By E. W. MAUNDER, F.R.A.S.

Not quite a year ago the “Threatening Comet,” which some too-imaginative writers foretold would return in fifteen years, and occasion the entire destruction of our earth, by rushing into the sun, and exciting it to a terrible degree of heat was foretold. How little reason there was to fear such a catastrophe! We never expected that, so far from having fifteen years to wait before the truth or error of the prediction was demonstrated, in less than six months a glorious stranger would present himself to our gaze, and reveal that, in one way or another, the dismal prophecy had been wrong. The message which the wonderful comet, that was so impressive an object in the morning sky of last October, had to convey has been interpreted in various senses. Perhaps the most probable is, that he and his bright predecessors of 1880 and 1843, which had been supposed to be one and the same object, were not really so, but only members of the same family. If so, then the very groundwork of the theory, on which the return in 1897 was foretold, would be cut away, and in its place a whole vista of marvellous possibilities would be opened out to us.

But our present purpose is not to dwell on these, nor to enlarge on the history, past or future, of any comet which from time to time has returned, or may return, to our skies, but to read the lesson conveyed in the marvellous fact that there are comets which visit us but once.

The devout Kepler, after his last great discovery, sat down content “to wait a century for a reader.” He had not long passed away ere the reader was sent, one who read his book to good purpose indeed. Kepler had been able to discover three laws to which the planets were obedient, but as to whether there was any connection between those laws, why the planets followed them rather than any others which might have been framed, and what laws the satellites and comets of the system were subject to, Kepler could not tell. Newton, on the contrary, discovered the great underlying principle, of which the laws of Kepler were only some of the necessary consequences, and showed not merely how the planets moved, but also to a great extent why they did so.

Newton had not long established his law of gravitation before he arrived at a strange discovery. Assuming his theory to be correct, he worked out by rigid mathematical processes the shape of the orbits which the planets must follow. Since we know that they travel in ellipses, we should naturally have expected that an ellipse would be the resulting orbit, but instead Newton found he had arrived at an expression which embraced not one curve but four.

Of these four, one was the oval or ellipse, another the circle, but the other two were curves of a very different shape indeed, curves which did not enclose a space, but which had each two ends, which, however far they were prolonged, could never meet. And directly this fact was recognized, an unlooked-for truth was made plain. Comets, which had hitherto been regarded as perfectly lawless bodies, as irregular and uncontrolled as the thoughts of an opium-dreamer seem to be, were now seen to be integral parts of our solar system. For though so many of them enter our system but once, never having visited it before, never to visit it again, yet since these all travel, in obedience to the sun’s attraction, in one or other of these strange unending curves, curves which are a necessary consequence of the law of gravitation, they are manifestly members of the solar family; without them it would be imperfect, without them the law of gravitation were but partially illustrated.

Let us follow in imagination the travels of one such comet through the untold ages of its life. It may have started on its tremendous voyage whilst the earth was yet a star, or rather a miniature sun, instinct with fire and light, and all through the long ages during which the earth was cooling down and becoming fitted to be the habitation of living things, the comet slowly but steadily pursued its way. On the earth one form of life succeeded another, the sea overcame the land time after time, and time after time the continents flung off the yoke, and emerged with ampler borders and fairer scenes. At length the predestined prince came to his heritage, and Man was made ruler over the perfected earth—too soon, alas! to forfeit his vice-regal crown by an act of flagrant rebellion. And still through all these ages, compared with which the whole lifetime of our race is but a moment, that distant comet held on its course, never swerving by a hair’s breadth from the appointed path, obedient to the law, the self-same law that decrees the fall of the ripened fruit. But it was still far away, and still it pressed slowly but steadily forward, whilst kingdoms rose and fell, and nations multiplied and decayed. But gradually a quicker energy began to throb within it, and a stronger impulse drew it forward. The old slow pace could not suffice for its growing impatience, and it pressed forward with ever-increasing speed. At length it dashes across the orbit of Neptune; it has entered the solar system at last. No lingering now, no slow and halting pace; quicker and quicker it presses on, and Uranus is past. A shorter interval still, and glorious Saturn, with his noble rings and numerous satellites, is left behind, and a few years more and it shoots across the path of the giant planet Jupiter. The asteroids and Mars are passed by next, and now, filled with a passionate desire, it whirls along, brightening as it speeds, and flaming streamers flying behind it. Moving more quickly still, it crosses the orbit of the Earth. Venus is reached next; traversing now in a moment of time space it once took a year to travel over, it rushes past Mercury. And now the bright goal is at hand, and quivering through all its mighty length with the fierce excitement, it speeds forward at a swifter pace still. And now, glorious with jets streaming ten thousand miles before it, and tail ten million leagues behind, it hurls itself into the corona, the region of that strange pearly glow which in total eclipses is seen to surround the Sun. And still it hurries forward, but not into the Sun, its headlong speed is now far too great for even that mighty attraction to be able to check it in its course, and draw it in to itself. It ploughs its way perhaps even at the rate of a million miles an hour, round nearly half of the circumference of the sun, through the regions where the prominences play—those rosy flames that rise and rush with such terrific heat and force from the Sun’s glowing bulk; and its brief period of splendor is over. Away from the Sun, it falls back through the corona, across the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, with ever-slackening speed, and fading as it goes, it recedes toward outer unknown space. Never again in all eternity will it approach our Sun, never again will it know the fierce throbbings of that four hours’ sojourn in the home of the prominences; never, too, will it revisit those places where it was wandering in the outer darkness when it first heard the imperious summons which it had thus obeyed. Slower, ever slower will it travel, out in the fathomless night, the solar system left far behind. Once and once only has it entered it, once and once only could it enter. The Earth, with its attendant Moon, has revolved for millions of years, enjoying without cease spring, summer, autumn, and winter. But this strange body, whose winter was from creation, whose summer lasted but a few short hours, and whose second winter, so far at all events as it derives heat and light from our Sun, shall last till heaven and earth depart like a vesture that is rolled together, whose movements are so unlike our evenly moving earth, is no mere lawless wanderer—is no intruder on the happy family of the solar system; it is ruled in its every movement by the self-same law that guides our earth. Without it, or bodies like it, gravitation would be but imperfectly illustrated, and but part of the homage due would be paid to our Sun.

How great a change has taken place in our views since the time when men looked upon comets as miracles and portents, as special acts of creation, obedient to none of the ordinary laws of nature! And since Newton’s day, changes as great as that which he effected in astronomy have been effected in other sciences; and the unity of law, and the universality of its reign, are acknowledged on every side. The idea of special acts of creation, or that God interferes with the regular working of his laws, is discredited, and creation itself is pushed far back into the unfathomed past.

But this view opens out a most serious question. If God’s only work was to make the world at the beginning, and give it wholesome laws, leaving it then to itself, what room is there for religion and prayer—for faith and hope? And indeed, arguing in this very manner, there are men of science who tell us expressly that the only good which prayer can do is to make the petitioner feel more at ease in his mind; that Elijah praying for rain was no whit wiser than a Kaffir or Ashanti conjuror.

But God has not left his world to itself, and every law of nature is nothing but the expression of his all-pervading, ever-acting will. How else can the sun, which can not, according to Newton’s first law, of itself move a single inch, make the earth spin round it, at the rate of many miles a second? It explains nothing, it is only to put the fact into other words, if, when an apple falls, we say “the earth attracted it.” But “it is the will of God” is an explanation and a sufficient one, and we may be well assured that unless he expressly ordered it, not even a toy, released from a baby’s feeble grasp, could ever move downwards toward the ground. Were he to cease to will, the universe would cease to be, for in the beginning it came into existence by his simple word, and from that time “he upholdeth all things by the word of his power.” And in these words revelation teaches us what science never could—behind dead nature to see an ever-living, ever-acting God.

The mistake men made was this: Some things seemed to them to be orderly and regular, others disorderly and irregular; and they foolishly fancied the latter to be therefore more immediately God’s work than the former, thinking him “altogether such an one as themselves.” And so, when further knowledge showed that those things which had seemed irregular were as fully ordered by law as any of the others, it appeared as if God’s authority and power were diminished, since, in their ignorance, men had thought disorder a proof of his more immediate acting. But “God is not the author of confusion,” nor is he touched with caprice or change, for he hath declared “I am the Lord, I change not.” Perfect law and perfect harmony, are what the Scriptures teach us to expect in all God’s works, and that every advance of science shows such perfection far to transcend all our previous conceptions, should surely not shake our faith in him and in his word, but strengthen and confirm it.

But yet another difficulty remains. If everything in the universe is ordered according to law, how is it possible for miracles, and in a more general sense, answers to prayer, to take place? Perhaps the comet may help us here. Could anything seem more miraculous, more to contradict the general experience of the solar system, with its planets ever revolving in closed orbits round the sun, than the appearance of a body which rushed straight toward the sun, took one half-turn round it, and then receded from it by a different path, never, never to return? Could anything seem more like an interference by the Maker with the laws which he had made? It did seem so until the underlying law was discovered, and then the seeming discord was perceived to be really the note needed to complete the perfect harmony. We at best only stand where Kepler stood, we know only little fragmentary laws, and we can not affirm that occurrences which seem as much outside their scope as comets are outside Kepler’s laws, are not really necessary members of the greater system of which we have no knowledge as yet. That miracles are ruled by law may be gathered from many a passage in the Holy Word. Miracles are “set” in the Church, as much as apostles and teachers. “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting;” “he could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief,” are not obscure hints of such a law—a spiritual law, it is true, but none the less a law.

We can watch the progress of science, then, without anxiety or fear; “rooted and grounded in faith,” believing that the Lord is King.—London Sunday Magazine.

[End of Required Reading for March.]