THE ORB OF MIGHT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2471, 24 July 1901, Page 5

THE ORB OF MIGHT.

By a Banker.

Nearly cne-half of its surface shrouded v eternal night, the other half scorched and burnt up by the never-setting mighty ruler of the day, the hot g'are from whose glowing files, luiimpeded by any veiling atmosphere," from age to age unmtermittently flashes down v] on her, our satellite, though so beautiful to us. must yet be an arid, sterile wilderness, \ oicl and dismal, and but a ghastly, lifeless iva^e. For a« no water nijd no air exist upon the 11:0011, neither can the great principle — life — have any being there ; therefore on that parched desert bloom no flowers, nor do forest trees rear their lofty heads, nor herbage clothe the plains and valleys with verdure ; no winds and storms lago amongst those mountain passes, and no thunder-peals reverberate round those inert cratero, u pressed peaks, and great loclty pinnacles. And though on one hemisphere the sun is ever shmmg, yet he has uc outspread rays, and appeal s like a great fiery disc, which hurls forth, a hundred thousand miles into the ether, vast flames of incandescent metallic vapours and burning gases. But notwithstanding that the great luminary is always shining, yet so also are the stars and planets, which are ever visible, 111 all their undnnmecl lustre, even in the burning brightness of those rays ; while this earth, like an enoimous and brilliant giant moon, hangs threateningly above her in the skies. And were it not for the earth-shine, and also for the appreciable light from the multitude of starry and planetary orbs, a shadow cast by a mountain 01 rock would be a pitchy, cimmerian darkness; so that in the perpetual noon-day,- a building constructed like oui own residences would be 111 total obscurity, except in that portion lmmrnediately in the line of the direct aol&r rays. But there are no houses there, for there aie no living creatures, neither, so far as we can ur derstand, could human nor any other Jiving beings, having corporeal frames, ever have existed on that strange dead wilderness of a world. For even if in the days of its prime and vigour it possessed those necessities oi the support of life — air and water — yet the terrific heat and never mitigated glare of the one hemisphere, and the melancholy darkness and appalling cold of the opposite sunless regions — combined, too, with the terrific volcanic disturbances which were continually convulsing and rending it, with a, violence relatively iufinitsly greater than any to -which our earth has been subjected, and which alone must have rendered it almost uninhabitable — wcuifl apparently indicate that the — to vs — fair one! beautiful ruler of the night was not creut°d for habitation , but was formed solely for the use and benefit of msui. For, though dead and lifeless, and s:r;:h,g only by virtue of ligfct no! her own, yet she i.» bin-passingly beauhfai and lovely, whether as a new-born crescent shnvaji softly in the evening twilight, or, full-oibed, flooding the landscape with her lustrous a \d pe l lucid rays, 01 bathing the rippling ccear. m a sparkling adornment of glittering sil^ r. And so with ourselves, De*tJ ir trespass 05 and sins, yet if we are c'olhetl vi the righi> eousnesi of the "Reclfeiner, abovnd m goon works--thcug!i counting their niofits but as nought— and lay all our tran?gr=snor:s upon Him as onr jll-.-wfftcient Sulis>tituts, we, too. -luill felling bughtlv aa the stai<s fot evei and ever 111 the kingdom of nevev-cinlin§ gloiy.