THE SUN COOLING OFF. 413 



sweep the race from being in a day, the time will come 

 when two men will alone survive of all the human race. 

 Two men will look around upon the ruins of the workman- 

 ship of a mighty people. Two men will gaze upon the 

 tombs of the human family. Two men will stand petrified 

 at the sight of perhaps a hundred thousand corpses pros- 

 trated around them by the dire hardships which every mo- 

 ment threaten to carry them also away. These two men 

 will gaze into each other's faces — wan, thin, hungry, shiv- 

 ering, despairing. Speech will have deserted them. Si- 

 lent, gazing each into eternity — more dead than living — an 

 overpowering emotion — an inspiring hope — and one of 

 them drops by the feet of the sole survivor of God's intel- 

 ligent race. 



Who can say what a tide of reflections will rush for an 

 instant through the soul of the last man ? Who shall list- 

 en to his voice, if he speaks ? On whose ear shall fall the 

 accents of his sorrow, his wonder, or his hope ? Thrice 

 honored, thrice exalted man ! He stands there to testify 

 for all mankind. On him has been devolved the unique 

 duty of uttering the farewell of our race to its ancient and 

 much-loved home. In what words will he say farewell? 



The last man has composed his body to eternal rest. 

 The once fair earth is a cold and desolate corse. Nature's 

 tears are ice ; she weeps no more. The face of the sun is 

 veiled. It is midnight in the highways of the planets. 

 The spirits of heaven mourn at the funeral of Nature. 



Let not the reader be distressed at this picture. The 

 last two men will be neither our children nor our children's 

 children. Our thoughts have been wandering through cy- 

 cles of years. The clock of eternity ticks not seconds, but 

 centuries. We shall not anxiously measure the sun's in- 

 tensity from day to day, nor from year to year, lest we be 

 able to discover his waning strength. The embers of a 



