light have passed away from the central sun towards the outermost confines of the universe he controls; what is it which replenishes his wasting lamp, and continually restores the powers with which each instant of time he lavishly blesses his satellites? It is true we know not what light is, save that it must necessarily be some form of matter, though that form is as yet imponderable and immeasurable by our scales and scrutinies. Yet, confident in the self-acting machinery of the universe, there must be some means of refilling our great universal lamp, without which man and his dependents could no longer live. We do not jump at the conclusion, but is it impossible that comets, apparently composed of masses of vapoury light or luminous matter, aggregations as it were of the particles of light, should be the very servants of the universe, who re-collect and replenish the ever wasting power which nourishes and sustains it? Is it incredible that they, as slaves of the lamp, should sweep, in their long and mighty parabolas, out to the extreme confines of space; and reabsorbing the light from thence, should carry it back under their own regulated laws to the source from whence it proceeded; it may be with conditions changed, but so changed as to permit of its gleaning and garnering afresh. This is but a theory, it is true; it may never be proved; but nevertheless, until it is demolished by sounder views, until science has clearly lifted the veil of obscurity which now conceals the truth, it will be pleasant to think it not impossible, to say the least, and that least very modestly. It is the one link wanting to complete the balance in the self-renovation of the material of the universe, and it is a stepping-stone on which to rest the weary foot, while groping on and on through the misty darkness towards quenching the thirsty craving soul in the delicious waters of truth and knowledge.
This was my first thought, and then followed a musing upon the sudden manner in which the comet had become visible; and yet for many days past it must have been within mortal view, had it not been hidden by the circumjacent clouds. The veil was lifted, and lo! it shone before our wondering eyes in all its beauty and grandeur! Is this, or may we not think this may be, a type of the sudden coming of the Lord and Master of this universe, who was once received after his mortal humiliation by the clouds of heaven, and is again to come down upon his earthly kingdom encompassed with clouds and great glory? Of that day and that hour no man knoweth. It may not be for long ages yet to come, or it may be nearer than we think. Few there are who are watching for the clouds to break, and suddenly, when least expected, they shall be parted, and the light which is to restore this earth to its pristine beauty, shall shine out and utterly confound the unwatchful. No one suspected, no one thought, that behind the canopy which shut out the stars night after night, a magnificent globe of light was approaching nearer and nearer to the earth. Yet so it was; men and women went to bed this very night unthinking of and unsuspecting its presence, and suddenly a buzz and stir, which quickly swells upon the breath of night, proclaims that something unusual has occurred. So it is with the life of man and the many chances of destruction which surround it. A little nerve gives way, or a leak is sprung at sea; the slip of a horse’s foot, or the tire of a wheel is loosened; and man, strong healthy man, is hurried across the Border Land, and ushered into the light of that Presence where in truth he has ever been, did he but know, believe, and remember it. The wise man will ever be mindful of his own frailty, and look for the parting of the clouds, and for the light which is surely beyond them.
As I turned away and closed the window, I had yet another thought—for the window itself reminded me of a woodcut in the beginning of some book on astronomy which I had lately seen, where the great Newton is represented sitting at his garret window, his hand upon his equatorial, and looking out upon the heavens at night. It were well at such a moment to pay the passing tribute of a thought to that immortal genius, and to that of his great compeer, Halley, the first man who understood the periodic revolution of the comet in its orbit, and with the noble words “I dare foretell its return,” confidently proclaimed his belief far and wide. My thought was one of gratitude and pleasure, in the knowledge that I lived in an age of science which was denied to these giants of discovery; and that, thanks to their labours and mighty talents, the schoolboy now starts on the career and search for truth where they left off, with but a glimmer of that wondrous revelation of the subduing of the elements of the matter of this earth to our will which we have now achieved; and who knows when the clouds shall again part, and we may make some new discovery, which shall by it add, as steam and electricity have done, to the comfort and civilisation of our race? It may be that long before the cycle of time is passed which must again bring our glorious visitor within our terrestrial gaze, the mystery of its own assured mission will be solved by the restless brain of some now living Newton, destined to prove another phase of that simple yet immutable law of the Creator, who, for His own glory and our advantage, hath surely ordered all things well.
