THE SUN 255 



parison with its gigantic si/A* the earth is as noth- 

 ing" 



"Oh, God in heaven!" cried Jules. 



"Yes, my friend, you may well say, 'God in 

 heaven,' for the mind is bewildered at the thought 

 of this inconceivable mass. Say: God in heaven! 

 how great You are, You who out of nothing have 

 created the sun and the earth, and hold them both 

 in the shadow of Your hand ! 



"I have not finished, my dear children. One day, 

 in speaking to you of lightning and thunder, I told 

 you that light moves with excessive rapidity. In 

 fact, to come to us from the sun, to cover the distance 

 that a locomotive at its highest speed would take 

 tlnve hundred years to cover, a ray of light needs 

 only the half of a quarter of an hour, or about eight 

 minutes. Now listen to this. Astronomy teaches 

 us that each star, small as it may appear from here, 

 is itself a sun comparable in size to ours ; it tells us 

 that these suns, of which we with the naked eye can 

 perceive only a very small part, are so numerous 

 that it is impossible to count them; it tells us that 

 their distance is so great that, to come to us from 

 the nearest star, light, which travels so fast, as I 

 have just told you, takes nearly four years ; to reach 

 us from others that are by no means the most distant 

 it takes whole centuries. After that, if you can, 

 e>iimate the distance that separates us from those 

 far-off suns; think also of their number and size. 

 But no, do not try: the intellect is overwhelmed by 

 immensities in which is revealed all the majesty 



