is clearly
as impossible for any atheist to lay down an undeviating dogma as it was
for the Cretan to truly say that all Cretans were liars! "Broadly, an
unselfish deed is impossible. There never was a human thought that
reached beyond the human body." Let us capture those two atheistic
dogmas and take off their displayed headings.

AWAY BACK ON THE PLAINS OF CHALDAEA,

in the youth of the world, there lived men who watched their flocks by
day and the hosts of heaven by night. Their study of the heavens lifted
them out of themselves, in my belief, and their observations of
celestial phenomena led them to the discovery of the fact that eclipses
of the great heavenly lights happened in a regular rotation of eighteen
years and ten days. This discovery has been very useful in purging the
idolatry from eclipses--as, had it not been for the Chaldaeans, perhaps
the mother of the atheist might have offered him as an oblation in

THE FIRST TOTAL ECLIPSE

after his birth! Again, Proctor and Airy have been for ten years mapping
stars for the use of humanity 25,868 years after the map is done--that
is, that period will furnish the first opportunity for the utilization
of a truly laborious task. There is no glory in it. The difference
between glory and hard work in astronomy is just the difference between
Ptolemy and Hipparchus. The one made a great noise in the world and got
up an atheistic solar system which put science back a thousand years,
while the other stayed on his island and mapped stars to the best of his
ability, rendering possible some of

THE GODLIKE DEDUCTIONS

of Kepler, Halley, and Newton. The affairs of this world are managed in
the light of history. It is technically called precedent. There is yet
no history of astronomy. In the desired actual placing of the present
positions of the stars there would be a record which, 25,868 years
hence, would enable the observer of those times to accurately measure
movements of the earth now beyond mortal ken for lack of history. By
the character of those movements, the force, speed, heat, and

OTHER QUALITIES OF GRAVITATION

might possibly be determined. Now I cannot connect the idea of
selfishness with this view of the aspirations of humanity. Proctor and
Airy absolutely know that they will be forgotten so far out in on-coming
time, but still they drudge away, in the belief that man can only
acquire knowledge of God's works as the coral reef attains continent