The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1902-08-14
Wonders Of the Solar System is
Barlow Mans Theme.
WE OF EARTH ARE "SMALL POTATOES
Dog Days ExpIained-SoIar Piexus
Punch at President Roosevelt.
Commends Captain Howell
IN His Race for Mayor Of
Atlanta.

-, 40 nOeAAuS UuC super
sutton that has come down to us from
tne anodents. The Dog star or Sirius
mas It's time to appear in the heavens
and rise and set like other stars. but it
Is 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 Sd of July and will con.
slnue until the 18th of August. Those
forty days were believed by the an
ciencs TO bring very hot and sultry
weather and many malignant diseases.
but this has been disproved by modern
astronomy, for the appearance of ST.
RUS is very uncertain and in the
course OF time it will rise in the win
ter. Now a 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 fast
er it travels. Neptune is 10000, 600 of
miles distant and it takes 165 years
to get around.
But Sirius Is away outside of our
solar system and is ,O00,000,OO0 Of
miles from us and gives 400 times
more light than our sun. 1t is the larg-
est and brightest star in the heavens.
1t is called the Dog star because it ap-
pears to be in the tail of the constella-
ton that the ancients named Major
CAMS or the Big Dog. They were a
smart people and we still keep their
map Of the heavens and their names
OF the stars, but they had no tele-
scopes and did not know that there
were 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 uni
verse, that has no limit should have
chosen this little world Of ours for His
greatest work, the Creation of man in
His own image, little lower than the
angels, man who sinned and fell and
was redeemed by the sacrifice of the
Son Of God. / don't understand it.
cannot comprehend it. This little world
is no bigger than cannon ball com
pared with some of the planets and
stars afar out in space. 1t has but
one little moon that does not conde-
scend 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 $5,00O-and
Is mounted in high observatory with
dome that revolves as the earth re-.
wolves. 1t was a magnificent specta-
Gle, 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
these planets must be inhabited, for
the Creator 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 strutting5
around like peacocks-actingl like they
made themselves and knew every
thfnr ~,
when the truth is they don't know
where they came from nor where they
are going and can't add an hour or
day to their existence. | have but lit
and vain woman is no better. A
conceited man is close kin to an idiot
and a woman vain Of her beauty
should sometimes remember 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 humanity is
guilty, that Of self -conceit is the last
to be forgiven and the hardest to re-
form.
was Illuminating on this yesterday
when I read what Roosevelt said in
his spetch at West Point. The editor
who publishes it speaks of him as our
well meaning but impulsive president.
He should have said our Connected
and erratic president" In speaking of
the great men whom West Point had
graduated, he said, II claim to be a
historian and speak what know 70
be true that West Point has turned out
more great men and more statesmen
than any other institution in the Uni
ted States" It was self-conceit and
ignorance that provoked such a mon
strous absurdity, for Colonel Sprague,
Of Yale college, has recently challeng
ed him to the proof and has shown be
yond all cavil that Yale can number
ten times the great men that West
Point I'm number. Among them 1889
ministers OF the gospel, Is justices OF
supreme courts, II chief justices, SAC
90 - RI nd o