vided training for the fittest youths he could find amongst the fishers, and now he had a pretty good band playing on wind instruments, able to give back to God a shadow of his own music. The same formed the Clemency's crew. And every Sunday evening the great fishing-boat, with the marquis and almost always the marchioness on board, and the latter never without a child or children, led out from the harbor such of the boats as were going to spend the night on the water.
When they reached the ground all the other boats gathered about the great boat, and the chief men came on board, and Malcolm stood up betwixt the wheel and the binnacle, and read — always from the gospel, and generally words of Jesus, and talked to them, striving earnestly to get the truth alive into their hearts. Then he would pray aloud to the living God, as One so living that they could not see him, so one with them that they could not behold him. When they rose from their knees man after man dropped into his boat, and the fleet scattered wide over the waters to search them for their treasure.
Then the little ones were put to bed, and Malcolm and Clementina would sit on the deck, reading and talking, till the night fell, when they too went below and slept in peace. But if ever a boat wanted help or the slightest danger arose, the first thing was to call the marquis, and he was on deck in a moment.
In the morning, when a few of the boats had gathered, they would make for the harbor again, but now with full blast of praising trumpets and horns, the waves seemed to dance to the well-ordered noise divine. Or if the wind was contrary or no wind blew, the lightest-laden of the boats would take the Clemency in tow, and with frequent change of rowers draw her softly back to the harbor.
For such Monday mornings the marquis wrote a little song, and his Clemency made an air to it and harmonized it for the band. Here is the last stanza of it: —
Like the fish that brought the coin, |
IS THE MOON DEAD?
The idea generally prevailing, among astronomers, respecting the moon's condition is that she is a dead planet, an orb which circles around the sun like her companion planet the earth, but is not, like the earth, the abode of living creatures of any sort. Formerly, indeed, other views were entertained. It was thought that the dark regions were seas, the bright regions continents, a view embodied by Kepler in the saying, "Do maculas esse maria, do lucidas esse terras." But the telescope soon satisfied astronomers that there are no seas upon the moon. It has been noted that in two well-known passages of the "Paradise Lost," in which Milton touches on the work of Galileo with the telescope, he speaks of lands, mountains, rivers, and regions, but not of oceans or seas, upon the moon. Thus, in describing the shield of Satan, he compares it to
the moon, whose orb |
While again, in the fifth book, Raphael views the earth
as when by night the glass |
We may well believe that had Galileo, in his interviews[1] with Milton, described appearances which (with his telescopic power) resembled seas or oceans, the poet would not have used so vague a word as "regions" in the third line of the last-quoted passage, where the word "oceans" would so obviously have suggested itself. From the very beginning of the telescopic observation of our satellite, it became clear that no seas or oceans exist upon her surface. And as telescopic power has increased, and the minute details of the moon's surface have been more searchingly scrutinized, it has been seen that there are no smaller water regions, no lakes, or rivers, not even any ponds, or rivulets, or brooks.
But indeed, while the close telescopic scrutiny of the moon was thus showing that there are no water surfaces there, it was becoming also clear that no water could remain there under the sun's rays; that is, on the parts of the moon which are illuminated. For it was found that the moon has an atmosphere so rare that water would boil away at a very low temperature indeed. How rare the lunar atmosphere is we do not certainly know;
- ↑ See Milton's "Areopagitica."
