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Show THE CITIES OF THE SUN. A learned Professor has been discussing the possibility and probability of the planet Mars being be-ing inhabited. He decides that if it is, the people must have attributes different from the men of the earth. The weight of his testimony, however, is against the probability of any such people. When science gets into a groove it is as tenacious tena-cious in its hold as is a bulldog and precedents seem to count as much with it as with lawyers and courts. When disputed it calls up Newton, Locks, Herschell and the rest as though that settled" set-tled" it, "In the beginning God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." That light has been extending ever since, but there are people who will not accept it unless it shines under some old formula. for-mula. From the first the theory of science has been that among all the millions of swinging worlds our little earth alone is inhabited. Millions of thinkers have recoiled at such a conclusion, it has seemed such an impeachment of divine intelligence, intelli-gence, but the scientists have clung to the theory and have asked: "How can it be otherwise when the sun is but a rolling ocean of fire, carrying a heat incomprehensible to the human, mind; when Neptune and Saturn and Jupiter are so far away that upon them winter is forever enthroned?" Men have been unable to answer but they, nevertheless, have not been convinced. Well, a new author, George Woo d ward-War d-ner, d-ner, last year brought out a book, "The Cities of the Sun," which, no matter what its fate may be among scientists, brings much comfort to the ordinary or-dinary reader. The author does not believe that the sun is but an orb of consuming fire, or that the earth is a sea of liquid fire surrounded by a thin shell of solid matter on which mortals, with a most uncertain tenure dwell. He does not believe be-lieve that the sun heats the earth with its fires and his reasoning is much more conclusive than the so-called facts of eminent scientists. It is of course circumstantial evidence, but it will convince the average jury. He believes that the sun is the great central magnet of our solar system; that it gathers electricity from the fathomless abysses of ether that fills space: that what it throws off to our earth and the other planets is not heat but electricity which striking our atmosphere a negative nega-tive pole, the light and heat which we enjoy is produced. This ether a little above the earth becomes be-comes four hundred and sixty degrees colder than ice. Now cold is a natural conductor of electricity. The electricity could easily pass through that, but what heat would be necessary to drive through 95,000,000 of miles of such cold as that and still have vitality enough left to warm a world? As we think of it, its impossibility is made clear. His thought is that every particle of matter is a magnet mag-net That tne laws of electric action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, are sufficient to account for all that has been vague and unsatisfactory --. . . . . heretofore, that they are sufficient to heat and light and hold in their spheres the 18,000,000 of suns and 30,000,000 of planets that the telescope reveals. He holds, further, that as the earth is the child of the sun its matter is the same as that of the sun; that, really, the sun is but a vastly greater and more perfected world. He holds that what we see of splendor in the sun is but its corona, an encircling glorious photosphere which corresponds corre-sponds exactly in structure to our Aurora Bore-alis. Bore-alis. The earth can cost off but a little electricity hence its aurora is only seen in the neighborhood of her poles, but the sun-is a perfect sphere, its surplus electricity is limitless, hence its surrounding surround-ing glorious corona. He reasons that this would give to the sun a mildly tropical climate where the perfection of animal and vegetable life would be attained. We think it will be impossible for science to refute the reasoning of the first half of Prof. Ward-ner's Ward-ner's wonderful book. The last half is speculation, but much of it is most winsome reasoning. For instance, the writer assumes that the sun is the heaven to which released souls of the earth gravitate. gravi-tate. He insists that it fills the description given by John, "There is no night there;" "there a day is as a thousand years," and he shows that the New Jerusalem seen by John and measured for him by the angel could easily be a possible fact; that it could not be a fact anywhere else in the Uni-verse Uni-verse except upon our sun, or on one of the fixed stars which are all suns, and that our own or some other sun is the abode of the Infinite. To all disciples dis-ciples of Swendenborg the book will seem like confirmation con-firmation of their faith. Old people will remember that many years ago a clairvoyant named Andrew Jackson Davis made a wonderful sensation by declaring that he had often, when in a trance, seen the souls of men as they left the body borne away on waves of electricity. elec-tricity. This author of the "Cities of the Sun" says that when mortals pass through that phenomenon phe-nomenon called Death, their souls, surrounded by ministering spirits, pass away on waves of electricity. elec-tricity. It is a most fascinating volume and we believe that its theory of the Universe and its great working forces is correct. |