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MRS. WALTER MAUNDER, ON ASTRONOMICAL 



turned upside-down, and out of its ordinary course, and in 

 accordance with the precedents of Isaiah, Daniel, and St. John, 

 he took the two great lights as representative of all creation. 

 But he forgot that these two great lights have their natural use 

 as well as their use as types; that indeed their typical quality 

 depends on their natural use. JsTow it is the shining of the sun 

 that makes the day, and the shining of the moon is apparent 

 only when the brighter shining of the sun is not there to over- 

 power it ; so that when he says that the sun shall suddenly 

 shine forth in the night, and the moon in the day, he is not 

 expressing, as he desires to do, that the actuality of day and 

 night has been changed, but only that the terms by which these 

 are designated have been altered. 



" Elsewhere also the attempt is marked in IV Ezra to show 

 forth in detail, after this manner, the mind and working of God 

 by exhibiting the details of the working of some symbol or 

 emblem, which God has used through His prophets to declare 

 His will. It is, so to speak, a mechanical method of prophecy, 

 and is not very far removed from mere fortune-telling or 

 divination. 



" Thus both the prophets Isaiah and St. John use the simile 

 of a shower of shooting stars, describing it by the terrestrial 

 analogy of a fig-tree shedding its leaves or untimely fruit. In 

 both cases, the description evidently comes from a man who has 

 actually seen such a star shower, but no cause or theory is given 

 for it ; it is simply given as a picture of how the high and bright 

 ones should be cast down. So too, St. John when he uses the 

 imagery of a fireball, ' Wormwood,' gives no explanation as to 

 what such fireballs are, and whence they come. Not so in 

 iv Ezra. In the xvth chapter, there are many references to a 

 ' terrible star ' which strongly suggest that the author had read 

 Eev. viii, 10. In verses 34-35, he says : 



Behold clouds from the east and from the north unto the south, 

 and they are very horrible to look upon, full of wrath and storm. 

 They shall dash one against another, and shall pour out a plentiful 



storm (Latin, star) upon the earth, even their own star 



(verse 40.) And great clouds and mighty and full of wrath shall be 

 lifted up, and the star, that they may destroy all the earth, and them 

 that dwell therein : and they shall pour out over every high and 

 eminent one a terrible star, fire, and hail, and flying swords, and 

 many waters, that all plains may be full, and all rivers, with the 

 abundance of those waters. 



" The author here is giving expression to the theory, held, 



