med so
preternatural and irregular to the unscientific eye that we cannot
wonder at the consternation which they have caused. And it must be
confessed that a total obscuration of the sun in the middle of the day
casts such a gloom over the earth that men not usually timid are still
excusable if during the parenthesis they feel a temporary uneasiness,
and are relieved when the ruler of the day emerges from his dark
chamber, apparently rejoicing to renew his race. An eclipse of the
moon, though less awe-inspiring, is nevertheless sufficiently so to
awaken in the superstitious brain fearful forebodings of impending
calamity. Science may demonstrate that there is nothing abnormal in
these occurrences, but to the seeker after signs it wilt be throwing
words away; for, as Lord Kames says, "Superstitious eyes are never
opened by instruction."

We will now produce a number of testimonies to show how these
lunar eclipses have been viewed among the various races of the
earth in ancient and modern times. The Chaldaeans were careful
observers of eclipses, and Berosus believed that when the moon was
obscured she turned to us her dark side. Anaximenes said that her
mouth was stopped. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the
Mathematicians said that she fell into conjunction with the bright
sun. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (born B.C. 499) was the first to
explain the eclipse of the moon as caused by the shadow of the earth
cast by the sun. But he was as one born out of due time. We are all
familiar with the use made by students of unfulfilled prophecy of
every extraordinary occurrence in nature, such as the sudden
appearance of a comet, an earthquake, an eclipse, etc. We know
how mysteriously they interpret those simple passages in the Bible
about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned into blood.
If they were not wilfully blind, such facts as are established by the
following quotations would open their eyes to the errors in their
exegesis. At any rate, they would find their theories anticipated in
nearly every particular by those very heathen whom they are wont
to pity as so benighted and hopelessly lost.

Grimm writes: "One of the most terrible phenomena to heathens
was an _eclipse_ of the sun or moon, which they associated with a
destruction of all things and the end of the world. I may safely
assume that the same superstitious notions and practices attend
eclipses among nations ancient and modern. The Indian belief is that