238 : 
find that the four positions of the earth referred to already, are 
evidently important ones. If the shape of the orbit is constant, 
if the localities of these positions are permanent and taken up at 
exactly the same time every year, —then the climatic conditions are 
unchangeable too. One other point however has to be borne in 
mind, viz., the position of the earth’s axis. The axis does not 
stand upright as we might say, if it did there would be no seasons. 
At present it is inclined to the plane of the orbit at an angle of 
about 234 degrees, and it is the inclination of the north pole in the 
direction of the sun that brings on our summer, this, as already 
stated, being the case while the earth is at its greater distance 
from the sun, and travelling round the larger curve ot its orbit. If 
this position of the axis is invariable, then along with the other 
conditions mentioved, we shali have a general permanency of 
climate. But the very title of our subject implies great change of 
climate, and here we enter upon its explanation. Though there 
is stability in the Solar System asa whole, there is everlasting 
change going on among the units that compose it. Rest, there is 
none in the whole Universe of God. The physicist tells tells us 
that in every block of the finest steel, each invisible particle or 
molecule is in constant movement with a rapidity ultra-micro- 
scopic and altogether inconceivable, yet no molecule escapes, and 
the mass of granite and the block of steel preserve their size, 
shape and weight. So the astronomer also teaches us, that suu 
and plant and satellite, meteor and asteroid, are in movement of 
inconceivable swiftness; the sun with all its attendants rushing 
forward through space, whence and whither no one can tell; each 
planet meanwhile whirling round the sun, not in the smooth linear 
orbit we draw in our diagrams, but sometimes outside it, sometimes 
inside, yet always keeping true to its main direction ; rotating on 
its axis, the axis like itself never preserving exactly the same 
direction ; the orbit of the planet, like an elastic ring expanding 
and contracting—now elliptical and now nearly circular, but always 
restrained within certain defined limits ; the equinoxes to which we 
have referred never occurring in the same spot, but they and the 
perihelion travelling round in opposite ways; thus as it has been 
eloquently said, ‘‘ mutation and change are everywhere found; all 
is in motion, orbits expanding or contracting, their planes rocking 
up or down, their perihelia and nodes sweeping round the sun in 
opposite directions, but the limits of all these changes are fixed; 
’ these limits can never be passed, and at the end of a vast period, 
amounting to many millions of years, the entire range of fluctuation 
will have been accomplished, the entire system, planets, orbits, 
inclinations and nodes will have regained their original values and 
places, and the great bell of eternity will have then sounded One.” 
