-: v ' ^ . .-. , ^ojnv: vKlOS-/V.'G[[fj-. , % d H I nj &) ^ Jl 1 1 S'-Oj ^HQNV-SOl^ / O uL. 4? P \IV[R%. "a 7^ "*^ < . ^MNIVERS) ' PREFACE. 'HEN the title-page of a new book in any degree interests the reader, his first, desire is to learn, in brief, the nature and aim of the work. To indicate, therefore, the subject, plan and char- acter of the present volume, the writer makes the following prefatory statements : The visible universe is a manifestation of its invisible Creator, an objective revelation of his eternal wisdom and power and goodness. Tho vast globes and controlling forces of the universe are a manifestation of his creative might ; the perfection of the arrangements which secure its safety and welfare is a manifestation of his all-comprehending knowledge ; and the number, variety and beauty of its productions are a manifestation of his boundless beneficence. All the designs and adaptations it exhibits are God's designs and adaptations. Its elements and the laws which govern them had their origin in the conceptions and purposes of God. All the ideas disclosed in it are God's ideas. In the forms, properties and relations of the various bodies and substances which compose it, we discern the thoughts that "in the beginning" occupied the Divine Mind. Whatever exists in any particular shape, color, or condi- tion in the vast creation, so exists because God willed its existence to be such. And thus whatever he has made is an expression of his nature or character. Every organized being, every unor- ganized substance, every force, every affinity, in nature, reads to man a lesson of highest import concerning his Maker and Pre- server. Every flowing stream, every moving breeze, every descend- ing ray of light, brings him a message full of divinity. Creation is a book, written within ana without by the finanr of God, and, to him who can read it, is full of sublime and priceless 8 PREFACE. instruction. Its pages are crowded with significant imagery, with expressive types and symbols of eternal truths and realities, por- trayed and imprinted there by the great Father of all for the edu- cation of his earthly offspring as heirs of immortality. Every material object is suggestive to them of some moral truth, and every natural process is symbolical of some spiritual change or progress. And it is altogether a most interesting and profitable study to trace out this resemblance or analogy between things nat- ural and things spiritual. He who with a devout mind searches diligently into the arrangements and relations, structures and functions, properties and beauties, of material nature, will con- stantly meet with exhibitions which shall seem to him as the pages of Scripture, written on the fields and the forests, in the stars and on the clouds, in the solid rocks and on the waves of the sea. There is such a correspondence, such a similarity, characterizing the material and the spiritual, that no small portion even of the "gospel of grace" may be read from the fair face of nature. How many of the divine discourses of the Great Teacher are composed, wholly or in part, of simple translations of the inarticulate language of nature of the lilies of the field and fowls of the air, of the sun arising and the rain descending on the evil and the good, of the salt without savor, the leaven in the meal, the pearl of great price, the seed among thorns and on the rock and in the good soil, the vine and its branches, the lost and wandering sheep, the hen gath- ering her brood under her wings, the seed dying in the ground to multiply its kind, the fruitless fig tree, the wind blowing where it listeth, the fields whitening for the harvest, the sky red and lowering, etc. The lessons which the Saviour read from these objects were not new ideas, not new truths fresh from heaven, but old, and which nature had presented before man for his instruction ever since the world began. He simply taught men how to read and understand them. His beautiful parables and many of his exqui- site illustrations are but literal interpretations of the silent lan- guage of these and other objects in nature. Hence we learn from highest authority, that the same principles of law and order rule in the world of matter as are ordained to govern in the world of mind, and that what may be traced of the attributes and character of the great God, in the book of nature, is in perfect accord with what is taught in the book of inspiration. If we would select a special object or province for this kind of study for the field is boundless we could not find one richer in PREFACE. illustrations of the divine perfections, of the doctrines of redeem- ing grace, and of the interests and duties and hopes of man, than that which has been chosen for the subject of this volume THE SUN. This great and central luminary, by his potent and all- embracing influences, is intimately connected with all the marvel- lous facts embraced within the whole circle of the Natural Sciences. To the mind acquainted with what geometry has demonstrated respecting its distance, magnitude and attraction ; with what the telescope has revealed as existing and transpiring upon its surface ; with what the spectroscope has read of the mystic inscriptions upon its descending beams ; with what chemistry has brought to light of the wonder- workings of its invisible rays ; with what observation has detected of its waves of magnetic influence thrilling the solid globes of all its planets ; and with what experiment and computation have proved of the stupendous work its heat daily accomplishes to such a mind, the Sun presents a concourse of phenomena of the most interesting, most sublime and inspiring character. To the man at all familiar with these facts, if imbued with the spirit of piety, the Solar Orb is as a glorious SHECHINA, poised aloft in the great temple of creation, forever witnessing to the eternal wisdom, power and glory of its Maker and Builder, who is God. In Holy Writ, the Sun stands as a symbol of the MESSIAH. There he is entitled "The LIGHT of the World," and " The SUN OP RIGHTEOUSNESS." And of all objects within the reach of human vision, the S.un is the most worthy type of him who is " the Bright- ness of the Father's glory ; " and its forces and functions, in the system of nature, offer the most striking and instructive analogies of his divine character, gracious offices, and moral relations, as the Saviour of the world. And it is to the contemplation of these analogies that the following pages are devoted. The Analogies of the great Orb of Day to the Sun of Righteous- ness are many and various ; and, for the sake of order and clear- ness, those here traced have been classified according to their nature and import, and are presented under the following distinct heads : First, those of the Sun as the Primary Globe ; second, as the Foun- tain of Light; third, as the Source of Heat; fourth, as a Chemical Agent; fifth, as a Magnetic Centre; and, sixth, as the Centre of Gravitation. The plan adopted and pursued throughout the work is simply this: Each particular Analogy is briefly and clearly enunciated, and forms the subject of a distinct chapter, in which, first, are 10 PREFACE. related and described the natural phenomena pertaining to the Sun which supply it, as revealed by the latest and most accurate deductions of science ; then the spiritual parallel to all these in the character, or offices, or relations of the Sun of Righteousness, is traced out, and its specific instructions presented. These will be found, throughout, both evangelical in their sentiments and catholic in their spirit. The writer nowhere descends to discuss, much less to advocate, any denominational distinctions or pecu- liarities. In this regard, his aim has been to be as general and impartial in the statement of grand truths, as the Sun, of which he speaks, is in shedding down his light and heat upon the face of the earth. Contemplated under the several aspects exhibited in these Anal- ogies, the Solar Orb will be found to typify and beautifully illustrate most, if not all, of the gracious doctrines of the gospel which relate to the Sun of Righteousness. Its every force, every function, every law, every phenomenon, will be discovered to enshrine spiritual lessons of profoundest interest and importance; while all these taken together constitute it a sublime Symbol of him who, as a Divine Luminary, arose with light and healing in his beams on a benighted and dying world. Such is the subject, and such is the character of this volume. And if its readers, be they few or many, shall derive from its perusal a tithe of the pleasure and profit which the author has experienced in the study of the subjects it presents, his fondest hopes concerning it will be realized, and his long labor in its prep- aration will not fail of its highest reward. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE RISING SUN, Frontispiece. ECLIPSE OF AUGUST TTH, 1869, . . . Opposite " THE SOLAR SYSTEM, 39 THE SUN AND PLANETS COMPARED, 51 THE SUN'S PERIPHERY AND THE MOON'S ORBIT, . . 55 RAIN-MARKS OF GEOLOGICAL PERIODS, 63 GODS MANY AND LORDS MANY, 85 CHRIST AMONG THE SlCK AND AFFLICTED, .... 103 PLATE OF SPECTRA, 126 NEWTON EXPERIMENTING WITH LIGHT, 148 EXHIBITION OF THE SOLAR SPECTRUM, ..... 149 SECTION OF THE HUMAN EYE, 163 SECTION OF THE RETINA, 164 ANOINTING JESUS' FEET, 177 SAUL SMITTEN TO THE GROUND, 197 CHEMICAL EFFECT OF SUNLIGHT, 204 A SUNRAY EXPANDED, 213 THE PATH OF A RAY THROUGH NINE PRISMS, . . . 214 FRAUNHOFER'S LINES, 215 COINCIDENCE OF SOLAR AND IRON LINES, . ... 221 COMPLEMENTAL COLORS, 233 THE MOON'S SURFACE, 263 PASSAGE OF LIGHT THROUGH THE ATMOSPHERE, . . . 274 HALOS AND PARHELIA, 276 PARHELIA OBSERVED BY GASSENDI, 278 12 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. nun PARHELIA OBSERVED BY HEVELIUS, 279 PARHELIA OBSERVED IN TENNESSEE, 281 INTERSECTION OF TWO WAVE-SYSTEMS, 319 JUPITER AND ITS SATELLITES, 327 ANNULAR ECLIPSE OF 1836, 360 SOLAR PHENOMENA OBSERVED IN 1869, 363 SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1868, 367 SOLAR PHENOMENA OBSERVED IN 1869, 368 PROTUBERANCES OF THE SUN, 369 SOLAR STORM OBSERVED BY LOCKYER, 372 BANYAN GROVE ON THE SUN, 374 EXPLOSIVE PHENOMENA IN THE SUN, 375 DARKNESS OVER ALL THE EARTH, 387 POSITION OF THE MOON AT A SOLAR ECLIPSE, .... 390 DARK AND LUMINOUS RAYS OF THE SUN, .... 396 A METEORIC SHOWER, . 413 A HURRICANE, . . . ' ' 443 ROME SET ON FIRE BY NERO, . 455 POSITION OF THE EARTH AT THE DIFFERENT SEASONS, . . 466 TROPICAL VEGETATION, . 499 INTENSITY OF LIGHT, HEAT AND ACTINISM, .... 535 WREATHS COPIED BY THE SUN, 540 TIME OF HARVEST, . 559 INFLUENCE OF A MAGNET ON IRON FILINGS, . . . . 564 AURORA BOREALIS, 571 ATTRACTION CREATED AND ANNIHILATED, ..... 593 AN ARTIFICIAL SATELLITE, 604 ERRATIC PLANET, 613 MOTION OF THE SUN'S CENTRE, 627 MUTUAL PERTURBATION OF TWO PLANETS, .... 634 VARIATION OF INCLINATIONS, 636 VARIATION OF ECCENTRICITIES, 637 BABYLON IN ITS MAGNIFICENCE, 661 CONTENTS. Preface Page 5 List of Illustrations " 11 The Celestial Symbol chosen " 33 PART FIRST. THE SUN AS THE PRIMARY GLOBE. ANALOGY I. As the Sim is the centre, the light, and the life of the system of Creation so Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, is the centre and light and life of the system of Revelation. PHENOMENA. The Sun An object of supreme interest The head and ruler of a family of worlds Striking family resemblances The homes of differing popu- lations Three offices of the solar orb Confers benefits that are inestimable What would follow his extinction Dread darkness and direful cold All life destroyed The oceans congealed The bonds of nature dissolved Frozen planets wandering through space The whole system scattered, ruined, lost Page 37 TEACHINGS. A type of the Sun of Righteousness The central orb of revelation Constituent parts of this system of truth Their dependency History, types, ceremonies, symbols and predictions all refer to the Divine Centre He their light, life and significance Taking him out of the Bible as taking the sun from the planetary system Take him away and all becomes dark and meaningless con- fusion Christ and the Scriptures inseparable Page 4$ ANALOGY II. As the Sun far surpasses all the other globes in the system both in magnitude and splendor so Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, infinitely transcends all created beings in wisdom, power and glory. PHENOMENA. The common idea entertained of the sun The ancient Greeks' estimate of its size Appears small because distant Former estimates of its dis- tance tjo great True distance Illustrations of this Its dimensions Illustrations of its size The sun's circumference and the moon's orbit compared Comparative bize of the sun and the planets Sun's mass or weight Its splendor, and the intensity of its light Poge 50 TEACHINGS. The sun but an emblem The Sun of Righteousness a greater orf> What the Scriptures declare concerning hi; nature and character What the Prophets say What the Apostles say What the Angels say What Himself says What the Eternal Father says Worshipped by all the hosts of heaven.... Page 58 (13) 14 CONTENTS. ANALOGY III. At the Sun was active and influential in preparing the earth to be a fit habitation for man unnumbered ages before he was called into being so the Sun of Righteous- ness, from the depths of eternity, contrived, and in the purpose of his love executed, the wondroiw scheme of man's redemption. PHENOMENA. Origin of the world Its creation and formation Its age The sun older The nebular theory The SUD enlightened the earth from the beginning Proof of this in the eyes of trilobites and fishes, in geological rain-marks, and in fossil plants Solar action concerned in forming the soil, in purifying the atmos- phere and depositing coal The great extent and general distribution of coal-beds Rock salt, how formed The sun a chief agent in the earth's formation.... Page 61 TEACHINGS. The geological history of the globe a grand parable The Son with the Father from the beginning Purposed the creation of man, and foresaw the moral history of the world His incarnation and sacrifice fore-ordained, and potentially executed Creation carried on and completed according to a plan ; so the work of human redemption The latter like the former ever progressing The glorious issue foreseen and certain Page 68 ANALOGY IV. As the Sun is an orb of splendor too dazzling for the human eye to behold save ' through some softening or subduing medium so the Sun of Righteousness in his absolute divinity was a being invested with glories overpowering and consuming, and could be contemplated by mortal man only through the softening veil of human flesh. PHENOMENA. The eye a master-piece of contrivance Made with reference to external and distant objects The retina and its office Its extreme sensibility Injured by sudden or intense light Newton and other astronomers blinded Softening mediums necessary for solar observations Page 73 TEACHINGS. The unveiled Deity, like the sun, too dazzling for human vision Experience of Moses and Paul Erroneous views of inagi, priests and philosophers The incarnate Son the only medium through which God can be looked upon Viewed through the veil of his flesh the Divine majesties and glories are softened In him the heart of God is revealed, and his character seen to be merciful and gracious, full of love and ready to forgive Page 75 ANALOGY V. As the Sun arises on a scene enshrouded in nature's darkness so the Sun of Righteousness arose upon a world involved in deep moral darkness. PHENOMENA. Day and night The earth's rotation undeviating Constitutions of plants and animals adapted to this rotation The order of nature not to be disre- garded Labor and travelling in the night attended with illusions and danger Aspect of the sidereal heavens on a summer's night The break of day The sun bursting forth in the East The enchanting transformation Page 80 TEACHINGS. This an emblem of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness The gross darkness of the world at his advent The multiplicity of the heathen's deities Their impure and atrocious characters Corrupting effects of their worship CONTENTS. 15 Unnatural vices and crimes The Jews but little better than idolaters Sunk into spiritual blindness and errors Their vices and consummate hypocrisy The pall of death settled down upon the whole earth The Sun of Righteousness arises on the gloomy scene, sheds new light, imparts new views, inspires new hopes Page 84 ANALOGY VI. As the Sun arises upon the world with a flood of health in his warm and lightening beams so the Sun of Righteousness arose upon mankind " with healing in his wings." PHENOMENA. The sunbeam a mysterious agency Its activity and influence universal Maintains the salubrity of the atmosphere Ratio of the gases Per- petual production of carbonic acid Its excess and fatal effects prevented by solar action Sunlight essential to the growth and fruitful ness of vegetation Plants growing in darkness devoid of their characteristic properties "All to the sun we owe" Sunlight indispensable to animal life and health The prime stimulant of vital forces Influence on the vigor and spirits of man Darkness tends to sickness, deformity and idiocy The experience of hospitals Sunlight essential to the wel- fare of the world Page 92 TEACHINGS. A beautiful analogy The Sun of Righteousness arises with healing to the moral, atmosphere Errors and vices like poisonous gases The remedial truths he sheds on men The virtue of his example Stimulates all plants of righteousness to the same Brings healing to bodily maladies His wondrous career among the suffering and dying Brings healing to sin-sick souls Maladies of the soul comparable to diseases of the body The restoring power of his love and truth and grace Brings healing to social evils; to the Family and the State Fruits of his healing ministry visible in all Christian lands Page 98 ANALOGY VII. As the Sun arises for the good of the whole globe of nature so the Sun of Righteous- ness arose to benefit and to bless the whole world of mankind. PHENOMENA. An interesting and profitable field of study The material world governed by general laws The sun shines for an equal time on all parts of the earth Shines with the same light Shines for the same ends The common and impartial benefactor of all Page 108 TEACHINGS. So the Sun of Righteousness No respect of persons with him His mission embraced the world His banner was for the eye of the world His message was for the ear of the world His sacrifice was for the sin of the world His instructions for all the nations and ages of the world Attempts to limit his grace In Christ, all have, or may have, an equal interest Page 112 ANALOGY VIII. As the Solar Orb is an inexhaustible fountain of light and heat to the material world so the Sun of Righteousness is an inexhaustible fountain of enlightening and saving grace to the world of mankind. PHENOMENA. Many solar phenomena inexplicable to science Its un wasted and unwasting powers a great mystery Lighted and warmed the earth through all 16 CONTENTS. the vast periods of geology Has continued to do the same througa all the ages of human history Illumines and warms as effectually to-day as in the beginning Its energies all remain unabated, unchanged Page 115 TEACHINGS. A true type of the Sun of Righteousness His grace nnwasted and unwasting His truth and love ever remain the same The flow of ages affects not the efficacy of his sacrifice Numbers do not exhaust or weaken it As effectual to enlighten and save a thousand souls as one His grace, like the sun- light, works manifold benefits for man Who can gather up all the sunshine that falls on sea and land ? This a true figure of his grace Sweet suggestions of the rising sun The sun that shall shine forever Page 117 ANALOGY IX. As the natural Sun is an unrequited benefactor of the earth so the Sun of Right- eousness is an unrecompensed benefactor of the human race. PHENOMENA. The world a system of interdependence Each department of nature both a debtor and a creditor The ocean and the dry land, the animal and the vegetable kingdom, the ground and the atmosphere, the soil and the animal, the equator and the pole, the moon and the earth, are all mutually givers and receivers But the sun bestows a thousand benefits, and receives nothing in return Page 121 TEACHINGS. So the Sun of Righteousness All he does or gives is of grace Man deserves nothing, can claim nothing Christ wrought out onr salvation from pure benevolence His instructions and deeds of healing were without money or price He is the same gratuitous benefactor still Our services cannot requite or benefit him He is ever giving, we ever receiving Page 123 PART SECOND. THE SUN AS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIGHT. ANALOGY I. As the Sun is a self-luminous globe, and sends forth from its own body and sphere a flood of light on every side so Christ the Sun of Righteousness was a self- luminous orb, and poured the light of truth and wisdom upon all around him, from the fountain of his own mind. PHENOMENA. The sun the only luminous body in the system The planets and satellites all dark The moon dark as the dull earth Illumines only as a reflector This proved by her eclipses and monthly changes Venus a dark body This proved by her phases and transits The same true of the other planets The sun alone has light in himself. Page 127 TEACHINGS. The Sun of Righteousness a luminous orb An original teacher Owed nothing to schools or associations Brought up in retired Nazareth His divine teachings flowed from the fountain of his own mind Employed old truths but recast them even as new Never was seen such a teacher on the earth Never such instructions delivered to men His teachings a vast accession to human knowledge Shed new and surprising light on the character of God On the CONTENTS. 17 nature and destiny of the soul On the meaning and spirit of the moral law On the nature of true and acceptable worship On the Divine Providence On the dis- pensation of the Holy Spirit On he resurrection of the body On the process and issue of the final judgment Shed light on quick and dead, time and eternity, never known before Page 129 ANALOGY II. As the light of the Sun of nature combines in itself every shade of color so the character of Jesus the Sun of Righteousness embraced every possible grace and virtue. PHENOMENA. Nothing in nature simple All objects and substances are com- pounds Light is a compound This discovered by Newton His experiment de- scribed Prismatic colors explained The seven prismatic colors recombined pro- duce white light Effect of one being absent All necessary to produce perfect light Page 147 TEACHINGS. A true image of the Sun of Righteousness " He was the true light" He stands alone in the purity of his doctrine and example Was a sinless character Fulfilled all the will of God Was a perfectly balanced character In- tellect, conscience, affections, sympathies in perfect equipoise Was a complete and harmonious character In him all excellences and perfections blended -His character commands the admiration of skeptics as well as believers Testimony of Chubb Of Goethe Of Napoleon Of Strauss Of Rousseau Of Renan...Pa$re 150 ANALOGY III. As the light of the Sun, fall upon whatever impurity or corruption it may, remains uncontaminated so \Christ the Sun of Righteousness, mingle in the company of shiners of whatever class or grade he might, came forth from among them im- maculate and untainted. PHENOMENA. Light the most refined and ethereal of elements This absolutely incorruptible Equally pure in all localities and temperatures Retains the same properties and obeys the same laws in the dungeon and the tomb Everywhere a pure medium Page 156 TEACHINGS. True and beautiful representative of the Sun of Righteousness His purity not due to seclusion from the world Mingled freely with all classes Enjoyed no special exemption from trials Was tempted, vexed, and injured more than any man Yet maintained his innocence and purity The best and wisest of men at times falter, yield, sin Christ never Returned to heaven as immaculate as he left it Page 158 ANALOGY IV. As the Sun of nature finds in the body an organ, the eye, designed to receive and appreciate and employ its light so the Sun of Righteousness finds in the soul a faculty, the conscience, designed and qualified to receive his truth and to discern the right. PHENOMENA. The world constituted for man, and man for the world His eye a congeries of adaptations to light The work of a designing intelligence This evi- denced by its several parts The sclerotic and choroid coats The retina The lenses 2 18 CONTENTS. and humors The iris Means of adjusting to distances Muscles for changing its direction Lachrymal gland and conduit Its lids and position Perfection of its operations Its value and importance Page 161 TEACHINGS. What the eye is to the body, conscience is to the soul Conscience defined Devoted to one office exclusively Exercises authority over the whole man Its decisions instantaneous Pronounces judgment according to its light A faculty common to the race Essential to all religion A witness for the existence and presence of God A witness for the righteousness of God Gives assurance of a judgment to come Powerful to mould the whole character Christ ever appealed to the conscience Illustration of its power in Mary Magdala In the Pharisees In Peter In Judas The eye which receives and employs spiritual ]ig\\t..Paye 168 ANALOGY V. As the Sun of nature conveys its fight to the eye through the all-pervading ether so the Sun of Righteousness imparts his light to the soul through his omnipresent Spirit, PHENOMENA. Light studied from remote antiquity Fancies of alchymists Discoveries of Alhazen Newton's emition theory Huyghen's difficulties with this His undulatory theory Explanation of this from waves in water and air Luminiferous ether described Its undulations the vehicles of light Their exist- ence proved The cause of different colors Vast number of ether waves per second Marvels of the arrangements which secure to man the benefits of light. .Page 180 TEACHINGS. Corresponding medium in the spiritual system The soul illumine-! through the Spirit Universal presence and activity of the Spirit But for his agency Christ had died in vain But for this sacred medium man had remained in his darkness and sin Optional with man whether he will receive the light Tin; doctrine has its mysteries Mysteries no reason for rejecting it All things involve mysteries The science of astronomy built on a mystery Ourselves are bundles of mysteries The physiologist and anatomist encounter mysteries The Spirit's agency proved by its effects Illustration of this in Paul In multitudes, in everv age and country Page 187 ANALOGY VI. As the light of the Sun of nature cannot fall upon any earthly substance without pro- ducing in it a change, chemical or mechanical so the light of the San of Right- eousness cannot shine upon any human soul, without affecting it either for life or death. PHENOMENA. To the multitude, sunshine is sunshine, and nothing more Regarded as feeble, but is potent Three elements of power in the suiilvani These afl'ect all things Effects produced by the Sun's light in the atmosphere In the ocean On vegetation On the animal creation On metals and minerals On mineral solutions On gases On electric and magnetic currents The sunbeam's power felt from the surface to the centre of the globe Page 190 TEACHINGS. The light of the Sun of Righteousness also universally influential Comes clothed with heaven's power Nature of its effects determined by indi- vidual disposition The savor of life to some, of death to others The measure of light the measure of duty Not to receive and obey is to reject and rebel -The CONTENTS. 19 clearer the light the higher the obligation Divine light necessarily effective It softens or hardens, elevates or sinks Decides the destiny of the soul Page 206 ANALOGY VII. As a small pencil of light from the Sun of nature, entering into a dark room, serves to reveal many phenomena pertaining to that glorious orb, otherwise invisible so a beam from the Sun of Righteousness, entering the dark mind of man, reveals in him wonders of love and' grace, all before unknoivn. PHENOMENA. The sunbeam like white paper written with invisible ink Its significant characters brought to view and deciphered The spectroscope, its con- struction and use Dark lines in the sun's spectrum Few discovered by Wollastou, and more by Fraunhofer The significance of these lines Every luminous body or substance gives lines Contrivances to produce intense light and heat By means of these all substances can be evaporized, and made to give their spectrum lines The lines of different substances described Number and position of these lines The spectroscope an instrument of surpassing delicacy Gases absorb the same rays as they emit Every substance recognizable by its particular lines Coincidence of solar with terrestrial lines Elements belonging to the earth found existing in the sun Pressure and agitation of the solar atmosphere Direction and speed of solar cyclones All through the sunbeam Page 211 TEACHINGS. A beam from the Sun of Righteousness, its revelations Man as sitting in a dark room Light introduced Great cha'nge Sees nature in a new- aspect Sees in Christ excellences and glories all unknown before Sees and adores him as a Divine person Sees and hears him as a Divine teacher Sees and believes his death to be an atoning sacrifice Sees and feels him to be a present living friend Sees and associates him with every scene Loves him as his all in all ." Page 221 ANALOGY VIII. As each color in the Sunbeam has its complemental color, and the observance of this re- lation in nature lends to it its highest charms so each doctrine of the Sun of Right- eousness has its complemental doctrine, while all are so related as to form a harmonious and beautiful system of truth and grace. PHENOMENA. The simplicity of nature The course of scientific investigation from the complex to the simple Such has been the case in regard to light Primary colors three, and not seven Proportion of these three Secondary and tertiary colors Complemental colors Sensibility of the eye adapted to nature's arrange- ment of colors Diagram of complemental colors Harmony of colors observed in nature Red and green associated in vegetation -Yellow and purple, blue and orange, in like manner Chevreul's rule for arranging flowers Plumage of birds Nature's combinations ever pleasing Exhibit design Flowers the study and admiration of the Great Teacher Page 230 TEACHINGS. The beauties which please the eye due to the Sun, those which de- light the faith to the Sun of Righteousness The three primary colors answer to the three primary doctrines of the gospel These combined present a complete and harmonious system The sweet verdure of a Father's love, the ground on which all are presented The truth and grace of God complemental to the condition and 2() CONTENTS. wants of humanity The provisions of grace and the necessities of man, like com- plemental colors, enhance each other This collocation inspires the anthems of heaven... Page 240 ANALOGY IX. While the Sun sheds the same light on the face of all nature, yet different objects re- flect different rays of that light, and thus appear in different colors so, while the Sun of Righteousness bestows the same light of truth on all, yet different in- dividuals reflect that truth under different phases, and thus exhibit a variety of characters. PHENOMENA. Colors have a direct reference to the welfare of man Color not due to light alone Dependent on the molecular constitution of objects Illustra- tions of this by means of the spectrum, and of colored glasses An object by its molecular constitution sifts the solar rays Those only which it reflects give its color Benefits of color innumerable These instanced and described Complexity of the arrangements which secure to us these advantages A '' fool" only can say "There is no God" Page 244 TEACHINGS. Individual constitutions reflect the light of the Sun of .Righteous- ness in a similar manner Hence different phases of character Variety a general law of nature Diversity in mental as well as bodily features Characters of Chris- tians differ Different characteristics of Peter, John and Paul, and of the evangelists Diversity of gifts and operations in the church Each to exercise his particular gift for the general good Talents bestowed by God No room for boasting or envy Lessons from the humblest of flowers Page 251 ANALOGY X. As the Sun of nature effects the illumination of the earth through the reflective agency of the atmosphere upon which its rays fall so the Sun of Righteousness is to accomplish the illumination of the world of mankind through the reflective agency of those upon whom his light shines. PHENOMENA. The atmospheric ocean By its reflection and refraction sunlight is converted into daylight What the aspect of the world would be without this agency The inconveniences and evils that would prevail Effects produced by greatly rarefied atmosphere Appearance of the heavens and surrounding objects on the summit of Mount Blanc The moon a world without atmosphere The strange and startling aspect of her scenery What we owe to the reflective and dispersive power of the atmosphere Design and adaptation plainly visible in this God mani- fest here as in all his works Page 258 TEACHINGS. The great lesson from all this The light shed by the Sun of Right- eousness to be reflected and dispersed through all the world Believers to be re- flectors " Let your light shine before men " Human minds like sensitized plates Every man reflects the light or spirit that is in him No one can divest himself of this influence Importance of reflecting the true light The young mind specially susceptible to impressions Parents photograph their likeness on the minds of their children The Christian in every relation to reflect the light of the gospel By labor and sacrifice as well as example From this none are released or exempt He who fails denies the light Believers the appointed medium to invest the world with daylight Page 266 CONTENTS. H ANALOGY XL As the Sun of nature, viewed through the dank vapors afloat in the atmosphere, appears discolored, and sometimes distorted so the Sun of Righteousness, looked upon through the dark mists of the carnal, mind, appears in a character that belongs not to him, and often as without form or comeliness that he should be desired. PHENOMENA. The atmosphere, its components Effects of being rarefied or condensed Viewed through vapors, the Sun appears in false colors Sometimes, in a false form Occasionally, surrounded by appendages which do not belong to it Halos and parhelia These often observed Notable ones described Of irregular recurrence and evanescent nature, yet formed according to exact laws Page 273 TEACHINGS. The parallel Mental vapors Viewed through these, the Sun of Righteousness is discolored and distorted To some, appears as an impostor To others, a myth To others still, an enthusiast Carnal views and frozen devotions surround him with associates The Virgin and the Saints Mental Anthelia These as dependent on the Sun of Righteousness as parhelia on the Sun of nature Page 283 ANALOGY XII. As the Sun stands alone as a luminary, unrivalled in splendor by any orb of heaven so Christ the Sun of Righteousness stands alone as a Teacher, unequalled and unapproached in the wisdom, purity and benevolence of his instructions. PHENOMENA. Efforts made to measure the Sun's light Its illuminating power and intrinsic brilliancy Comparisons made by Bouguer and Wollaston Other and superior comparisons The brightest artificial light as a dark spot on the bosom of the Sun Percentage of the Sun's light absorbed by the atmosphere The Sun compared with the fixed stars, the planets, and the moon Infinitely transcends all Page 291 TEACHINGS. So the Sun of Righteousness is infinitely superior to all other teachers Ancient sages Teachings and errors of Menu Of Confucius Of Zoro- asterOf Pythagoras Of Socrates Of Plato Of Aristotle Of Epicurus Of Zeno and the Stoics Increased light has exposed gross errors in all these Light of the present day demands not the change of a term in the teachings of Christ His gospel contains riches of wisdom and truth found nowhere else Solves the mystery of life Meets the deepest cravings of the soul Like the Sun, He stands without a compeer Page 295 ANALOGY XIII. As the Sun's light is reflected from the ten thousand objects upon which it falls in so many systems of ether waves, which, though simultaneous in their outward flow, yet neither obliterate nor confuse one another so the gracious light of the Sun oj Righteousness, falling upon ten thousand souls, is reflected in so many prayers, which, though simultaneous in their ascent, yet neither drown, nor con- found one another. PHENOMENA. Ether waves Water waves described Two or more water waves co-existent Airwaves created by a whole orchestra remain distinct So ether waves from a thousand centres neither obliterate nor confound one another Here are marvels of creation To whom to be ascribed Page 317 22 CONTENTS. TEACHINGS. The parallel lesson Luminiferous ether a type of the Omnipresent Spirit All are afloat in his boundless sensorium Observant of every tear Sensi- tive to every sigh of devotion The Te Deum of the multitude drown not the cry of the solitary penitent The prayers of the monarch precede not the petitions of the slave No respect of persons Rich unto all that call upon him Page 322 ANALOGY XIV. As the Sun of nature darts down his beams, messengers of light, with amazing speed, to illumine and cherish the living tenants of the earth so the Sun of Righteous- ness sends forth his angels, with like speed, to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. PHENOMENA. The speed of sound long known Speed of light a modern dis- covery Discovered by means of Jupiter and its satellites These a beautiful system Have led to the solution of many problems The calculated and actual times of the satellites' eclipses compared By this Rsemer determined the velocity of light His calculation corroborated Illustrations of this velocity The Sun in constant communication with the whole system Page 326 TEACHINGS. So the Sun of Righteousness with his whole church His messen- gers, angels Angelic visits in Bible times Still minister to his people This in harmony with the economy of grace " Wings " emblems of speed Gabriel com- manded to visit Daniel Rapidity of his flight Paul comforted by an angel in the storm The globe's progressive and rotary motions no difficulties Angels may be messengers also toother planets Physical forces have no power over them Saints to be as or equal to the angels Like them, may visit other worlds Page 330 ANALOGY XV. As the light of the Sun, while it reveals all else, remains itself invisible so the Holy Spirit of the Sun of Righteousness, while he reveals all things pertaining to life and godliness, himself cannot be seen or apprehended by any of our senses. PHENOMENA. That light is visible, an erroneous impression Sunbeam in a dark room Lamp in a foggy night Light-waves become visible only by reflection Illustration from a windmill Proof from the progressive motion of the moon From the planets Placed in interstellar space, we should be in utter darkness Light reveals all things, but is itself invisible Page 338 TEACHINGS. A help to apprehend the agency of the Holy Spirit Bodily sense incapable of discerning spiritual existence The Spirit invisible, but reveals all Imparts correct views of the truth Of the law of God Of man's character Of the Saviour and his offices Exhibits all things in anew light Himself cannot be seen, or heard, or felt Remains a glorious mystery Page 342 ANALOGY XVI. As the light of the Sun of nature, falling upon defective organs of vision, is obstructed and fails to confer its full advantages so the light of the Sun of Righteousness, falling upon perverse minds, is opposed and fails to impart the fulness of its blessings. PHENOMENA AND TEACHINGS. The eye subject to many diseases and injuries CONTENTS. 23 So is the mental eye Comparison of the Great Teacher The sound eye The near-sighted eye The cobwebbed eye The color-blind eye The jaundiced eye The cataract eye Ephphatha '. Page 347 ANALOGY XVII. As the Sun of nature, in passing through the obscuration of an eclipse, discloses phys- ical wonders, which else would have remained invisible so the Sun, of Right- eousness, in passing through the darkness of the tomb, reveals Divine glories, which otherwise would have remained unknown. PHENOMENA. Eclipses of frequent occurrence Partial, annular and total eclipses defined Total eclipses awe-inspiring sights Baily's beads The corona described The prominences, sierras and flames observed on the sun Those of 1842 described Those of 1851, as observed by Prof. Airy The phenomena of the eclipse of 1860 Those of 1868 and 1869, and their extraordinary aspects Stupendous height of flames Rapid and surprising changes The most marvellous ever witnessed de- pcribed by Prof. Young General conclusions of Secchi andLockyer All unknown but for eclipses Page 360 TEACHINGS. Symbols of a grander event The mysterious eclipse of the tomb Came to pass according to a determinate plan The dread and ominous darkness The revelations made in the Sun of Righteousness The glories of his love break forth The grandeur of his atonement displayed The seal of the resurrection and the title-deed to eternal life exhibited to angels and men The tomb of nature illumi- nated by the tomb of Christ Page 378 ANALOGY XVIII. As the Sun of nature, after having been eclipsed, continues to sJied its light as before upon the dark and desolate orb of the moon that had invaded its glories so the Sun of Righteousness, after his ec/i])se in the darkness of the tomb, ceased not to pour his gracious light on the ungrateful race that had crucified and slain him. PHENOMENA. Superstitious ideas of eclipses Regarded as miraculous occur- rences A battle of the Medes and Persians arrested by an eclipse Xerxes antl Pericles alarmed by an eclipse Hindoo notions of an eclipse Scene at Tripoli during a total eclipse A correct understanding saves from groundless fears The intrinsic brilliancy of the Sun not affected by an eclipse The darkness at the cruci- fixion not a natural eclipse Eclipse of the moon on that evening A prophecy thereby fulfilled Page 383 TEACHINGS. The parallel Eclipse of the tomb w.rought no change in Christ The love and purpose of his heart still the same Still loved and pitied his enemies "Beginning at Jerusalem" Loved and pitied our ungrateful race "(Jo preach the gospel to every creature "His love unquenchable Page 390 24 CONTENTS. PART THIRD. THE SUN AS THE SOURCE OF HEAT. ANALOGY I. As the Solar Orb is the fountain from whence the whole system of nature derives its vivifying heat so Christ the Sun of Righteousness is the source from whence the whole system of revealed religion derives its spiritual vitality. PHENOMENA. As the light, so the heat of the Sun, full of instruction The earth's heat all derived from the Sun Our world once a molten globe Illuminat- ing and heating rays combined in the sunbeam The power of invisible rays brought to a focus Burning glasses fusing metals Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse Herschel's calculation of the total solar heat falling on the earth Pouillet's esti- mate of the same TyndalPs illustration of the amount of heat required to evapo- rate water This applied to rivers, glaciers and polar snows The Sun the life of our world Page 394 TEACHINGS. What the Sun is to nature, Christ is to the Bible, to religion Christ the life of its doctrines Of its ordinances Of its graces Of its duties Of its happiness Religion without Christ can have no existence Page 401 ANALOGY II. At the origination and permanence of the Sun's heat, for the benefit of the planetary system, are inexplicable to human science so the incentive and perpetuity of the love of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, for the race of man, are past all human understanding. PHENOMENA. The total amount of heat thrown out by the solar globe Its intrinsic heat Computation of this made by Pouillet, Ilerschel, and Tyndall How originated this great heat? Plausible hypothesis How has the solar heat been sustained and perpetuated ? Several answers proposed The cooling theory The combustion theory The contraction theory The friction theory The meteoric theoryCalculations respecting the fall and concussion of the planets The theory of electric excitation The subject baffling to all science Solar conditions widely different from terrestrial The problem unsolved Page 404 TEACHINGS. Type of a greater mystery in the Sun of Righteousness The love of Christ without beginning or end His foresight of the world's history His anticipation of man's redemption Forsakes heaven and the bosom of the Father- Assumes the nature of man Chooses a condition of poverty Endures the ingrati- tude, injustice, and cruelty of sinners Dies upon the cross Mystery of mysteries What awakened and sustained this amazing love? The eternal and boundless benignity of his nature God is love Page 4i9 ANALOGY III. As the Su^s warm beams are the origin of all material energy and motion on the face of the earth so the Sun of Righteousness is the origin of all spiritual life and activity in the world of mankind. PHENOMENA The centennial exhibition Machinery Hall The Corliss engine the one moving power of all So the Sun of all terrestrial machinery --The Sun CONTENTS. 25 the power that produces every breeze, and wind, and tempest in the atmosphere That creates every current and commotion in the ocean That perpetuates the flow of every river, and spring, and fountain That clothes every plain with verdure and every field with corn That imparts strength and activity to every beast and bird That drives every mill, and furnace, and factory That feeds, and clothes, and comforts man And this, not as the efficient but instrumental cause The solar and every other energy ultimately derived from the will-power of the Al- mighty Page 426 TEACHINGS. So the Sun of Righteousness is the origin of all motion and energy in the world of mind Apart from Christ all are dead He is the life and power of the renewed soul The life and power of the church The effective energy for all moral good From him flows the river of life Page 434 ANALOGY IV. As the Sun's warm rays, though adapted and designed to minister to the 'welfare of the whole living world, yet sometimes creates storms and whirlwinds that spread destruction far and wide; so the divine teachings of the Sun of Right- eousness, though designed and Jilted to promote and secure the best interests of the whole hum-in race, yet sometimes excite hatred and persecution that spread and devastate whole kingdoms. PHENOMENA. The Sun, though a universal benefactor, yet creates storms Ve- locity and force of winds The great storm of 1703, in England Whirlwinds, how produced Tornadoes in the United States Hurricanes in the West Indies Hurri- canes in Indi.i Simoons in Northern Africa Fate of the army of Cambyses Of Alexander Simoon in Southern Palestine described Such storms not altogether evil in their effects The deliverance wrought for Grenada by a tornado The pestilence swept from England by a tempest Sanitary effects of hurricanes in South America Partial evil, general good Page 437 TEACHINGS. Similar results in the moral world Christ the friend of universal humanity His doctrines and precepts all true and good- -Designed to restore the reign of Love Enmity of the carnal mind Persecution of himself and apostles by the Jews Heathen incentives to persecution Nero's persecution His successors follow his example Millions perish Persecutions of the Church of Rome Massa- cres in France Martyrdoms in England Bloodshed in Ireland Christianity the occasion, not the cause Good brought out of evil Shining examples of faith, for- titude, and devotion Page 450 ANALOGY V. As the Sun of nature, by the simple power of his warm benms, overcomes nil the rigor and rciiist.'ince of winter, to clothe the earth with the verdure and fruits of sum- mer; so the Sun of Righteousness, by the gentle power of his lore, is to overcome all the hntred and opposition of enemies, and overspread the world with the saving truth- and peaceable fruits of his Gospel. PHENOMENA. Voyagers in a balloon or in a ship's cabin unconscious of motion So we are unconscious of the earth's motion The earth further from the Sun in summer than in winter Revolution of the seasons explained Dreariness of win- ter Return of summer as an enchanting miracle Page 464 26 CONTENTS. TEACHINGS. A greater miracle to be wrought in the moral world The change incredible to an inhabitant of a sinless world A new element of power introduced by the cross What this has done, a pledge of what it will accomplish Its power irresistible Sure promises of its final triumph Page 468 ANALOGY VI. As the Sun of nature, by its warm beams, draws upward the vapors from the sea and land, to be condensed and presently returned in refreshing showers on the heated plains and thirsty fields; so the Sun of Righteousness, warming the hearts of his people, draws Jorth their prayers and supplications, to return, in due time, in gracious effusions upon their own &ouls and upon those of others. PHENOMENA. Rain the product of marvellous contrivances Evaporation: con- ditions necessary for it Requires the expenditure of stupendous power Conden- sation, how effected Vapors broken up into distinct clouds Beauty and benefit of this arrangement Transportation of the clouds How made to release their watery contents These discharged in gentle showers The advantages of this method Page 473 TEACHINGS. Beautiful imagery of Divine Grace Prayers drawn forth under the influence of the Sun of Righteousness All true prayer assured of an answer Grace bestowed in proportion to the prayer offered Instances in Bible characters and modern reformers Revivals preceded by much prayer Examples from Scrip- ture history and modern times Without prayer, the church as the earth without rain Page 479 ANALOGY VII. As the warm rays of the Sun, while they are stimulating and strengthening the plants and flowers of the field through the hours of the day, are, at the same time preparing the dews that are to refresh them through the watches of the night ; so the Holy Spirit of the Sun of Righteousness, while he is quickening and instruct- ing his people in their brighter days, is at the same time fostering the graces that are to cheer and sustain them, in the darker seasons of age and adversity. PHENOMENA. Dew-drops, when formed Notions of the Alchymists How dew is formed Radiation of heat This dependent on both color and contexture Each species of plant has its own peculiar power of radiation Green the prevailing color, its advantages When dew is most and least copious Dew on Hermon Wisdom and beneficence of the Divine arrangements Page 46 TEACHINGS. Dews of grace Admirable provisions Piety a growth in the heart How nourished and promoted Faith, love, and hope daily strengthened These sustain and comfort when night comes on, and the world fades from view Page 492 ANALOGY VIII. As the frees, plants, and flowers that have their home more directly under the Sun's r' obstacles Instantaneous in its action Implies both creation and annihilation Examples and illustrations of this Theory of Le Sage and Thomson Its futility None other than the will power of the Almighty Page 589 TEACHINGS. Instructive mystery Love of Christ, like gravitation, instan- taneous Ever present Exercised impartially Cannot be intercepted or impeded Not divided by numbers Not enfeebled by time Mystery no greater objection to religion than to science Must become as little children Page 595 ANALOGY III. As, in obedience to the law of gravitation, the nearer a planet's orbit is to the Sun the swifter its motion around him; so, in virtue of the law of love, the nearer the Christian's path to the Sun of Righteousness, the greater the speed and delight with which he runs in it. PHENOMENA. Early views of the celestial motions Those of Pythagoras and Aristarchus Theory of Ptolemy Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo establish the true theory The theory of Vortices Newton's demonstration of the planetary motions These illustrated by means of a cannon ball Exact balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces The original impulse must be right both in degree and direction Velocity per second of the planets Law of velocities The nearer the Sun, the greater the speed Page GOO TEACHINGS. The mechanism of the system proclaims its Author Its distances and velocities typical of those in the spiritual system Some Christians like the remoter planets Some like the middle planets And some like the inner planets While those departed are as translated to new and still nearer orbits The nearer to Christ the greater our safety as well as activity The peril of yielding to opposing attraction The path of the erratic planet a solemn warning Page G09 ANALOGY IV. As the Sun of nature guides and controls his planetary family, not by pressure or conflict, but l)\j the subtle influence of his gravity ; so the Sun of Righteousness leads a7id governs his human family, not by force or constraint, but by the attracting influence of his truth and love. PHENOMENA. Man the inventor of many things But borrows his materials Takes advantage of forces already in operation God the author of these as well as of their combinations He borrows nothing The celestial machinery wholly different from man's contrivances Here are no material bonds or connections All are impelled and guided by invisible power Page G14 TEACHINGS. So in the spiritual system Here the only power is that of truth and love No constraint or force employed Man free to choose or reject Every man conscious of this Necessary to religion and accountability The gospel assumes it Appeals to reason and conscience only Man answerable for his belief Free in accepting and embracing Christ Office of the Holy Spirit Man free from first to last Page C17 CONTENTS. 31 ANALOGY V. As the force of gravitation, which, rules in the system of nature, is so evenly and finely balanced, that any change in the. -mass or distance of one of the planets would be felt at the centre of the Sun; so the love, which reigns in the spiritual system, is so delicate and infallible, that whatever affects the condition or interest of one member is felt at the heart of the Sun of Righteousness. PHENOMENA. Newton's agitation on the discovery of the law of gravitation The momentous conclusions to which the discovery immediately led Weight of the earth determined Process of weighing the planets Volume, mass and density of the planets The attraction of the Sun and each planet mutual Any increase or decrease in the mass or distance of a planet productive of a corresponding change in its attraction Every change in the system therefore felt at the centre of the Sun Page 623 TEACHINGS. The same true of the Sun of Eighteousness His heart alive to all that affects his people His relation to and union with them Makes their joys and sorrows his joys and sorrows Will reward their benefactors and punish their enemies Page 628 ANALOGY VI. As a planet, though drawn by the attraction of other planets to this or that side of its true orbit, will yet be slowly but surely brought back to it by the more powerful gravitation of the Sun; so the Christian, though drawn by the influence of other men to this or that side of the straight and narrow path, will surely in time be restored to it by the superior attraction of the Sun of Righteousness. PHENOMENA. The mutual perturbation of the planets The most difficult of astronomical problems Perturbations of orbits, and their periods Variations of their inclinations, and their periods Variations of eccentricities, and their periods Apprehension awakened by the discovery of these The alarm vain, as all had been foreseen and provided for Proved to be self correcting A mathematical demonstration of omniscient and designing Intelligence Page 632 TEACHINGS. Every force, law and motion has its lesson Those now presented luminous with the gospel The system of grace, like that of nature, perfect and unfailing Every position and relation of the Christian, like those of the planet, foreseen and provided for The soul's safety dependent on the attraction of the Sun of Pvighteousness, not its own May deviate, but will be restored "Not one faileth" Complete corrective provisions possible in the spiritual universe, as in the material The cycles of these, like those, may be "ages of ages" The end glorious Page 639 ANALOGY VII. As the Sun, by his all-pervading gravitation, brings forward all tlte globes of the system to every position and point in their circuits, at the exact, and predicted moment; so the Sun of Righteousness, by his all-embracing providence, brings forward every event relating to his church and the world at the precise time afore appointed. PHENOMENA. The action of gravitation perfect Subject to no decay or varia- tion Proof of this from solar and lunar eclipses From the orbital revolutions of the planets From the transits of Mercury and Venus From the return of comets The comet of 1680 Halley's comet Other comets of long periods The intellect- ual achievements of man evidences of his immortality Page 646 32 CONTENTS. TEACHINGS. Providence a parallel to gravitation Prediction fulfilled a con- clusive evidence in science and scripture Prediction of the deluge, and its fulfil- ment Concerning the division of the earth among the sons of Noah Concerning the bondage in Egypt Concerning the sons of Jacob Concerning the defection and consequent calamities of the Jewish nation Concerning the destruction of Nineveh, Babylon, and Tyre Concerning the four great empires Concerning the advent and crucifixion of the Messiah Providence, like gravitation, unremitting and infallible over all Page 653 ANALOGY VIII. As the Sun's gravitation, light, heat, and actinism, having in their outward flow bathed our globe on every side with their vital influences, sweep onward still, in undiminished fulness, to do the same for other globes that roll beyond ; so the incarnation, ministry, and atonement of the Sun of Righteousness, while prof er ing an ample and suitable provision for all the wants and woes of sinful humanity, may in all their plentitude of grace, pass on to benefit and to bless the populations of other worlds. PHENOMENA. The Sun the common and equal benefactor of a family of worlds Performs the same offices for the other planets as for our own Hence those planets, like our own, may be the abodes of intelligences The analogies x that support this supposition stated Confirmations from Scripture Jehovah's empire Page (168 TEACHINGS. The spiritual parallel The "healing beams" reaching other worlds Much known of the Sun of Righteousness before A new attribute re- vealed in the work of redemption The fall of man known to angels The destruc- tion of the race expected Manifestation of pity and grace a transporting revelation Interested observers of every step in the Saviour's life Ministered to him from the cradle to the grave Their triumph when all was finished Tidings carried to all intelligences- Reports of angels and disembodied souls The earth the Calvary of the universe Glimpses of the glorious and final results Page 674 ANALOGY IX. As the Sun himself, in obedience to the universal law of gravity, is in motion, and carries with him the whole planetary system along an orbit so vast as to require for its completion a period beyond all human comprehension ; so the Sun of Righteousness, in virtue of his everlasting love, will lead onward his ransomed hosts along a cycle of ages beyond the enumeration of men or of angels. PHENOMENA. Discovery of spots on the Sun Of its axial rotation Its motion through space thence inferred This proved by Herschel and others The star regions through which it is travelling The centre about which it revolves--Its rate of motion and period The germ of this grand truth found in the Scrip- ture Page 680 TEACHINGS. The general assembly of the saints Seen of John The spirit- ual food and drink promised and provided Superior knowledge in the future state New faculties for acquiring knowledge The Redeemer himself their Teacher Crea- tion their field of study Accompanied by angels in visits to other worlds Variety and multiplicity of wonders in each globe Systemsand galaxies innumerable before them Immensity of the universe What progress in knowledge and wisdom made in the course of countless ages Apostrophe to the doubter Greater things already done The soul a magnificent being Parting word to the reader Page 685 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. 'MMEDIATELY upon the fall of our unhappy progenitors, Adam and Eve, and ere yet the gates of the forfeited paradise had closed behind them, the MOST HIGH graciously made known to them that the purpose of his heart concerning them was still a pur- pose of rnercy ; a Vanquisher of the serpent was promised ; in the fullness of time, " the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," and paradise be regained. The character of this coming Deliverer, and the nature of the victory he was to achieve, however, were not fully announced at once, but gradually as men were able to receive the revelation; at first in general promises or prefigu rations, then by types and ceremonies of various kinds, and finally through clearer symbols and more explicit predictions. The objects chosen as types and symbols of the promised Saviour were many and various; some being designed to point out particular features in his character as a Divine Messenger, others to refer to his works of mercy and love, and others still to his sufferings as an atoning sacrifice. Hence some were of a more limited and 3 (33) 34 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. some of a more extended significance than others. They were, moreover, taken from every province of nature, animate and inanimate ; the bleeding Lamb, the falling Manna, the gushing Rock, the Brazen Serpent, the Rose of Sharon, the Lion of Judah, the odoriferous Incense, the fruitful Vine, the morning Star, etc. But of all the Types and Symbols employed in the sacred volume to represent the advent of the Blessed Messiah the most instructive and sublime is The Rising of the Sun upon a world wrapped in darkness. No symbol could be more significant or appropriate than this to prefigure the ap- pearing of him who should come to rescue the benighted and lost, to restore sight to the blind and liberty to the captive, to give to the sorrowing beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; for the Rising Sun is the source of light and life, the hope of the lost in darkness, the guide of the erring, the comfort and the joy of all. Hence the frequent use of this image by the sacred writers. "Unto yon that fear my name," says the prophet Malachi, " shall the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS arise with healing in his wings." Isaiah, who by way of distinction has been styled the Evangelical Prophet, likewise employs the same sub- lime symbol in addressing the church of his day concern- ing the hope of Israel : " The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. Behold the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people ; but the Lord shall ARISE upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee : and the Gentiles shall come to thv LIGHT, and / * kings to the brightness of thy RISING." The same inspired Seer carried forward in the spirit THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. 35 of prophecy, speaks of this event, in another place, as if already accomplished : "Arise, shine ; for thy LIGHT is come, and the glory of the Lord is RISEN upon thee : the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting LIGHT, and thy God thy glory : thy SUN shall no more go down." Thus under the glorious figure of the "Rising Sun" did the prophets proclaim the advent of Messiah ; and under the same image did those hail him whose happi- ness it was to welcome his appearing. The devout Sin^on, coming into the temple at that happy hour, took the Holy Child Jesus up in his arms, and said, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a LIGHT to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." So the Evangelist : "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the LIGHT, that all men through him might believe. He was riot that LIGHT, but was sent to bear witness of that LIGHT. That was the true LIGHT which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." And Christ himself, once and again, in his addresses to the Jews, claims and appropriates this symbol as his own : " I am the LIGHT of the world." Again, " I am come a LIGHT into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness." Again, " Yet a little while is the LIGHT with you ; walk while ye have the LIGHT, lest darkness come upon you." Again, " While ye have the LIGHT, believe in the LIGHT, that ye may be the children of LIGHT." From these and other passages we see what prominence, what pre-eminence, indeed, is given in Scripture to Light, and to the Sun, the great fountain of light, as a Symbol of Christ the Sun of Righteousness. This was the last 36 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. Type chosen by the prophets, and it was the loftiest, for the whole realm of nature could supply them with no higher or sublimer. Of all visible objects the " Sun " is the most worthy emblem of the Great Supreme ; of all events within the reach of human observation the " Ris- ing Sun " is the most adequate representation of the ap- pearing of the Son of God upon the earth ; and of all created properties, those of the Sun, Light and Heat and Attraction, offer the most striking and instructive analogies of the character and offices of Christ, as the Saviour of mankind. And to these analogies the reader's attention is invited in the following pages. PART FIRST. THE SUN AS THE PRIMARY GLOBE. ANALOGY I. As the Sun is the centre, the light and the life of the system of Creation so Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, is the centre, the light and the life of the system of Revelation. PHENOMENA. F all objects in the visible universe there is none whose splendor is so great, whose revolutions- are so grand, and whose benign influences are so widespread and generally appreciated, as the SUN. Every year, every season, every day, this glorious Orb pours down upon the Earth its warm and animating beams, dispelling the shades of night, diffusing joy and gladness among its teeming populations, and ministering in a thousand ways to the well-being of all its sentient and organized exist- ences. The Sun, as all at this day know, is the centre of a vast system of worlds, of which our own is one. This system is composed of eight superior planets, to which belong some twenty satellites or moons, and of more than two hundred inferior planets or asteroids. To all these 38 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. are to be added a great but unknown number of comets. The Earth ranks with the class called superior planets, some of which are smaller than it, and some much larger; and two of them revolve nearer to the Sun, while all the rest move at greater distances from him. Our globe, then; is a member of a Family of "Worlds, having its position in the midst of the household. Now, in a Family, whether we take the term in its scientific, or in its social import, we always expect, and, in fact, always find " family resemblance." And this is true of the planetary family ; here we discover the most striking resemblance among all the members, so far as human observation can reach, in their forms and motions and characters. The points of similarity in these respects are so numerous and striking between the planet we occupy and the rest of the larger planets, that we are naturally and almost irresistibly led to the conclusion that these must have been created to subserve also the same purpose as our own, namely, to be the homes of so many intelli- gent populations. A mere summary of these points of likeness will serve both to prove and illustrate this. To the Earth the Creator has given " two great lights ;" and for the planets he has done the same thing; to all of them he has given the Sun to rule the day, and to several of them moons to rule the night. The Earth perpetually travels round the Sun, and the time occupied in accomplishing a complete circuit constitutes its year : the planets revolve around him in a similar manner, and thus measure out their respective years. The Earth turns round upon itself, thus with each rotation present- ing every part of its circumference to the light and heat of the Sun : the planets are found to do the same, and to enjoy a similar alternation of light and darkness. The Earth revolves in an elliptical orbit, and upon an inclined THE SOLAR SYSTEM. PRIMARY GLOBE. 41 axis; an arrangement which gives it a variety of climates and a regular succession of seasons : the planets revolve in similar orbits, and upon axes similarly in- clined, which secure to them a like difference of climates, and the same agreeable vicissitudes of seasons. The Earth is encompassed by an atmosphere which refracts the light and retains the heat of the Sun : the planets likewise, at least some of them, have their atmospheres, creating for them morning and evening twilight, and producing currents or winds that sweep over their sur- faces. The atmosphere of the Earth is charged more or less with clouds, which often assume every shade of color, change their forms and positions, and send down refresh- ing showers : the atmospheres of the planets also have their shifting clouds of various shades and tints, and which may minister to them, as ours to us, all the bloom and luxuriance of vegetation. The cloudy vapors of the Earth around its poles in winter condense and fall in the form of snow : a similar fleecy mantle has been observed to cover the polar regions of one of the planets, at least, during winter, and to vanish on the return of summer. The surface of the Earth is made up of land and water ; and the planets which admit of such observations present appearances strongly indicative of the existence of oceans and continents, bays and promontories, similar to our own. The land portion of the Earth is ridged with mountains and scooped with valleys : the surfaces of the planets distinctly exhibit similar inequalities of surface. Various material elements found in the composition of the Earth enter also into the composition of the planets. In short the planets seem to possess all the arrangements which constitute our own a habitable globe. Now who can contemplate all these striking analogies all these close rcsxanblances in so many particulars to the planet 42 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. we inhabit, and not be impressed with the high prob- ability, not to say certainty, that those other planetary orbs, which nightly roll over our heads, must also be .so many spacious worlds; and that like our own, they teem with life and intelligence ! In this magnificent System of Worlds, the Sun occupies the central and supreme position. His first and most important office is to govern them ; in other words, to preserve them in their proper relations of times and dis- tances, retaining every globe in its appointed orbit, and carrying it through its round in its determinate period. This he does by his powerful attraction, operating with undeviating exactness and uniformity ; so that in the perfectly harmonious revolutions and rotations of these heavenly bodies we have what the ancients, by a beautiful figure, termed " the music of the spheres." The Sun's second office is to give light. This re- splendent orb is the grand fountain of illumination to all the planets and satellites of the system ; in themselves none of these possess any light. To his beams our world owes all the light it enjoys, all the diversity of shade and coloring that charm its landscapes, or distinguish its living tenants, or beautify its overspreading vegetation. The third office of the Sun is to give out heat. He is the radiating centre of warmth to the whole system. From him the earth derives the vital heat that con- stitutes it a fit abode for living beings. The warm and illuminating rays of the Sun are the twin stimulants of vital force, and without them life would be impossible upon our planet. Such is the Sun in the great system of creation. How important his functions, how inestimable his benefits ! It would be impossible to describe or even to enumerate all the blessings he daily diffuses over our own plaj^t alone. PRIMARY GLOBE. 43 How he enlightens, warms, fructifies, adorns, blesses ! What a circle of beneficent changes, what enchanting renovations, does he annually effect over the whole face of Nature ! What life and joy does he inspire ! How he fills the air with songs, and field and garden with fruit and fragrance ! How he clothes the wood with foliage, and the meadows with grass ! How he fills the valleys with corn, and makes the little hills rejoice on every side ! How he covers the earth and crowns the year with his goodness ! Worthy emblem, beautiful symbol of the more glorious Sun of Righteous- ness, from whom all spiritual life and light and comfort flow to men ! The world has had many benefactors whose worth was never known till after they had been removed from it. And the inestimable services of the Sun, perhaps, will be better appreciated by contemplating what would follow should his beneficent influences cease, or be withdrawn. Let us, then, for a moment, indulge in such a supposition, as that, on a fixed day, at noon, the light and heat of the Sun should be suddenly extinguished. What would be the consequences of such an appalling event? Nothing less than the immediate extinction of all life and the destruction of all organized existences. This may need a word of explanation to some. There is always in the earth's atmosphere a certain per- centage of moisture, or invisible vapor. This is drawn up and suspended by the heat of the Sun. To this moisture the atmosphere owes its power of confining and cherishing the earth's heat, which is always endeavoring to escape from its surface into space. "Aqueous vapor," says Prof. Tyndall, "is a blanket, more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man. Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapor from the air which 44 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. overspreads this country, and you would assuredly de- stroy every plant capable of being destroyed by a freezing temperature. The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself, unrequited, into space, and the sun would rise upon an island, held fast in the iron grip of frost." * What then would ensue, if, according to our supposi- tion, the heat and light of the Sun should be cut off from the whole globe? All evaporation would immediately cease, and every particle of moisture already in the air would begin to descend. Forty-eight hours, according to Sir John Herschel, would suffice to precipitate every atom of moisture from the air ; -j- which, at first, would fall in deluges of rain, and afterwards in piles of snow; and as a necessary consequence of this precipitation, there would set in an intensity of cold such as the highest peaks of the Himalayas or the bleakest regions of the Arctic never knew a cold that would congeal to their lowest depths all the seas and oceans of the globe ! The prevailing temperature would be more than 200 below zero (Fahr.) a degree of cold which no animal or vegetable could resist or endure for an hour, any more than they could survive so long in a blazing furnace; and our present fair world would be wrapped in horrors ten- fold past those of the poet's vision of Darkness ; I had a dream, which was not all a dream The bright Sun was extinguished, and the stars Did wander darkling in the external space, Ray less and pathless ; and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air ; Morn came and went and came, and brought no day. The world was void, The populous and powerful was a lump, Season less, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless, A lump of death a chaos of hard clay. * Heat as a Mode of Motion, p. 340. f \tmiliar L/'ctnres, p. 48. PRIMARY GLOBE. 45 The abyss was without a surge The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave, The moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished ; Darkness had no need Of aid from thorn she was the universe ! Byron. Such would be the dismal condition of our globe; and, in the event supposed, all the other globes of the system, doubtless, would be involved in a similar fate. Let us now carry our supposition a step further. All light and heat having been extinguished, the earth, and also the other planets, would still continue as before to circulate in darkness around the blackened sphere of the Sun. Let us then, again, imagine, as before, the sudden and complete extinction of his attraction, or that he is annihilated. What would now result to these dead and dark and frozen globes ? From that moment each planet, the earth like the rest, would forsake its orbit, and fly in a straight course into infinite space, in the direction in which it happened then to be moving ; one would rush toward the West, another toward the East, and a third toward the North or the South ; and all would wander, aimless and lost, through the boundless void of space. The annihilation of the Sun, or of the Sun's attraction, therefore, would be the loosening of the bonds of nature, the scattering of planets and satellites, and the destruction of the entire system. Thus does it appear that the Sun is the ruling and preserving power, and the light and the life of the whole system of Creation. TEACHINGS. Important as the Sun is to the unity, harmony, and wel- fare of the system of Nature, it is not more so than CIIKIST is to the system of Revealed Trntli. In the Holy Scriptures, 46 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. HE is the central and supreme orb, the SUN OF RIGHTEOUS- NESS, from whom all life and light and blessings flow. The Inspired Volume, like the solar system, compre- hends many distinct parts Histories, Laws, Ceremonies, Psalmodies, Prophecies, Biographies, Epistles, Revelations but all these are related, and look toward one common centre. The History of the Bible, beginning with the distant dawn of human existence, from every quarter of its hori- zon, converges toward that state of the world and con- dition of humanity which at last should mark " the ful- ness of time," when the Sun of Righteousness should arise upon a benighted world. The long and varied suc- cession of events recorded the reigns of kings and the ministries of prophets, the rise of dynasties and the dis- solution of empires, the calamities of war and the bless- ings of peace all cluster and lie along the convergent lines of Divine plan and promise that were to meet and issue in that glorious event. With majesty of purpose and stateliness of march we behold Providence bringing forward every event and every agent Egypt, Arabia, Tyre, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome each in the time and connections in which it best served to prepare the way for the introduction and establishment of the kingdom of God's Anointed. Again: The Sacrifices, Types and Ceremonies, which prevail throughout the Scriptures, were designed, and were so constituted, as to point forward to the prom- ised Messiah with a clearness and certainty that were not to be mistaken. The Seed of the woman bruis- ing the serpent's head, the offering of Isaac on Mount Mori ah. the slaying of the Pascal Lamb, the flowing Rock of Iloreb, the Atoning Sacrifices and the Peace Ofierinirs, the Symbolism of the Tabernacle in the PRIMARY GLOBE. 47 wilderness, the lifting up of the Brazen Serpent, the Cities of Refuge in the Promised Land, the Temple with its Altar and Ark and Mercy-Seat, the Morning and Evening Sacrifice, the Annual Feasts and Fasts all these had clear reference to the promised Deliverer, the Lamb of God, the Victim of the Cross. To Him they owed all their significance, and from Him they derived all their value and all their interest. The same is true of the Prophecy of Scripture. Predictions of the Messiah stand forth, prominent and conspicuous, over the whole plain of Inspiration. These were delivered at sundry times and in diverse manners ; but in whatever place or period given, whether eastward in Eden or westward in Egypt, whether amid the noise and turmoil of the city, or in the solitude and silence of the desert; whether under the shadow of the Temple at Jerusalem, or beneath that of Sinai in the wilderness ; each, like the needle to the pole, pointed forward to the coming Messiah, the one great hope and consolation of Israel. The voice heard in the cool of the day among the trees of the garden spake of a coming Seed. The encouragement given to Abraham to forsake his idolatrous kindred was that, from him should descend One in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. Among the benedictions uttered by Jacob on his dying bed was the prophetic promise, " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." In his parting address to Israel, Moses was inspired to say, " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto Him ye shall hearken." The rebuke administered to Balaam for his madness against Israel was by a vision of a " Star coming out of Jacob, and a Sceptre rising out of Israel." The only 48 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. comfort which Job could find in the depths of his suffer- ing and sorrow was the assurance, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." David, likewise, in the full tide of his victories and prosperity, predicts the greater conquests and more glorious kingdom of the Lord's Anointed One: "Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. Twill declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine in- heritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." As time advances, and the great advent draws nearer, the utterances of prophecy become more clear and definite. Isaiah, speaking some three centuries later than David, says, " Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given : and the government shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace : " and in the last twenty- seven chapters of his book, this prophet unrolls a picture of the Messiah of his character, labors, sufferings, death and burial complete in all its parts. Daniel still later, and afar off at the court of Babylon, delivers predictions concerning Christ and the setting up of his kingdom, that seem almost like histories written after the events had taken place. Haggai and Zechariah also speak of his coming after a similar manner. And Malachi, the last of the prophets, says, " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me : and the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in : behold lie shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.'' Thus we find that promises, types, visions, symbols, or predictions of Christ, the Messiah, pervade every book, PRIMARY GLOBE. 49 and permeate the whole substance of the Old Testament Scriptures. And if from the Old we advance to the New Testament, we pass as it were from the orbit of one of the outer planets to that of the innermost, where the efful- gence of the central orb fades every other object out of view. Here we stand in the unveiled presence of the Son of God, whom so many prophets and righteous men de- sired to see, but did not see ; and to hear, but did not hear. In the New Testament, Christ is all in all. The Gos- pels are but the narratives of the life of Christ. TJie Acts is but the history of the apostles of Christ. The Epistles are but instructions addressed to the churches of Christ. All the doctrines of the New Testament are founded on Christ; all its promises proceed from Christ; all the hopes it inspires look to Christ; and all the heaven it reveals is to be with Christ forever. Christ, then, is the central Truth in the Sacred Volume the Divine Orb that illumines its every page, that gives meaning to its every symbol, and life to its every service. Take away Christ from the Bible and it becomes a dark and dead letter. Extinguish the idea of a coming Mes- siah, and the Old Testament is a book without meaning; its every sacrifice is without signification, its every type without import, its every symbol without an object, and its every prediction a sound without meaning. Blot out the atoning sacrifice of the Cross, and the New Testa- ment, likewise, becomes a Gospel without hope; every ordinance is without life, every promise without founda- tion, and every hope built thereon doomed to eternal dis- appointment. Take away Christ, and Him crucified, from tliF Sacred Scriptures, and you take away the Sun from the system, and leave it without a centre to attract, without light to illumine, and without heat to animate, and reduce the whole to darkness, disorder, and meaningless confusion. 50 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. ANALOGY II. As the Sun far surpasses all the other globes in the system "both in magni- tude and splendor so Christ, the Sun of righteousness, infinitely trans- cends all created beings in wisdom, and power, and glory. PHENOMENA. To multitudes of the human race, the Sun is nothing more than a warm and luminous circle of a few inches in diameter, hung in the firmament, like a brilliant lamp, to give them light from day to day to prosecute their need- ful toils. And to many of a higher and better-instructed grade, he is but little more ; they have never made an earnest or serious attempt to enter into the sublime ideas connected with the distance, magnitude, and splendor of this august luminary. They are content to look upon it a and content to regard its daily circuits, as " things of course." Among that inquiring and philosophic people, the An- cient Greeks, there arose at an early day frequent and earnest discussions as to the real size of the Sun. Some maintained that it was exactly as large as it appeared to be. Others held that it was a far larger body in reality than its apparent size seemed to indicate ; Anaxagoras hazarded the opinion that the extent of his disk might be equal to that of all Greece ; for this, however, he was laughed at. Earnest and profound thinkers, regardless of such ridicule, went ere long still further ; and Anaxi- mander had the courage to assert that the Sun was not less than twenty-eight times as large as the earth. Bold and extravagant as such an opinion must have then ap- peared, yet, as we at this day know, it fell infinitely short of the truth. The entire territory of Greece at the dis- tance of the Sun would be absolutely invisible ; and the whole globe of the Earth, if laid upon his disk, would be THE SUN AND PLANETS COMPARED. (51) > PRIMARY GLOBE. 53 but the minutest speck, covering only . M. PRIMARY GLOBE. 67 That situated in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky em- braces an area of 14,000 square miles, while several other extensive fields are found in Michigan and other parts of the Union. Great Britain is likewise richly endowed with deposits of coal. Fields more or less ex- tensive are also found in France, Spain, Belgium and Germany ; in India, China, the East India Islands, Australia and New Zealand ; in Nova Scotia ; in the Isthmus of Panama, Chili and Peru; in many of the Islands of the Pacific; in Greenland and in several of the isles that lie within the Arctic circle. In addition to all these, many deposits doubtless remain yet to be discovered. Thus by the beneficent design of Providence this important article was widely distributed over the face of the whole earth. And now who can estimate the value, or enumerate the benefits of these fields of coal? How many millions of homes to-day are made cheery by its glow ? What aids to human industry does it render? What countless engines and machineries does it drive by day and by night? What grand operations does it carry forward on sea and land ? But for the Sun none of these coal-beds had ever existed. But for the action of the Sun millions of years before he was placed on the earth, man had enjoyed none of these advantages. To the Sun likewise the earth owes its great strata of Rock-salt. These were produced for the most part by the Sun's heat evaporating again and again the shallow but briny seas of the Triassic Period, thus leaving layer upon layer of salt, overspreading the whole extent of their basins, until in process of time thick beds of this very necessary mineral were deposited. In short, the Sun was a prime agent in all the grand processes, mechanical and chemical, which carried forward the world's formation and improvement from its chaotic 68 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. condition to its final state of order, fruitfulness and beauty, when it received man, its destined heir and lord. To- ward this happy consummation the Sun's bright and far- seeing eye, as it were, ever looked forward ; and toward this its mighty energies, untired, ever worked in sea and land and air, till the world was finished, and all pro- nounced " very good." TEACHINGS. Results so important and far-reaching, wrought out in such ways and by such means, as those now described, are interesting and instructive subjects of study when considered simply in their scientific aspect ; as we rise to the contemplation of the designing wisdom and prospec- tive provision, which they plainly exhibit, they become invested with additional and sacred interest; and when we trace the analogy and type, which in them lie, of the infinitely more wonderful and important provisions of grace, they become at once inspirations to highest devo- tion the pre-existent Orb of Day becomes a symbol of the pre-existent Saviour, the preparation made on earth a figure of the plan contrived in heaven, and the whole pre-Adamite history of the globe a grand parable, in which we behold the Sun of Righteousness, from the depths of eternity ', contriving, carrying forward, and accomplish- ing the wondrous scheme of human redemption. The hour that marked the Saviour's birth at Bethle- hem was not the beginning of his existence, but the com- mencement of his manifestation in the flesh. lie was in being, in happy and glorious existence, before he thus assumed our humble nature. He was before all things, and before all created beings. Thus speaks he of him- self: " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from ever- PRIMARY GLOBE. 69 lasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth : while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there : when he set a compass upon the face of the depth : then I was by him, as one brought up with him : and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." Elsewhere he saith, "I came down from heaven" "I am from above" "I had glory with the Father before the world u T as " " I and the Father are one." " In the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And from " the beginning," too, known unto him were all his works, which afterward he should accomplish. The creation of man, and the placing of him in a state of probation, were embraced in his plan before the world was. Nor was his fall unforeseen, together with all its fatal consequences. Accordingly the Scriptures, in diverse places, represent the scheme of man's redemption as occupying the Divine mind before the foundations of the earth were laid. When neither Sun nor moon had yet been created, nor star nor planet had twinkled in the heavens, to his prescient Spirit were clearly visible Eden in its bloom and loveliness, the creature to be made in his own image walking among the trees of the garden, Sinai from whence his Law should be proclaimed, Zion which should be crowned with his Temple, and Calvary which should sustain the mystery of his Cross. " His loving thoughts, from first, on onr salvation ran Ere sin was known, or Adam's dust was fashioned into man." The Apostle Peter, referring to this profound mystery, eaith : " Ye know that ye were redeemed with the pre- 70 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of tJie world, but was manifested in these last times." More striking and emphatic still, if possible, is the statement made in the book of Revelation: " He was slain from the foundation of the world." The sacrifice of the Divine Victim, the Lamb of God, was so deter- mined upon, and so certain, that the deed is here spoken of as having been virtually accomplished before the world began. In the counsel and purpose of the Deity, he was slain from the foundation of the earth. Hence the animal sacrifices offered through the long ages of the old dispen- sation recognized arid represented this great atonement as already made and accepted in God's foreknowledge and eternal purpose. Our blessed Lord himself, in describing the scene of the last judgment, couches the welcome that shall be given to the redeemed in these remarkable words : " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" These are words that plainly imply that their happiness had engaged the Eternal Mind before the world began ; that he purposed it, planned it, secured it, ages before their existence. We plainly see, then, that as the Sun was active, by his light heat and attraction, in preparing the earth to be a suitable and happy abode for man, unnumbered ages before he was called into being so the Sun of Right- eousness, from the depths of eternity, contrived, and in the purpose of his wisdom and love executed, the won- drous scheme of human redemption. The facts and scriptures above adduced go to establish the general truth that, God works, both in the kingdom PRIMARY GLOBE. 71 of Nature and in the kingdom of Grace, according to a Determinate Plan. In the Pre- Adamite history of the globe, through all its vast periods and mighty revolutions, there is an un- veiling more and more, as time advances, of one grand and general plan ; the adjusting of jarring elements into more and more harmonious co-operation ; the carrying out and carrying upward of rudimental forms through various changes of structure and condition toward com- plete and beautiful systems of both plants and animals. The advancement of that plan is steadily pursued through all changes, its unity maintained through all variety, and its harmony through all details. This is the latest con- clusion of science, for this truth it has found written upon the whole face of Nature. Science, true Science, is not a thing of man's invention, but man's deciphering and trans- lating into human language the thoughts of the Creator, which are imprinted upon all his works. Science, said the distinguished Agassiz, "lies not in us, but in Nature, or rather in the Plan whose foundations were laid in the dawn of creation, and the development of which we are laboriously studying; the great divisions under which we arrange the animal kingdom being but headings to the chapters of the great book which we are reading. The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful con- ceptions exhibits not only Mind, it shows also premedi- tation, power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In a word, all these facts, in their natural connection, proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore and love."* ...... Equally certain is it that Plan is pursued in the king- dom of God's providence and grace. "Known unto him are all his works from the beginning." Out of the depths * Essay on Classification, Chap. I., sec. 1 and 32. 72 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. of eternity, he looked forward over all the periods of time, and clearly beheld all that those periods would witness or record, for his hand and counsel would be concerned in them all. The Divine Plan is not only all-embracing, but also, as the Scriptures assure us, well-ordered in all things, and sure. " Not more certainly is the earth per- petually speeding on its destined course through space, and carrying with it all the momentous interests of hu- manity, than the Redeemer's plan, freighted with an eternal weight of glory for the creature, and with a weightier revenue of glory to God, is in constant progress. Never for a moment does it retrograde never pause never linger. Look on it when he will, he beholds it arrived at that stage where, a thousand ages ago, he foresaw it would be ; and look forward to what distant age he will, he beholds it, in anticipation, already there arrived. Hence he is often represented in Scripture as foretasting the happiness arising from the contemplation of this ad- vancement of his plan. To its completion he looks for- ward with joy. The prospect of beholding a ransomed world every heart a channel through which a fulness of delight is constantly streaming from the great Central Source, and every moment enlarging to receive more ; every sin forgiven, every evil remedied, every want sup- plied; the whole reflecting, and replenished with the Di- vine glory this is the consummation of that glory which is set before him."* * Pre- Adamite Earth, pp. 46, 49. PRIMARY GLOBE. 73 ANALOGY IV. As the Sun is an orb of splendor too dazzling for the human eye to behold save through some softening or subduing medium so the Sun of Right- eousness in his absolute Divinity was a Being invested with glories overpowering and consuming, and could be contemplated by mortal man only through the softening veil of human flesh. PHENOMENA. No organ in the human frame is more exquisite in its mechanical parts, or more wonderful in its specific function, than the Eye. No organ combines so many scientific principles in its structure, or presents so many clear evi- dences of Intelligence being concerned in its production, or so loudly proclaims, "The Hand that made me is D* 5> ivine. The eye is an organ made with reference to an element altogether external to itself, whose chief source is millions of leagues distant; and constituted to convey to the mind, impressions of objects in the scenery of earth and sky which are of million forms and shades and distances. By means of this wondrous organ man is enabled, by the act of a single moment, to send an exploring look over the surface of an extended landscape, and to gather into his mind the images of all its diversified objects and features; or to direct an upward glance, and survey the glories of the innumerable worlds which replenish and adorn the infinitude of space. In these sublime achievements, each particular part of the organ, of course, has its particular office to perform, and pre-eminently among them that called the Retina. This is a very delicate nervous membrane, less than the one-hundredth part of an inch in thickness, which lines the whole back part of the interior of the eye-ball, and constitutes the screen on which the lenses. cast the pict- 74 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. ures of the external objects looked upon. The peculiar property of the retina is its sensibility to light, and its special function is the converting of the vibrations of the luminiferous ether, the physical basis of light, into a stimulus to the fibres of the optic nerve, which fibres, when excited, awaken the sensation of light in the brain. The retina, as just stated, is a part of extreme delicacy, and its sensibility, or rather its excitability, is readily ex- hausted. Thus, looking at a very bright light suddenly renders that part of the retina on which the light falls insensible; and on turning the eye from the bright light towards a moderately lighted surface, a dark spot, arising from temporary blindness of the retina in this part, ap- pears in the field of view. If we look for an instant at the sun, or even at an exceedingly strong artificial light, we feel for some seconds afterwards that the eye is parti- ally blinded; it can no longer distinctly perceive surround- ing objects; and if we are so imprudent as to continue the unnatural exposure, its blinding effect lasts for a long time afterwards. The eye, indeed, may even be perma- nently injured by too violent or long continued exposure of this kind. Dr. Watson, in his Lectures on the Principles and Prac- tice of Physic, speaks of a patient, who, unacquainted with the proper method of observing an eclipse of the sun, employed for that purpose a piece of opaque glass with a transparent spot in its centre. Notwithstanding the vivid and painful impression he experienced from the rays that passed through the lucid spot in the glass, he continued to look at the sun till the eclipse was over, using his right eye. He was soon afterwards seized with vertigo, and pain in the right side of the head, and found himself al- most entirely deprived of the sight of the right eye. It is related in T/tc Life of Sir Isaac Newton that, in the PRIMARY GLOBE. 75 prosecution of his celebrated experiments on Light, he suffered intensely in a similar way; he was in fact de- prived of sleep for several days and nights together, and driven even to the verge of distraction. From the same cause an eminent Belgian philosopher became totally and permanently blind; " He saw, till, blasted with excess of light, He closed his eyes in endless night." So dazzling and overpowering is the great orb of day, and so inadequate is the eye of man to gaze upon its un- obscured glories; if he would look upon it with comfort or with safety he must look through some softening or subduing medium. And this is what the experienced astronomer takes care to do in observing and studying this brilliant luminary. He employs a smoked or colored piece of glass, which so mitigates and reduces the intensity of its rays, that he can not only look upon its luminous face without pain or peril, but can even leisurely number and measure its spots, study its faculaa, and contemplate with wonder and delight the planets Venus and Mercury accomplishing their rare transits across its surface. TEACHINGS. As the Sun of Nature, in his naked splendor, is thus an orb of brightness too great for human vision to behold, so the Str.it, of Righteousness in his absolute and eternal Divinity icas a Being invested with glories and majesties altogether overpowering and, consuming to mortal man. When Moses, emboldened perhaps by the extraordinary privileges before accorded him, made the inconsiderate request, "Lord, I beseech thee show me thy glory," he was immediately answered, "Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live." The vision would have been insufferable. The uncreated splendor 76 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. which pertained to the Deity would have whelmed and dissolved a tenant of flesh. The full, unclouded blaze of glory which constituted the shekinah, or visible symbol of his presence, would be more than mortal beings could endure. Even the partial display of this, which was made to Paul on his way to Damascus, struck him down to the earth, and wrapped him in blindness from which he did not recover till after three days. Arid this same apostle, writing many years after to his beloved Timothy, gives utterance to this sublime doxology, " The King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in light whicli no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, no?' can see; to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen." GOD, the uncreated and eternal, illimitable in his im- mensity, unchangeable in nature and character, irresistible in his power, escapeless in his gaze, inconceivable in his mode of existence, indescribable in his essence and majesty and glory to such a Being man, sinful man, could only look up with awe and trembling. The ineffable per- fections of this Almighty and Omniscient Deity, dwelling in the secret place of eternity, must ever have been over- whelming to his timid apprehension. Whatever per- tained to, or proceeded from a Nature so far superior to his own, and so mysterious, must always have been regarded with awe, if not with terror. The Great Supreme, in his purely spiritual existence and absolute Divinity, was unapproachable to the faculties or to the imagination of man. His mental powers were too lowly to apprehend the excellency of his character, and his vision too feeble to contemplate the exceeding glories of his nature. Those in the earlier ages of the world the Magi of Baby- lon, the Priests of Egypt, and the Philosophers of Greece and Rome who attempted to scan the nature of the PRIMARY GLOBE. 77 Deity, as with naked eyes, turned them away, as from the sun, filled with ocular spectra, or false and imaginary impressions, and ascribed to him features of character calculated to inspire equal terror, hatred and disgust. Human intellect could not conceive the Divine perfections. Correct views of God, as of the solar orb, are to be gained only through a softening and subduing medium, that will present him in a light which our feeble vision can bear, and under an aspect that we can understand and ap- preciate. Such a medium Himself hath provided. In infinite condescension and love, and in a way surpassing all thought and investigation, God in the person of his well- beloved Son took upon him our nature, arrayed himself in a human body, that we might thus, through the mild and softening veil of human flesh, behold the excellency and perfection of the Divine character. In Jesus Christ we see God with his overpowering glories veiled God mani- fested in the flesh. "He that hath seen me," he saith, "hath seen the Father also; I and the Father are one." Yes, in Jesus Christ we behold very God under a mild and most amiable aspect, and in a form that we can un- derstand and appreciate, admire and love. So softened and subdued is the character of the Most Highest as seen in Jesus of Nazareth, that the believer of infant years be- holds in it features which he loves and aspires to resemble; and so perfect and attractive is it, that all the saints on earth and all the angels in heaven have their eyes fixed on it in holy and delighted contemplation: "Worthy the Lamb," is their united song, "to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing, for ever and ever." In Jesus Christ mankind see the character of God revealed as no verbal description could portray, as no 78 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. images in the universe could represent, and as no seraph in heaven could set forth. In him the world is blessed with a living, actual, adequate impersonation of the Supreme God. The Divine signature, IMMANUEL, God with us, is legible on every part of his conduct and every feature of his character; nor shall saint or angel ever know aught of the invisible God but as it is brought forth and unveiled in the adorable person of Christ. In Jesus Christ we see the omnipotence of God in ex- ercise, controlling, subjecting, moulding all things to the purposes of his will. In his hands we witness a few little loaves quickly multiply and increase into a sufficiency for thousands. At the sound of his voice the mighty ele- ments of nature in the hour of their wildest uproar at once are hushed, and subside into a great cairn. He calls to the deaf, and their ears are unstopped at the charming sound. He commands, and the eyes of the blind open to receive the blessed light of day. He lays his hand on the sick, and the crimson fever fades at his touch. He speaks to the frenzied demoniac, and anon the evil spirit flees, leaving its victim a happy worshipper at his feet. He calls to the sleeping dead, arid forthwith they awake to life again. Yea, whatsoever works the Father doeth these doeth the Son also. In Jesus Christ we behold the omniscience of God, dis- cerning what transpires in places hidden or remote, speak- ing of the future as if it were present, and reading at pleasure the secrets of every heart. In Jesus Christ we see the heart of God toward the children of men its'compassion, its tenderness, its mercy, its sweetness and its love. In him we see God in an attitude of amazing pity seeking to win back his erring creatures to himself God employing and adopting means inexpressibly wonderful and gracious to rescue and to save PRIMARY GLOBE. 79 them, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to* repentance and live. In Jesus Christ we behold the patience, forbearance and foryivinyness of God. Though often vexed by friends and always persecuted by foes though resisted in his pur- poses of mercy, and basely requited for his deeds of love though his actions were decried, his motives sus- pected, his character maligned, and his spirit miscon- strued though ingratitude, injustice and hatred often pierced his sacred soul -though deserted, betrayed, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, and at last cruelly nailed to a cross yet his forgivingness, patience, meekness, and measureless love never once forsook him, never once were disturbed; through all his trials, through all his sufferings, he remained absolutely unmoved in the deep pity and love of his heart, and in all his gracious purposes con- cerning man and man's salvation. "Father, forgive them," was the prayer with which he died, and the spirit in which this prayer was breathed was the spirit which pervaded his whole life. Thus through the wonderful medium of the Incarnation we can see God, and not be dazzled or consumed see him, not as enthroned above the heavens, but come down within reach of our faculties and of our affections see him, not as in the power and radiance of his glory, but in a meek and lowly form that we can approach, and see, and hear see him, not as he dwells amid the mysteries and solitudes of eternity, but in a condition and in cir- cumstances that we can understand and appreciate see him, not as listening to the praises and homage of angels, but receiving the tears of the penitent and the confessions of the guilty and the prayers of the wretched see him, not as issuing his high behests or showering down his bene- dictions upon the happy populations of a thousand worlds, 80 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. but in infinite pity and love, laboring, suffering, dying, to save rebellious man ! When viewed thus through the soft- ening veil of Christ's humanity, in what a mild and amiable and attractive aspect does the Divine character appear! the character of a Father a Father merciful and gracious and ready to forgive a Father worthy the eternal confidence, admiration and love of all his earthly children ! ANALOGY V. As the Sun arises on a scene enshrouded in nature's darkness so the Sun of Righteousness arose upon a world involved in moral darkness. PHENOMENA. DAY and Night have equally divided the empire of the world from the beginning of time. This perpetual inter- change of light and darkness, as all know, results from the rotation of the earth upon its axis, thus turning every part of its circumference towards the Sun and every part from it, in the course of each revolution. In this daily rotation of our planet we have a striking instance of the perfection of the Creator's works ; the period occupied in its accomplishment is absolutely unde- viating, being 23 h. 56 m. 4.09 sec. Our most distin- guished astronomers Laplace, Arago, Madler and Her- schel have demonstrated that the sidereal day, or the time of the earth's diurnal rotation, has not varied the one-hundredth part of a second in the lapse of the last 3,000 years. If during that period it had slackened or lost but the hundredth part of a second in each revolu- tion, the Day, instead of 24 hours, would now be 27 hours long ; or if it had gained that minute fraction in each revolution, the Day would now be reduced from 24 PRIMARY GLOBE. 81 hours to 21 hours in length. But no such change one way or the other has taken place, consequently no such error as the hundredth part of a second has occurred. The Day is now exactly what it was when Moses went out of Egypt, or Abraham out of Mesopotamia. How marvellous is such a fact ! Man, with all his science and ingenuity, has never succeeded in producing a clock or chronometer that would keep exact time for one year; nor, indeed, has he been able to set in motion a wheel that would perform one revolution with perfect uni- formity. But the unseen hand of the Almighty has turned the vast globe of the Earth on its axis through successive hundreds and thousands of years without the deviation of the minutest fraction of time ! How won- derful in counsel, how excellent in working ! Equally admirable is the adaptation of this alternation of light and darkness to the constitution of all organic existences plants as well as animals. Both require sea- sons of rest to alternate with periods of activity, and the well-being of both depends upon the continuance of this arrangement. The cycle of light and darkness coincides with the cycles of the animal and vegetable constitution. The light quickens to activity, the darkness invites to repose ; and the one no less than the other is universally felt and obeyed. This order of Nature cannot be reversed or disregarded with convenience or impunity. If we seek to sleep in the daytime, the noise and activity about us will disturb our slumbers and render our rest unsatisfactory ; and if we undertake to carry on the labors of the day through the hours of the night, it will be attended with various disadvantages, and in many things with pain or peril. When night draws its sable mantle over the face of nature, it is for the welfare of the laborer to cease his 82 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. toil, and of thj wayfaring man to turn aside and rest till the morrow ; for night is a period of gloom, incertitude and danger. If we adventure to pursue our journey through a strange or foreign country in the night season, it must be not only without interest or pleasure, but at many risks and much inconvenience. Every scene and every object will be involved in dull obscurity ; every turn will be suggestive of danger or serve to awaken apprehension. We may be passing through the midst of the most charm- ing scenery, or close by the most sublime prospect ; but we might as well pass through the monotony of a sandy desert, for we can discern none of their beauties. Our pathway may be lined with flowers and fountains and statues, or may be beset with pits and precipices; but strain our eyes as we may, we can perceive neither the one nor the other. Things that are near wear unreal shapes, and those at a distance are shrouded in greater vagueness still. What, away before us, appear faintly as the walls and turrets of a city, presently turn out to be nothing more than the irregular shades and outlines of a neighboring hill. These objects here, on our right, which seem so like a file of soldiers pressing on their march to intercept our way, on being neared, prove to be nothing more alarming than the nodding tops of a row of trees. Our attention having been altogether engrossed with illusions such as these, we presently discover that we have unconsciously turned aside from the right course and lost our way, and are actually standing on the verge of a soft and trembling quagmire. Beating a hasty retreat from this dismal sit- uation, we make for the higher ground ; but in doing so we are soon brought to a sudden stand : directly before us lies the crouching form of a huge t>east his eyes glare he is ready to spring ! We look we listen we look PRIMARY GLOBE. 83 again ; another breathless moment passes and lo, the frightful figure before us, beneath a gentle flash of light- ning, fades away into a harmless log ! Weary and bewildered, we at length resolve to sit down and wait for the day. It is a mild, serene, midsummer night. The third watch is far advanced. Darkness broods over all around. The winds are whist, and not a sound is to be heard. The sky is clear, bearing scarce a cloudlet. The stars are twinkling in every quarter. Jupiter's placid orb is sinking toward the west; while the Pleiades, just above the horizon, are shedding their sweet influences in the East. Lyra sparkles near the zenith ; Andromeda, as through, a veil, is revealing her modest glories in the South ; and the steady Pointers, from the depths of the North, are looking meekly upward to their lord, the guid- ing Star of the Pole. Beneath this glorious spectacle, these spangled heavens, but all involved in darkness, we sit and wait for the light of coming day. Ere long the faint approach of twilight becomes perceptible ; the dark- ness of the sky begins to soften. Soon the smaller stars one by one fade out of view ; others gently follow ; and presently all the bright orbs of the East melt away ; but the constellations of the West, a while, remain unchanged. Wondrous is the transfiguration that is in process ! Hands unseen seem to be shifting the scenery of the heavens. The magnificence of night is fast dissolving into the glories of the dawn ; the blue of the sky is now turning into the softer gray. The East begins to kindle faint streaks of purple blush along the sky other and deeper blushes follow. Now the whole celestial concave is filling with the morning light, which comes pouring in as one great ocean of radiance. Again flash after flash of pur- ple fire blazes out, shooting far and high above the horizon, 84 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. and turning the dewy drops on flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. A few more seconds, and the everlasting gates of the morning are thrown wide open, and the Sun, the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, begins his course. Light ! glorious light now is come, and the shadows of night are fled away. Now every object appears in its real form, and every scene stands forth arrayed in its true colors. The hills and the valleys unroll their enchanting panorama of field and grove and silvery streams. Every living creature is in motion, and rejoicing as if infused with new life. Music fills the air. The mountains and the hills seem to break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field to clap their hands for joy. TEACHINGS. Such is the night-season, and the situation of man amid its gloom, uncertainties and dangers ; and such the marvellous and enchanting transfiguration which passes over the face of a country enshrouded in darkness when the Sun in his brightness arises upon it. No scene on earth, no spectacle visible to man in the material universe, equals in grandeur and glory the. rising of the Sun. Yet this, all this, is but an emblem of a far more wonderful and glorious event in the spiritual universe the rising of the Sun of Righteousness upon the -world of mankind lying in iniquity and moral darkness. That this would be the moral and religious condition of mankind, or rather their immoral and idolatrous con- dition, at the time of Messiah's advent, had been clearly foretold by the prophet full 700 years before, in this ex- pressive and striking announcement: "Behold darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people." No words could have more correctly described the actual state PEIMARY GLOBE. 87 of the world when the Son of God appeared among men than these employed by Isaiah. Darkness, gross dark- ness, alone could have supplied an adequate figure to set forth the condition to which the race, Jews as well as Gentiles, had sunk at that period. A vast, dark and im- penetrable cloud, composed of ignorance, superstition and idolatrous debasement, had overspread and settled down upon the face of the whole earth, which well-nigh ex- cluded every ray from heaven. The most advanced and highly favored of the nations groped, as the blind for the wall, after the first principles of truth after the true object of worship, the origin of the world, the powers that ruled over it, and the final destiny of the race in- habiting it. Even those few individuals that appeared among them, who were endowed with a superior degree of intellectual power, their sages and philosophers, and who occasionally obtained a glimpse of the true path, were yet unable to proceed in it, but again lost them- selves in the mazes of error and uncertainty, and dis- graced what little they had acquired of sound wisdom by an admixture of the most extravagant and absurd / C opinions. All certain and correct knowledge of the true and liv- ing God of his nature, character and proper worship had vanished from among men; and in his stead, their corrupt imaginations had created "gods many, and lords many," even past all enumeration. "Why add more gods?" exclaims Cicero: "what a multitude of them we have already!" We are informed by Hesiod, Yarro, and other ancient authors, that no less than 30,000 sub- ordinate divinities were comprised within that system of idolatry which prevailed among the Greeks and Romans. They had both celestial and terrestrial deities. They assigned peculiar gods to the fountains, the rivers, the 88 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. hills, the mountains, the lawns, the groves, the sea, and even to hell itself. To cities, fields, houses, families, gates, nuptial chambers, marriages, births, deaths, sepulchres, trees and gardens, they also appropriated distinct and peculiar deities. At Athens, the centre of Greek civiliza- tion and literature, "it was easier," Petronius tells us, "to find a god than a man ;" the city was full of the images, temples and altars of their fictitious divinities. And Rome, as it became the capital of the world, became also the pantheon of the world, and the asylum of deposed and fugitive gods from all nations. The character also of the heathen gods at this period was monstrous, demoralizing, debasing and disgusting to the last degree. Their highest divinities were distinguished for nothing so much as for their vices their cruelty, treachery, murder, lust, and debauchery of every kind. They even set up beasts, birds, and reptiles as objects of worship. "If you go into Egypt," says Lucian, "you will see Jupiter with the face of a ram, Mercury as a fine dog, Pan as a goat ; another god is Ibis, another the Crocodile, and another the Ape. There the shaven priests gravely tell us, that the gods, being afraid of the rebellion of the giants, assumed these shapes." To such gods of superhuman vices, and to such con- temptible divinities, splendid temples were erected, adora- tions paid, costly offerings presented, and rites and ceremonies performed which were subversive of every principle of morality, and degrading to the reason and character of man. The natural effect of such devotion was to lead the worshipper to imitate the example of the gods he adored, and to transform him into the same spirit. Accordingly we find that the state of society, even among the Greeks and Romans, was depraved to the lowest degree. The lives of men of every class, from the highest PKIMARY GLOBE. 89 to the lowest, were consumed in the practice of the most abominable and flagitious vices; even crimes, the horrible turpitude of which was such that it would be defiling the ear of decency but to name them, were openly perpetrated with the greatest impunity. In the writings of Lucian, Juvenal and Persius, we find the most detestable and un- natural affections, and other heinous practices, treated of at large, and with the utmost familiarity, as things of or- dinary and daily occurrence. And if such were the people distinguished beyond all others by the excellence of their laws and the superiority of their attainments in literature arid the arts, what must have been the state of those nations who possessed none of these advantages, but were governed entirely by the impulses and dictates of rude and uncultivated nature? Verily "darkness," as the prophet had foretold, "covered the earth, and gross darkness the people." Leaving now the heathen world, we turn to glance at the condition and character of the Jewish nation at this period. From this people, by reason of the Revelation given them, much might be expected; but we find that they too had sunk into spiritual blindness, and erred ex- ceedingly from the truth. Their very teachers had come to misrepresent in a shocking manner the character, the attributes, the doings, and the nature of the True and Living God. "In the prevailing conceptions of the people, his justice was little else than revenge; his love, parti- ality; his providence, arbitrary interpositions; his revela- tion, a cabalistic secret; and his infinite nature, a huge extension of the caprices and passions of men." His worship, as a consequence, had degenerated among them into dead formalities and bare hypocrisy. There were, indeed, a magnificent temple, an ordained priesthood, a vast and gorgeous ritual; but spiritual worship, the vene- 90 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. 'ration and love of a God of holiness, purity and truth was almost unknown. Gross wickedness was frequently hidden beneath the forms and the name of religion. " The great mass of the Jewish people, at the time of Christ's birth," says Mosheim, "were sunk in the most profound ignor- ance as to divine matters; and the nation, for the most part, devoted to a flagitious and dissolute course of life." The same authority makes this further statement, "It is unquestionable that the religion of the Pharisees was, for the most part, founded in consummate hypocrisy; and that at the bottom they were generally the slaves of every vicious appetite; proud, arrogant and avaricious; consult- ing only the gratification of their lusts, even at the mo- ment of their professing themselves to be engaged in the service of their Maker." Such, in short, were Jews and Gentiles at the period of the Saviour's advent such the ignorance, idolatry and degradation that universally prevailed such the hope- less and forlorn condition into which the whole race had sunk. As the darkness of night advances and envelops the earth, the fair nice of Nature fades from the sight, every object and every scene becomes indistinct, and pre- sently wholly obscured, and all that can cheer the eye or direct the steps vanish ; so the growth of innate depravi- ties, and the accumulation of religious errors, augmenting and darkening from age to age, at length banished the knowledge of God and his truth from the understanding of men, and the love of justice, purity and benevolence from their hearts, till all that was ennobling to the soul, cheering to the heart, supporting to the hopes, or direct- ive to the action, passed away from the minds of man- kind, and left them, like the face of Nature at night, enveloped in gloom and obscurity. Deep spiritual dark- ness, like the pall of death, settled down upon the whole earth. PRIMARY GLOBE. 91 It was at this period of supreme degeneracy and hope- lessness that Eternal Mercy cast an eye of pity upon the abode of man. As the Sun of Nature, heralded by " the bright and morning star," arises upon a region wrapped in obscurity and gloom, so the Sun of Righteousness, heralded by that " bright and shining light," the Baptist, arose upon the world of mankind, shrouded arid buried in the darkness and degradation of this prolonged night. Like the Sun, a Divine and Glorious Orb, he illumined the world with his truth, and revealed all things therein in their true and real character. His bright and benig- nant beams, wherever they fell, dispersed the dank mists of ignorance, chased away the illusions of superstition, and banished the phantom gods with which idolatry had infested sea and land and air. Pouring a flood of light from above upon benighted humanity, he opened up to them views of the One Living and True God, of them- selves, of duty, of happiness and immortality, such as the world had never heard or known before. "The people that had so long satin darkness saw great light; and even to them who had lain in the region and shadow of death light now sprang up." Their night was turned to day; and their intellectual and moral field of view was become bright and inspiring as the landscape in its morning dews. "Old things had passed away; behold all things were become new ;" existence appeared in a new light, life was invested with new interest, and eternity inspired new hopes. 92 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. ANALOGY VI. As the Sun arises upon the world with a flood of health in his warm and lightening beams, so the Sun of Righteousness arose upon mankind, * k with healing in his wings.'" PHENOMENA. THE SUNBEAM this is one of the marvels and high mysteries of creation ! Of all the elements or agencies that play an important part in the material universe it is the most remarkable, and the most potential and far- reaching in its influence. Nothing escapes or eludes its power. Plants, animals, and even minerals own its sway. Over all and through all and for all it extends its ethereal forces. Every motion of air or ocean, every enjoyment of man or beast, every charm of color or golden glow, which overspreads the rolling globe, is directly dependent upon its warm and luminous powers. In a word, the Sun's beams daily descend to the earth laden with the elements of life and health to all that breathe, or move, or grow upon its whole surface. To speak more particularly The Sun arises with heal- ing in his beams to the ATMOSPHERE of the earth. The atmosphere is composed mainly of oxygen and nitrogen, mixed in nearly the proportion of one to four; but with this mixture is invariably associated a small proportion of carbonic acid gas. The latter is poisonous to all air- breathing animals; a few inspirations of it, in a pure or concentrated state, are sufficient to extinguish life ; but the quantity existing in the air only about 1-2, 000th part of its volume is so small that it is productive of no harm. There are, however, numerous causes in con- stant operation that tend to destroy this balance, and produce a noxious excess of carbonic acid. We our- selves unceasingly manufacture this deadly gas. With PRIMARY GLOBE. 93 every inspiration we necessarily draw into the lungs the minute portion of it naturally mixed with the air; but with every expiration we throw out sixty times the quantity taken in ; and the whole amount of carbon thus daily carried off from the lungs of a healthy adult amounts to from nine to twelve ounces. This, at first thought, may appear small and of little consequence; but let these nine or twelve ounces be multiplied by ticelve hundred millions, the number of the earth's inhab- itants, and the product again by the number of days in a year, and the annual amount will be found to be enor- mous. The quantity of this gas produced by the respiration of beasts, birds and all the lower animals, has been esti- mated to amount to more than twice that of the human population of the globe. An amount still more enormous is produced by the decomposition of animal and vege- table matter over the face of the whole earth, and by the combustion of all the oil and coal used for light and fuel every candle, every lamp, every stove, every forge and furnace, sends forth its stream of this poison into the air. Add to all this the vast volumes that issue from hundreds of volcanoes, from earthquake fissures, from mineral springs, and numerous other sources and we have a total production of carbonic acid, which, unless by some means checked or counteracted, would evidently at no distant day so charge the atmosphere with its poi- son as to render it utterly unfit to breathe; so small a proportion of this gas in the air as ten per cent, would be sufficient to bring about universal death. How then is this fatal result avoided ? By what means is the atmosphere preserved in a healthy condition ? Mainly through the influence of the sunbeams. The Sun rouses the vegetation of the whole globe into daily activ- 94 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. ity to take up and dispose of the excess of carbonic acid produced in the ways just named. The leaves of trees, shrubs and plants, together with every blade of grass, bathed in the air as they ever are, under the stimulus of Light, extract from it the chief bulk of the carbon which goes to build up the woody substance of the tree, shrub, or stalk to which they belong. The leaves can perform this function only so long as they are stimulated by the light of the Sun; in the night the process ceases, but in the day-time the leaves and grass blades, like the lungs of animals, are everywhere and constantly at work upon the atmosphere, seizing upon the particles of carbonic acid in it that come in contact with them ; and, while they liberate the oxygen and restore it to the air, they fix the carbon in their own substance. And thus the vast and numerous causes which tend to vitiate the atmosphere, are, through the influence of the Sun upon the vegetation, effectually counteracted, and the balance of the gases and the healthy condition of the air maintained unimpaired. It is therefore literally true that the Sun daily arises with healing in his beams to the atmosphere of the whole world. Again, the Sun arises with light and health in his beams to the VEGETATION of the world. The influence of Light upon vegetable life has been long and success- fully studied by the botanist and the chemist. Their experiments and researches have placed it beyond a doubt, that the rays of the Sun exert the most marked influence on the respiration, the absorption and the exha- lation of plants, and consequently on their general health and growth and fruitfulness. The light and heat of the Sun are essential to every- thing that springs out of the ground. The plant, of what- ewr character, through every stage of its existence, de- PRIMARY GLOBE. 95 rives its health and energies directly from the Sun. It is by his genial warmth that its germ in the buried seed is first quickened into activity. And when its leaflets shoot forth into the air, it is from the Sun's rays that these derive their power to absorb water, carbonic acid and ammonia, and to construct these materials into the woody substances of which the plant consists. And it is still through the influence of the Sun that its growth is carried on to maturity, and finally its flowers to gems of beauty, and its fruit to ripeness and perfection. Deprived of the light of the Sun no tree, or plant, or blade of grass will thrive, and attain its natural perfec- tion. It is true, indeed, that the vegetative process will go on in some sort, and to a limited extent, even in abso- lute darkness; but it will be a sickly process; light is indispensable to the vigor and to the useful and orna- mental properties of plants. When deprived of light, all plants nearly agree in the qualities of their juices; the most pungent then become insipid, the most fragrant inodorous, and the most variegated of a uniform whiteness. To the agency of light, therefore, vegetation owes its taste, its smell, its color, and all its important properties. So necessary is light to the health of plants, that many of them will spontaneously throw open wide their flow- ers, and even exert a limited power of locomotion, bend- ing towards it, in order to catch its vivifying influences. Vegetation, in all its forms, and throughout the world, proclaims its dependence on the great orb of day, and owns that every function of its life is due to his mysteri- ous influences. Every tree that spreads its green leaves to the breeze, every fruit that blushes in the sunshine, and every flower that lends its beauty to the earth the cedar that waves its extended branches on the heights of Lebanon, and the pure white lily that floats on the bosom 96 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. of the lake the climbing lianas of the forest, and the delicate rose of the garden the contorted cactus of the burning plains, and the reindeer lichen of the arc- tic hills the greatest and the humblest of the vegetable creations all, without a dissentient voice, ascribe their life, their health, their beauty to those ethereal forces which daily visit them in the sunbeam. Travel we round the earth, and one sweet note, echoed from plant to plant and breathed from flower to flower, attends our footsteps through every clirne All to the Sun ice owe. The Sun also arises with health in his beams to all the LIVING TENANTS of the world. This is obvious from what has already been stated ; for, in preserving the purity of the air for their respiration, and promoting the growth of vegetation for their sustenance, he most effec- tually promotes their health and their welfare in all respects. But in addition to this, the Sun's warm and luminous beams exert directly a salutary influence upon all animated nature. His light and heat are the essen- tial stimulants of vital force. All living creatures expe- rience these, and attest the benefits they derive from them. The young beasts are animated into gambols beneath his quickening rays ; the birds attune their mu- sic to his praises ; the insects in myriads and millions are on the wing to welcome his return ; and every thing that breathes, or moves, rejoices at his appearance. As he diffuses light, so he diffuses life and health throughout creation ; and without him all nature would droop and languish and die. And the beams of the rising Sun how charged with health and spirits to Man himself. What serenity they diffuse over his soul with what activity they inspire his whole rnind and body. " Delicate and mysterious, indeed," says Professor Johnston, "is the relation which PRIMARY GLOBE. 97 our bodies bear to the passing light. How our feelings, and even our appearance, change with every change of the sky ! When the San shines, the blood flows freely, and the spirits are light and buoyant. When gloorn overspreads the heavens, dulness and sober thoughts possess the mind. The energy is greater, the body is actually stronger, in the bright light of day ; while the health is manifestly promoted, digestion hastened, and the color made to play on the cheek, when the rays of sunshine are allowed freely to sport around us."* On the other hand, "deprivation of the light of the Sun is rap- idly followed by disease of the animal frame, and the destruction of the mental faculties. We have proof of this in the squalor of those whose necessities compel them to labor in places to which the blessings of sun- shine never penetrate, as in our coal mines, where men having everything necessary for health, except light, exhibit a singularly unhealthy appearance. The state of fatuity and wretchedness to which those individuals have been reduced, who have been subjected to years of incarceration in dark dungeons, may be referred to the same deprivation. "]- Long and careful observation in the great cities of Eu- rope has established the conclusion, that the free and constant influences of light are found very favorable to the regular conformation of the human body, and to the vigorous development of the mental faculties. Deform- ity and idiocy are most frequently found, and frightful diseases commit their most terrible ravages, in the ill- lighted habitations of narrow streets and northern expo- sure, where the salutary beams of light seldom, or in but scanty measures, shed their beneficial influence. Chemistry of Common Life, vol. ii., p. 330. Hunt's Poetry of Science, p. 302. 98 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. The due and daily influence of sunlight also contrib- utes much to the recovery of the sick. A well-lighted apartment, and one commanding a southern view, is the most desirable and promising to the feeble invalid. Re- liable statistics prove that, in general, the chances of recovery in the well-lighted wards of hospitals are four to one, as compared to the chances in ill-lighted or dark wards. "Light," says Dr. Chapin Child, "is one of the best and cheapest of Nature's tonics; and unless it be habitually absorbed, neither animal nor vegetable can permanently prosper. Hence this needful medicament, by Divine arrangement, is poured out in daily streams upon the face of the whole earth."* So true is it, and so manifest, that the Sun daily rises with a flood of health in his silvery beams to the Atmo- sphere, to the Vegetation, and to the Living Tenants of the whole world: TEACHINGS. In all this we have a beautiful and instructive analogy to the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in his wings upon the world of mankind. When Jesus, in the fulness of age, came forth from Nazareth to assume publicly the duties of his Divinely appointed office as a Teacher sent from God, it was as the coming out of the San from the chambers of the East to illumine the earth ; and, like that orb, while pouring a flood of light on all around him, he remained himself a wonder and a mystery to all who witnessed his deeds or listened to his words. "They were astonished beyond measure," and retired from his presence exclaiming, "Whence has this man such wisdom!" As the Sun of Nature arises to purify the air we * Benedicite, p. 96. PRIMARY GLOBE. 99 breathe, so the Sun of Righteousness arose to purge the MORAL ATMOSPHERE of the world. The moral atmosphere of Judea, and of the whole earth, at that day, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, had become vitiated to a deplorable degree. Corruption of morals and principles, like poisonous gases, had been augmenting and thicken- ing in it from age to age. Every depraved heart of man, like the smoking lamp idol temples, like stifling furnaces and cruel wars, like the desolating and sulphurous streams of volcanoes had long been sending forth their demoralizing and debasing influences, with scarce an intermission. All had become corrupt and corrupting. Divine worship had ceased to be understood, and human virtues had ceased to be practised. Devotion and love toward God, and rectitude and benevolence toward man, had become empty names. Power had usurped the seat of justice, and vice had assumed the garb of virtue. Friendship had degenerated into a tissue of hypocrisy. And a spirit of selfishness had dried up the springs of all genuine goodness. Such was the infected and deadly atmosphere in which mankind lived and moved and had their being when the Sun of Righteousness arose upon the world. To restore that atmosphere to salubrity, he poured down upon it, as in radiant beams, the lessons of Divine truth and wisdom and love. And to rouse men from their deep and deepen- ing stupor in it, he announced to them the Being and the Presence of the one living and true God acquainted them with the nature of his acceptable 'worship pro- claimed the purity and solemn sanctions of the Divine Law made known the immortality of the soul, and its strict judgment at the last day revealed the glories and felicities of heaven, and uncovered the dread enormous woes of hell exhibited virtue in its native loveliness, IN OF REDLANDS 100 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. and vice in its odious deformity showed the greatness of a meek and humble spirit as compared with that of pride and haughtiness, the superiority of a forgiving mind over that under the dominion of malice and revenge, the dignity of love and beneficence in contrast with ill-will and selfishness. And all this he exemplified and enforced by his own spotless and winning example, his whole life being a beautiful picture of human nature in its sinless purity, simplicity and loveliness. He stood before men the embodiment of all essential goodness; and, as he moved to and fro, as he labored or rested, healing virtue went out of him to the benefit of dying humanity. Nor was this all. As the Sun of Nature stimulates the vegetation of the whole globe into activity to check the increase of the poisonous carbonic acid in the air, not a plant, not a leaf remaining inactive, so the Sun of Righteousness inspired, and still inspires, his every fol- lower, as so many trees and plants of righteousness, to holy activity in counteracting and abating the corruption of the moral atmosphere of the world, not a soul being exempted or excused from bearing his part in the work. And as the plant in eliminating the carbonic acid from the air acquires its appropriate food carbon, and pro- motes its own growth thereby; so likewise the followers of Christ, by their very labors to abate the evils that are in the world and to promote its welfare, add to their own strength and further their own spiritual welfare; the effort to save others is transmuted into an element of life to themselves. Such are the beautiful economies of Nature and of Grace in both, not a ray of light is bestowed in vain ; in both, not an individual is to remain inactive ; in both, not a duty is performed but it brings its recom- pense or reward. These elements of healing, these forces for the purifica- PRIMARY GLOBE. 101 tion of the moral atmosphere, brought in and ordained by Jesus Christ, have never ceased to be operative and effectual for that end. There is riot, and there never has been, a country or region of the world, in which his Gospel has been received, where its power has not been made manifest in the most astonishing changes produced in the moral habits of society, and in the moral atmo- sphere which they breathe. The Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in his wings also for the BODILY MALADIES of men. " He was touched with the feeling of our infirmity." His heart was moved with compassion, and his compassion moved his almighty power for their relief. " Wherever he came," says the devout and eloquent Dr. Harris, "disease and suffering fled from his presence. His path might be traced from place to place in lines of life, and health, and joy. Where he was expected, the public way was thronged with forms of helplessness, disease, and woe. Where he had passed, the restored might be seen making trial of their new-found powers ; listeners formed into groups, to hear the tale of healing ; and the delighted objects of his compassion rehearsing with earnestness what had passed, imitating perhaps his tones, and even trying to convey an idea of his condescending ways. His voice was the first sound which many of them heard ; his name the first word they had pronounced ; his blessed form the first sight they had ever beheld. And often, at the close of a laborious day, when his wearied frame re- quired repose, the children of affliction besieged his retreat, and implored his help. Nor did they implore in vain ; wearied and worn as he was, he pleased not him- self; he went forth, and patiently listened to all their tales of woe, tasted their several complaints, raised each suppliant from the dust, nor left them till he had absorbed 102 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. their sufferings, and healed them all. He went through the land like a current of vital air, an element of life, diffusing health and joy wherever he.appeared." This is his record "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and thev brought unto him O J ./ all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and he healed them." Jesus of Nazareth ! how true of thee the words spoken by the holy prophet, lie shall arise with healing in his wings. Again The Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in his wings for the SIN-SICK SOULS of men. The Race for whose deliverance he came into the world was diseased in soul as well as in body. Sin, like a fatal malady, had affected their whole being. Indeed, the source of their chief misery and danger lay in the dis- orders of the soul ; these were incurable by any earthly remedy, and always tending to a fatal issue. Bodily dis- eases are but as types of the more terrible diseases of the mind. What is lust, but a corroding Leprosy in the system? What \9> jealousy, but a Cancer gnawing within the soul ? What is discontentment, but Dyspepsia, un- suited with food of whatever kind ? What is envy, but a Jaundiced eye, seeing the things of others in a coloring of its own? What is selfishness, but an Ague, cold and cheerless even in the sunshine ? What is pride, but Lunacy feeding on imaginary worth or greatness? What is anger, but a Fever, hot and hurried? What is nra- rice, but a Dropsy still accumulating more and rnorc ? In short, there are as many diseases of the soul as there PRIMARY GLOBE. 105 are of the body ; and there is not, perhaps, a spiritual malady but has its analogue among those that are cor- poreal. Add to all this the fact that sin affects the soul as dis- ease affects the body. In bodily disease, some part or parts of the system do not properly and freely perform their office ; there is always some weakness, some ob- struction or derangement : it is the same with the mala- dies of sin ; the powers and functions of the soul are injured and interrupted the understanding is darkened, the conscience is deadened, the affections are debased, the taste is vitiated, the will is perverted. As disease of the body soon deprives it of its beauty, of its appetite and freedom and strength; so sin deprives the soul of its moral beauty, of its appetite for spiritual food, of its freedom to do the will of God, and of its strength to serve and honor him. And, as disease of the body, unless arrested and cured, tends to its final dissolution; so sin in the soul, unless subdued and extinguished, will inevit- ably issue in its eternal ruin. Such is the infection of sin, and such were the maladies under which our hapless Race labored and suffered when Jesus appeared among men. All were sick, all were alike affected ; there were none whole or well, no, not one. The world was as one vast hospital, with its every ward full of corruption and guilt and misery. All were sinking together under the power and progress of their sad maladies, when the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in his wings upon them all. And, oh what health, what cheer, what hope did his blessed beams bring to dying men ! He arose in the healing power of a Love that took upon himself our griefs, and carried our sorrows that sub- mitted to be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for 106 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. our iniquities that led him to pour out his soul an offer- ing unto God on our behalf, and by his death to make a full and sufficient atonement for the sin of the world ! No balm could ever have been poured into human wounds so healing as this Love of God in Christ; and no cordial administered so reviving to the fainting spirits of men, as this sweet message brought down to earth on his benig- nant beams, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." He arose in the healing power of Divine Truth truth which revealed to men at once their disease and their remedy, their lost estate and their only means of salva- tion truth which was able to make them wise unto life eternal, by opening their eyes to see the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, where the dying might wash and be made whole. He arose in the healing power of the Spirit of Gi*ace. The inestimable gift of the Holy Spirit he obtained and be- stowed upon men, enlightening their minds, subduing the powers of sin, implanting new and holy dispositions, be- getting hunger and thirst after righteousness, elevating their affections, sanctifying all the powers of the soul, and making the entire man a neiv creature. Yes, the Sun of Righteousness arose with abundant and effectual healing in his wings for all the ills and mal- adies of sin. Let the spiritual invalid, whatever be his case, hasten to his light; let him cast his soul beneath his beams, and in the words of the son of Jesse cry, " Heal my soul, for I have sinned," and health shall flow again through all the parts and powers of his being. Once more The Sun of Righteousness arose with heal- ing in his wings for the SOCIAL EVILS under which man- kind suffered. Sin had introduced manifold disorders and PRIMARY GLOBE. 107 evils into the social institutions, 'as well as into the souls and bodies of men, which wrought misery and destruc- tion to unnumbered millions. But the just and humane precepts, the spirit of benevolence and brotherly love, en- joined by Jesus Christ, proved a "mollifying ointment for these wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores" of hu- manity. His Gospel, wherever received, has wrought the most benignant changes in all the relations of life. It has brought another atmosphere into the Family abol- ishing polygamy and capricious divorces, softening pa- rental authority, and raising woman from miserable sub- jection and drudgery to a condition of respect, influence, and happiness in society. It has given another spirit to the State it has abolished cruel laws, mitigated the hor- rors of war, restrained violence and oppression, infused a spirit of justice and humanity into governments and soci- ety, advocated the rights of the poor and suffering, re- moved the fetters of the slave, and stimulated moral reform and progress in every direction. The advent of Christ was the beginning of a new era in the spirit of communities and in the policy of States. When he appeared among men, neither the Jews nor the Gentiles had any certain provision, or any public places for the accommodation of the sick, the poor, the widow or the orphan ; nor was there a single hospital in the whole heathen world. But behold what his gospel hath wrought! Every Christian country abounds with char- itable institutions for all these classes. The flow of be- neficence, proceeding from this Divine source, among Christian nations, and especially in our own happy land, has left no means untried for ameliorating the condition of the sick and the poor; it has provided homes for the aged and the orphan ; it has erected hospitals and dispen- saries for the unfortunate and impoverished; it has fur- 108 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. nished asylums for every grade and class of suffering hu- manity ; it has extended its efforts to the abodes of guilt and crime, and has undertaken to put within the reach even of the prisoner, all the comforts that are compatible with the claims of justice. Christianity has taken the lead, and been the chief author and promoter of all that is good and praiseworthy and enduring in our modern civilization ; and whatever hopes we may entertain for the future progress and ameli- oration of the race, they must still depend on HIM from whose healing beams come down all life, all health, all good to man ANALOGY VII. As the Sun arises for the good of the whole globe of nature so the Sun of Righteousness arose to benefit and to bless the whole world of mankind. PHENOMENA. FEW subjects, if any, are more worthy of study, as few repay the labor of study with richer rewards, than the grand harmonies which subsist between the system of Nature and the kingdom of Grace. To the contempla- tive mind this is a field of sublime interest. Man is ever delighted with the discovery of useful or important truth, and the discoveries made here concerning the wisdom, the munificence, the grace, of the Great Supreme, often flash upon the mind as the smile of sunlight upon the captive in his dark prison. The scenes and changes, witnessed in the world around, when considered in this aspect, not unfrequently open up trains of thought that come in upon the soul with all the freshness of a new revelation. To discern in the general and impartial ordinances of Na- PRIMARY GLOBE. 109 ture a pleasing evidence of the universal and impartial love of God for all his earthly children, never fails to calm and refresh the soul ; and to see in the invariable operation and steady march of physical laws, throughout the world, a clear reflection of the unfaltering hand of Omnipotence, conducting to their destiny all the dwellers upon earth, ever reassures and strengthens our faith. Such is the nature of the subject to which the present analogy invites our contemplation. God governs the material world according to general laws ; and the administration of these laws is the same in all parts, and for all its living inhabitants. He guides its forces, combines and moulds its substances, and brings about its recurring changes, according to the same laws, in all climes., and through all time. The whole globe is subject to the same grand rotations, to the same round of seasons, the same interchange of day and night. The same atmosphere envelops the whole earth, the same ocean-waters overspread it on every side, and the same Sun warms and illumines it from pole to pole. And these great elements of Nature move and operate respec- tively according to the same uniform laws the world over; they have never been known to act differently in one region from what they do in another. Whether we tra- verse the plains, or climb the mountains, or sail upon the seas, we find these laws in undeviating operation. Grav- itation exerts its power according to the same rule; tides rise and fall after the same periodicity ; gases combine in the same proportions; light is reflected and refracted at the same angles ; heat is radiated and the air is con- densed, or rarefied after the same rules; and dew and rain and snow are produced under the same circum- stances and according to the same process whether we stand on this or that side of the globe. The ordinances of Nature are the same to all. THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. In the present chapter, however, we are concerned more especially with the equal and uniform rule of the great " lord of day." TJie Sun shines equally on all jxirts of the earths surface. His beams leave no region, no isle, no spot unvisited. " His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." He illumines equally the sea and the land, the glowing tropics and the icy poles. All countries upon the face of the earth, in respect to time, equally enjoy the light of the Sun, and are equally deprived of the benefit of it; that is, every inhabitant of the globe has the Sun above his horizon for six months in the year, and below his horizon for the same length of time within that period.* The Sun shines with the same light on all parts of the earth. His light is essentially the same in nature and properties in every part of the world. Wherever it falls, the sunbeam carries in its silvery thread the same lumin- ous, and heating, and chemical powers ; analyzed, it ex- hibits the same colors, and in the same order ; polarized, it displays the same phenomena; falling upon polished surfaces, it is reflected at the same angle ; passing into or out of denser or rarer mediums, it is refracted in the same degrees, whether this is done in the torrid, the temperate or the frigid zones. None of its benefits or influences are withheld from any region. The Sun shines for the same ends or purposes upon all parts of the world. Everywhere he bestows all the varied benefits of his light and heat. In pursuing his daily course around the globe, he purifies its atmosphere, stim- *This, though very nearly true, is not accurately so. The sun is about seven days longer in passing through the northern than through the southern signs; that is, from the vernal equinox, the 21st of March, to the autumnal equinox, L'.'kl of Sep- tember, being the summer half-year to the inhabitants of north latitude, is 18(5 days ; the winter half-year is therefore only 179 days. See Keith on the Globrs, p. 43. PRIMARY GLOBE. HI ulates its plants and animates its living tenants over all its broad circumference. In all regions he overspreads the scenery with the charms of shades and colors, and illumines every creature endowed with the power of vision to pursue the appointed means and ends of its existence. In brief, upon every order and every individual, among both plants and animals, he pours the full measure of all his influences, according to their respective wants and natures. Thus the solar orb is one and the same to the whole world. If any portions of the earth receive his light and heat in lesser degrees than others, this difference is owing, not to anything in the Sun, but to the fact that those portions avert their surfaces from him, and thus receive his rays more or less obliquely. The Sun himself is the same to all. The Sun is the common and equal benefactor of all that live or grow upon the face of the globe. What he is to one, he is to all. While he warms and stimulates a particular plant, he never withholds the same benefits from those that grow around it; nor, while he illumines the eyes of one animal, does he ever leave those standing by its side enveloped in darkness these, indeed, may close their eyes and exclude his light. This great luminary is an impartial distributor of his blessings to the whole world's population. None are denied its full benefits none are neglected none are overlooked. It shines with equal brightness upon the evil and the good, the just and the unjust. Its beams flow down alike unstinted and unmodified upon the white man and the black, upon the savage and the civilized. In a word, all the nations and kindreds and tribes of the human family are daily bathed in his luminous and cheer- ing rays. 112 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. TEACHINGS. As the Sun thus arises and shines for the good of the whole globe, arid all that live or grow thereon, so the Sun of Righteousness arose to benefit and to bless the whole world of mankind. He came forth from the Father to be the light and the life of the whole human Race came, that like the shining Orb of Day, He might en- circle the whole earth with light from heaven to guide the weary, wandering children of men back to their Father's house. Like the Laws of Nature, the principles and provisions of Grace through Jesus Christ are general in their char- acter and universal in their application. As with the world of matter, so with the world of mind, one general system of administration is ever pursued by the Great Ruler and Father of all. With Him is no respect of persons. The Son of God assumed our Nature to become the Saviour of the world. There was nothing in his mission, nothing in his character, nothing in his teaching, nothing in his atoning sufferings, of a local, or limited, or tem- porary nature. His mission embraced the world, and was designed to secure privileges and blessings in which all the nations of the earth should partake alike. His great and gracious purpose was not confined to Judea, but rose far above all national, educational, or social influences. He stood forth before the world, not as a Jew, but as a Man, a Brother and a Representative of the race, to fulfil his high and spiritual mission, which embraced not the Jews only, but universal humanity. The Messages of mercy and love which He brought from the Father were messages for the ear of the world. " Whoso hath ears to hear let Jiirn hear : God so loved PRIMARY GLOBE. H3 the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- soever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- lasting life." The Banner of love which he lifted up was a banner for the eye of the world. " Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Not willing that any should perish." The Sacrifice which he offered was in atonement for the sins of the world. " Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. He is the propitia- tion for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." The Instructions of his gospel are instructions for all the inhabitants of the world. "Go ye into all the world and preach the good news to every creature." The doc- trines which he taught, the duties which he enjoined, the ordinances which he instituted, have no peculiarities that fit them only for one place, one people, or one age of the world, but are like the light of the Sun, and the air we breathe, adapted to every period and every people, whether dwellers of Asia in the East, or of America in the West ; whether enlightened by science and polished by learning, or wrapped in the gloom of barbarism and degraded in the brutal habits of savage life. And as his teachings are adapted to all, so they are intended for all ; no one nation can claim a deeper interest than another in the love of the Saviour, or the blessings of salvation. He is the Redeemer of the world. Plainly as all this is taught, and often as it is repeated in the Gospel, human folly and human bigotry have not unfrequently attempted to obscure the blessed truth. Men there have been, in every age, who have undertaken to examine the Divine Message by the torture of their 114 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. logic, and to measure the Ocean of Redeeming Grace with the scanty line of their own reason. Some have essayed to set bounds to the merits of the sacrifice of the Holy One of God, and to make merchandise or a mon- opoly of his salvation. Some would number the Israel of God, and have the gift of eternal life offered only to a determinate few. Others would deny the precious boon to all save such as find it at their hands, or seek it within their narrow pale. the blindness and selfishness of man ! An attempt to enchain and confine the light of the Sun, or to monopolize the vital air by which we live, would have been wise and salutary compared with such a perversion of the right ways of the Most High, such a derogation of the free grace and boundless love of Christ. He arose like the Sun to illumine the whole world with life-giving beams, and whosoever will receive that light shall be made wise unto salvation. He came to encircle the globe with an atmosphere of grace, as real and uni- versal as the elemental air which encompasses sea and land, and whoso chooses to inhale that atmosphere hath eternal life. All human beings have, or may have, an equal interest in Christ; all are, or may be, equally benefited and blessed through his grace. He is the Saviour of all. As the Sun of nature revolves and shines, not for a few select trees, or chosen plants, or favorite flowers, only, but for the vegetation of the whole globe ; as the tiny weed and towering pine, the rush in the marsh and the rose in the garden, the waving wheat and the rustling forest, share alike its genial influences ; as each leaf, each bud, each peeping blade, looks up and claims that Sun as its own Sun ; so every human being, whether Jew or Gentile, whether black or white, learned or ignorant, whether toiling in poverty or rolling in wealth, whether sweltering PRIMARY GLOBE. 115 beneath the line or shivering at the poles, may look up to the Sun of Righteousness, and say, Thou art my Sun ! my Saviour! ANALOGY VIII. As the Solar Orb is an inexhaustible fountain of light and heat to the material world, so the Sun of Righteousness is an inexhaustible fountain of en- lightening and saving grace to the world of mankind. PHENOMENA. CONNECTED with the great Solar Globe are many phe- nomena, many mysteries, which the science of man has labored in vain to understand and explain. Foremost among these are to be named the ceaseless and undi- minished floods of light and heat which proceed from his sphere in every possible direction. How these are pro- duced, and by what means they are perpetuated, are problems which remain unsolved to the present day. But of the fact of their constancy and perpetuity there is no room for doubt. Under Analogy III., we adduced various and abundant evidences to prove that the Sun has been shining upon our globe from its remote and dateless origin; that he warmed the chaotic deep, and drew up its vapors ; that he balanced the clouds and poured out showers over the first emergent reefs ; that he created the storms that swept over the primeval oceans, and the breezes that fanned the earliest continents ; that he fostered the vege- tation, and illumined the living tenants occupying both sea and land, through all the immeasurable periods of geology. And when Man, the last created of living beings, was brought forth, that glorious luminary was 116 THE CELESTIAL SYMBOL. still shining in the fulness of all its genial influences, adorning the chosen garden with all that was pleasant to the sight, and enriching it with all that was delicious to the taste. When, again, the prolonged ages of his degen- erate race had slowly passed away, and the waters of the Deluge had erased the remaining traces of their violence and corruption, the Sun, in all his wonted vigor, poured down his quickening influences to cover the earth once more with grass for the cattle, and with fruits for the service of men. Other centuries roll by, and Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt, to find the Sun', with undiminished powers, ripening the grape and the fig and the date on the hill-sides of Palestine. And when full thirty generations more had been carried away, and the fulness of time had ushered in the promised Messiah, that Sun was still exerting the same energies and producing the same results on those hill-sides, and beautifying the plains with the roses of Sharon, and the valleys with the lilies of the field. And to-day, after shining thus for thousands and mil- lions of years, pouring forth an ocean of light and heat on every side into the depths of infinite space, that Sun is as powerful to illumine and warm the face of Nature as when its descending rays first fell on the forming globe- as effectual to quicken and array plant and tree and flower as when it looked down and smiled on the fresh beauties of the new creation as brilliant to lighten up our skies and reveal the charms of our scenery as it was those of Adam amid the bowers of paradise. His eye is not dimmed with age, neither is his natural strength abated. His floods of light and heat are none the less full for all the centuries and millenniums of profusion he has unceasingly poured forth. His energies, his resources all, remain unexhausted, undiminished. PRIMARY GLOBE. 117 TEACHINGS. In all this the Sun of nature is both a beautiful and a faithful type of the Sun of Righteousness, in whom is found an inexhaustible Fountain of enlightening, renewing and saving grace for the world of mankind. Though, like the Sun of nature, he has been long shining and showering down the riches of his grace upon lost humanity, though multitudes which no man can number have from a