dead matter. It is covered with forms that are filled with life. Nothing is at rest. The animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, are each pervaded by a spiritual force, which unites them all in one general use for the service of man. We look back and inquire from whence this mighty mass has emanated and how it has been brought to its present state and form?
It has been very clearly shown by several distinguished writers, that the earth was at first created from the sun,—not by it but from it.
This theory was distinctly announced by Swedenborg, by whom it was sustained by arguments based upon spiritual and rational grounds. A clear and beautiful demonstration of it, on deep and spiritual principles, may be found in his work entitled "The Divine Love and Wisdom;"—a work which ought to be carefully read by every one who desires to know anything in regard to the deep mysteries of creation.
The theory of the creation of the earth and other planets from the sun is also said to have been demonstrated on strictly scientific and mathematical principles by the distinguished French geometrician, La Place.
The same theory is also very forcibly and elegantly argued in a little work entitled, "Letters to a Man of the World," by Le Bois Des Guays, a French author well known to New Churchmen. The writer referred to, has given good reasons for believing that the earth and other planets were created from the sun through the medium of its surrounding atmospheres.
In the course of his arguments on this subject, he remarks that:—
