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Show THE GLORY OF THE SUN. The account in Harper's Weekly, by Mabel Loomis Todd, of the eclipse of the sun as seen from Tripoli, last August, is most graphic. The wind for many days had been blowing from the south and dust from the desert was in the air, but on the great day, August 30th, by 11 a m. the wind had fallen flat and all the flags were stirless. Then came in a breath from the north and the flags waved feebly and fluttered away from the sea. The current from the sea grew stronger and the flags stood stiffly to the north, the sea was tossed into ripples, white caps sported on the glittering waves, and the last particle par-ticle of dust was blown out of the air. Then the house-tops began to be covered with expectant ex-pectant people. Arabs, Fezzini, Bedouins all colors and conditions waited and watched. At the eclipse five years before they had doubted whether the expected event would take place. They did not doubt now. At 1:23 the first contact con-tact came, and as the eclipse progressed, in the open-air cafes men would speak of it, and were answered, "May God be gracious;" then came silence and awe. Then the landscape began to dull under the trance that si es the world in an eclipse. Then a muezzin emerged from the nearest minaret and gave insistant call to prayer. Sky and sea lost color, blue seemed absorbed, leaving patchy nameless tints, enthusiasm vanished, van-ished, everything waited expectant, strangely wavering lines of light and shadow flitted over the white roofs. As the halo of the corona grew softly to its full perfection, an irresistible burst of applause, which was instantly hushed, rolled over the city and out to the silent desert, then the utter stillness of awe succeeded, save the uninterrupted call to prayer. When totality came, the natives stood up, the corona showing gloriously, its petals white with the vivid fire of aeons, its center the black moon-ball, and from the crowds whose hands were raised toward to-ward heaven, and the sun, was repeated, "God is great." "What God willed came to pass." "May God be gracious to His servants;" while from every minaret the calls to prayer continued. The above is an epitome of the description. The work of the scientists and the result of their experiments ex-periments are equally interesting to the scholar. There were brought together the ancient and the modern world. The men of the desert stood and watched as their ancestors had through one hundred hun-dred and fifty generations, only the fear of former ages had given way because the pale races had come and prepared them for the transformation trans-formation that was to come in the sky. But the modern man stood there as the tremendous spectacle went on, intent only in his audacity, to take some hundred photographs, that "combined "com-bined would reveal rery feature of the sun as he sank into a temporary coma. They were trying try-ing to discover what is not known of the composition compo-sition of the great center of life. They believe they will, catch the full secret by and by. When they do, we believe they will confirm the inspiration inspira-tion of Warder, that it is no firey orb upon which an everlasting terrible combustion is going go-ing on, for that would be a waste which infinite wisdom would never plan nor permit, but rather that it is a world as much more beautiful than our planet as it is greater, a place for gods to dwell, and his apparent fiery surface is but his 1 glorified electric photosphere, which from with- t in bathes the great world with perpetual radiance, radi-ance, and from without fills the universe with ' everlasting light. It is the only reasonable hypothesis, hy-pothesis, and we believe that there will be only a few more eclipses until its truth will be confirmed. con-firmed. "And the city had no need of the sun; neither of the moon, to shine on it; for the glory of God did lighten it." |