Robert Ball in which that distinguished astronomer discoursed on recent
solar discoveries. A globe of coal, Sir Robert said, as big as our
earth, and all set ablaze at the same moment, would not give out so much
heat to the worlds around as the sun gives out in a thousandth part of a
second. Well, as I read that, and ere ever I was aware what was going
on, my heart had opened over my newspaper, and the sun had swept down
from the sky, and had rushed into my heart, and before I knew where I was
the cry had escaped my lips, 'Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord
God Almighty! Who shall not fear Thee and glorify thy name?' And then
this reflection as suddenly came to me: How good it is to be at peace
with God, and to be able and willing to say, My Father! That the whole
of the surging and flaming sun was actually down in my straitened and
hampered heart at that idle moment over my paper is scientifically
demonstrable; for only that which is in the heart of a man can kindle the
passions that are in the heart of that man; and nothing is more sure to
me than that the great passions of fear and love, wonder and rapture were
at that moment at a burning point within me. There is a passage well on
in the _Holy War_, which for terror and for horror, and at the same time
for truth and for power, equals anything either in Dante or in Milton.
Lucifer has stood up at the council board to second the scheme of
Beelzebub. 'Yes,' he said, amid the plaudits of his fellow-princes--'Yes,
I swear it. Let us fill Mansoul full with our abundance. Let us make of
this castle, as they vainly call it, a warehouse, as the name is in some
of their cities above. For if we can only get Mansoul to fill herself
full with much goods she is henceforth ours. My peers,' he said, 'you
all know His parable of how unblessed riches choke the word; and, again,
we know what happens when the hearts of men are overcharged with
surfeiting and with drunkenness. Let us give them all that, then, to
their heart's desire.' This advice of Lucifer, our history tells us, was
highly applauded in hell, and ever since it has proved their masterpiece