August. Those forty days were
believed by the ancients to bring very
hot and sultry weather and many
malignant diseases, but this has been
disproVed by modern astronomy, for the
appearance of Sirius is very uncertain
and in the course of time it will rise in
the winter. Now little more about this
wonderful star. You know that we have
eight planets that belong to our solar
system. They all revolve around the sun
just as the earth does and the nearer the
planet is to the sun the faster it travels.
Neptune is 16000,0 600 of miles distant and
it takes 165 years to get around.
But Sirius is away outside of our solar
system and is 100, 600 O00, 900 of miles from
us and gives 400 times more light than
our sun. 1t is the largest and brightest
star in the heavens. 1t is called the Dog
star because it appears to be in the tail
of the constellation that the ancients
named Major CAMS or the Big Dog. They
We're smart people and we still keep
their map of the stars, but they had nc
telescopes and did not know that tn ere
We're any stars or suns except those we
see with the naked eye.
But now young people listen. 1t is now
established and proven that there are
millions of stars and solar systems afar
off in space and that ours is the smallest
and the most insignificant of them all.
We are nothing and less than nothing in
the scale of existence. 1t has always
been a mystery to me why the Creator
of the boundless universe, that has no
limit, should have chosen this little world
of ours for His greatest work, the Crea-
ton of man in His own image, a little
lower than the angels, man who sinned
and fell and was redeemed by the sacri-
flee of the Son of God / don't under
stand it. / cannot comprehend it. This
little world is not bigger than a cannon
bail compared with some of the planets
and stars afar out in space. It has but
one little moon that does not condesccnd
to show us but one side of its anatomy.
The other night we went out to Mr..
Changers beautiful home to look at the
full moon through his great telescope
that cost So, 000-and is mounted in a high
observatory with a dome that revolves
as the earth reVolves. 1t was a mag
nnificent spectacle but the view of
Jupiter with four moons and Saturn
with his rainbow ring and seven
moons was much more beautiful and
impressive. OF course those planets
must be Inhabited for the Crea-
tor would not have surrounded a
dead world with such luminous and
beautiful satellites. We don't know
anything hardly and it fills me
with disgust to see young men strutting
around like peacocks-acting like they
made themselves and knew everything
and expected to live always-when the
truth is they don't know where they
came from nor where they are going
and can't add an hour or a day to their
existence. / have but little hope for a
vain or a conceited man and a vain
woman is not better. A conceited man is
close kin to an idoit and a woman vain
of her beauty should sometimes remem-
Der that she had no hand in creating it
for it was God given or inherited. ooh!
why should the spirit of mortal be
proud?" OF all the faults of which hui
mainly is guilty that of self-conceit is the
last to be forgiven and the hardest to
reform.
1 ruminated on this yesterday when I
read what Roosevelt said in his speech
at West Point. The editor who publish
es it speaks Of him as our we'll meaning
but impulsive President. He should
have said our ''conceited and erratie
President In speaking of the great
men whom West Point had graduated
he said, 81 claim to be historian and
speak what know to be true that West
Point has turned out more great men and
more statesmen than any other institu-
ton in the United States" 1t was self
conceit and ignorance that provoked
such a monstrous absurdity, for Colonel
Sprague, of Yale College, has recently
challenged him to the proof and has
shown beyond all cavil that Yale can
number ten times the great men that
West Point can numDer. among THEM
l,5S3 ministers of the gospels justices
of supreme courts, IL chief justices, SAC
doctors, SO governors of States and 3S
United States Senators-besides these
Yale has sent forth an army of educa-
tors, established $50 colleges, 100 for wo-
men and 5000 high schools while West
Point has sent out none but soldiers.
Teddy ought to be ashamed of himself,
but he will not be. He is not yet
ashamed that in his so-called history he
called Mr.. Davis an arch traitor and
repudiator and told what he did when
Governor Of Mississippi, etc. His atten-
tion has been called to these malignant
calumnies against a great statesman
and whose curriculum at West Point
that he ordained when Secretary of War
is still in force and who never was a
member of the Legislature nor Governor
of Mississippi. No, he is too conceited
to take back anything or to apologize for
his mistakes. The man he. slandered was
dead when he published those lies, but
his widow lives and there are thousands
of veterans all over the South who
cherish his memory and who now hold