THE MOON AND LUNAR PHENOMENA. 77 



between him and the resplendence of day and night, through the blindness that attended 

 his declining years. " Beautiful light ! beautiful lamp of heaven ! what marvel that the 

 blinded and benighted heathen should ignorantly worship thee ? What marvel, that a 

 thousand altars, in a thousand ages, should have sent up their fumes of adoration unto 

 thee, the mooned Ashtaroth unto thee, the Ephesian Diana unto thee, the nightly 

 visitant of the young-eyed Endymion ? What marvel, that to those who knew not, 

 neither had they heard of the One, Uncreate, Invisible, Eternal, thou shouldst have 

 seemed meet Deity to whom to bend the knee, thou first-born offspring of his first-created 

 gift ! thou blessed emanation from his own ethereal glory ! What wonder, when I, his 

 humble follower, his ardent though unworthy worshipper when I, an honest though an 

 erring Christian, do strive in vain to wean my heart from love of thee ; indoctrinating 

 my spirit, that I may kiss the rod, with which I am assured, too well, He soon will 

 chasten me, in changing the fair light, that glorious essence in which my soul rejoiceth, 

 for one black, everlasting, self-imparted midnight ? Yet so it shall be. A few more 

 revolutions of these puissant planets, a few more mutations of the sweet returning seasons, 

 and to me there shall be no change again on earth for ever! no choice between the 

 fairest and the foulest ! no difference of night or day ! no charm in the rich gorgeousness of 

 flowery summer, above the sere and mournful autumn ! no cheery aspect in the piled 

 hearth of winter ! no sweet communion with the human eye compassionate ! no inter- 

 course with the great intellects of old dead, but surviving still in their sublime and solid 

 pages ! " 



Upon first becoming visible in the course of a lunation, the moon is seen soon after 

 sunset as a thin crescent in the west with its convex side towards the sun. Gradually 

 the breadth of the crescent increases, the inner curve is changed into a straight line, and 

 she exhibits a complete half circle in the heavens. Afterwards, the line becomes a 

 curvature again, bulging out in a direction opposite to its former inclination, and the 

 moon is said to be gibbous, that is, bunched or convex. The curve turned from the sun 

 continues to strengthen, and the apparent breadth of the moon to increase, until she is a full 

 or circular orb, when a repetition of the same phases in inverse order commences. At 

 length she appears like a fine thread of light in the morning, a little west of the rising 

 sun, and for a few days she is lost to view, being in conjunction with him. The lunar 

 phases clearly prove that the material of the moon is in itself as dull and opaque as the 

 rock we gaze upon in our own world, that she shines by virtue of the reflected light of 

 the sun, a fact recognised in the earliest ages, and apparent from the different appear- 

 ances presented by those parts of her surface which are turned to and from his beams. 

 The earth appears in the diagram as the central body, with the moon in eight different 



parts of her orbit, receiving the light of the sun. 

 The outermost circle exhibits the appearances 

 \ presented to a terrestrial spectator in each station 

 X; of the lunar globe, a crescent, a semicircle, gib- 

 bous, and full. It is evident, therefore, that the 

 satellite is not self-luminous, otherwise she would 

 always appear as a round full orb. After solar 

 phenomena, the lunar phases are the most beauti- 

 ful celestial objects ; and but for their periodical 

 return and frequent observation, they would excite enthusiastic admiration. If for 

 long and indefinite intervals the earth was deserted by its attendant, the renewal of 

 the crescent moon would meet with a marked and general welcome, like that which the 

 inhabitants of polar regions give to the sun, when he appears above their horizon after a 

 five months' absence from it. 



