f this starts up on every side.
There is a recognized tendency in all high-class energy to
deteriorate to a lower class. There is steam in the boiler, but it
wastes without fuel. There is electricity in the jar, but every
particle of air steals away a little, unless our conscious force is
exerted to regather it. There is light in the sun, but infinite
space waits to receive it, and takes it swift as light can leap. We
said that if the sun were pure coal, it would burn out in five
thousand years, but it blazes undimmed by the million. How can it?
There have been various theories: chemical combustion, it has
failed; meteoric impact, it is insufficient; condensation, it is not
proved; and if it were, it is an intermediate step back to the
original cause of condensation. The far-seeing eyes see in the sun
the present active power of Him who first said, "Let there be
light," and who at any moment can meet a Saul in the way to Damascus
with a light above the brightness of the sun--another noon arisen on
mid-day; and of whom it shall be said in the eternal state of
unclouded brightness, where sun and moon are no more, "The glory of
the Lord shall lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

But suppose matter could be dowered, that worlds could have a
gravitation, one of two things must follow: It must have conscious
knowledge of the position, exact weight, and distance of every
atom, mass, and world, in order to proportion the exact amount of
gravity, or it must fill infinity with an omnipresent attractive
power, pulling in myriads of places at nothing; in [Page 255] a few
places at worlds. Every world must exert an infinitely extended
power, but myriads of infinities cannot be in the same space. The
solution is, one infinite power and conscious will.

To see the impossibility of every other solution, join in the long
and microscopic hunt for the ultimate particle, the atom; and if
found, or if not found, to a consideration of its remarkable powers.
Bring telescopes and microscopes, use all strategy, for that atom
is difficult to catch. Make the first search with the microscope:
we can count 112,000 lines ruled on a glass plate inside of an
inch. But we are here looking at mountain ridges and valleys, not
atoms. Gold can be beaten to the 1/340000 of an inch. It can be
drawn as the coating of a wire a thousand times thinner, to the
1/340000000 of an inch. But the atoms are still heaped one upon
another.

Take some of