wledge.

"Well, if there were no sun, the vapours would not rise to make
clouds. What rain there was already in the sky would come down in
snow or lumps of ice. The earth would grow colder and colder, and
harder and harder, until at last it went sweeping through the air, one
frozen mass, as hard as stone, without a green leaf or a living
creature upon it."

"How dreadful to think of, father!" I said. "That would be frightful."

"Yes, my boy. It is the sun that is the life of the world. Not only
does he make the rain rise to fall on the seeds in the earth, but even
that would be useless, if he did not make them warm as well--and do
something else to them besides which we cannot understand. Farther
down into the earth than any of the rays of light can reach, he sends
other rays we cannot see, which go searching about in it, like long
fingers; and wherever they find and touch a seed, the life that is in
that seed begins to talk to itself, as it were, and straightway begins
to grow. Out of the dark earth he thus brings all the lovely green
things of the spring, and clothes the world with beauty, and sets the
waters running, and the birds singing, and the lambs bleating, and the
children gathering daisies and butter-cups, and the gladness
overflowing in all hearts--very different from what we see now--isn't
it, Ranald?"

"Yes, father; a body can hardly believe, to look at it now, that the
world will ever be like that again."

"But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken
it. He has only drawn away from it a little, for good reasons, one of
which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. If he were
to go, not one breath more could one of us draw. Horses and men, we
should drop down frozen lumps, as hard as stones. Who is the sun's
father, Ranald?"

"He hasn't got a father," I replied, hoping for some answer as to a
riddle.

"Yes, he has, Ranald: I can prove that. You remember whom the apostle
James calls the Father of Lights?"

"Oh yes, of course, father. But doesn't that mean another kind of
lights?"

"Yes. But they couldn't be called lights if they were not like the
sun. All kinds of lights must come from the Father of Lights. Now the
Father of the sun must be like the sun, and, indeed of all material
things, the sun is likest to God. We pray to God to shine upon us and
give us light. If God did not shine into our hearts, they would be
dead lumps of cold. We shouldn't care for