The smaller--I write as he thought--a mighty
host, an innumerable company quite beyond his ken, still spoke to him in
a language that he had never forgotten.
Long ago, when he was quite a little boy, he had come upon a great globe
of the heavens, a much-prized curiosity of his old schoolmaster. Upon it
appeared all the principal stars linked up into their constellations,
the shadowy linking lines forming the figures of the Imaginary Ones
associated with them in the minds of the ancients. There, on the
varnished round of the globe, ranged the Great and Little Bears, and the
Dogs, and the Archer, and the Flying Horse, the Lion, and the Crab, and
the Whale, and the Twins, and Perseus and Andromeda, and Cassiopeia. And
up there, on the dark inner side of the mighty dome, he seemed to see
them all again, and time swung back with him for a moment, and he was a
boy once more.
And, gazing up at them all, their steady shine and many-coloured
twinklings led him to wonder as to the how and the why of them. From the
stars to their Maker was but a natural step, and so he came, simply and
naturally, to thought of the greatness of Him who swung these
innumerable worlds in their courses, and, from that, to His goodness and
justice.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215