This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. OUR visible father the Sun, our mother the Moon, and their children the Stars, are a happy family in the heavens. There is no imagination about this. They rule the day and night, and are not ashamed of their actions. They mete out that which is good generally to their children here below who are individually of but short duration--not long-lived like the children above, but have their day and time, and are gone. The following is from the pen of Mr. W. Perkins of Kansas City, Mo., and will be read with interest, as it fully elucidates what I have already said about the happy family in heaven: "This great luminary is the central controlling power of our planetary family. The nebulous theory as shown in my previous article is being recognized as the true one, so fast as science is taking the place of bible superstition. Being eternal in the past and to be so in the future, matter has no creator. In one sense, as natural philosophy teaches it is inert, in another it is ever changing. As it had no creator, neither had it any supernatural governor. Its changes and its destination are due to its own inherent nature. "The sun being in all respects immensely the great 9 est orb of our solar system, it has excited the more patient and accurate study of astronomers. "Difficult as this has been, yet much has been learned about it. Its size and distance from us have been measured though, not precisely, still with reasonable certainty. The orbit of our earth being elliptical, we are in parts nearer and again farther from the sun. Hence the average distance is 93,000,000 miles. This distance is too immense to comprehend. By comparisons, however, we try to approximate. The swiftest cannon ball would make the distance in fifteen years. A...