There is a story told of a well-intentioned missionary who tried to induce a Persian fire-worshipper to abandon the creed of his ancestors. "Is it not," urged the Christian minister, "a sad and deplorable superstition for an intelligent person like you to worship an inanimate object like the sun?" "My friend," said the old Persian, "you come from England; now tell me, have you ever seen the sun?" The retort was a just one; for the fact is, that those of us whose lot requires them to live beneath the clouds and in the gloom which so frequently brood over our Northern latitudes, have but little conception of the surpassing glory of the great orb of day as it appears to those who know it in the clear Eastern skies. The Persian recognizes in the sun not only the great source of light and of warmth, but even of life itself. Indeed, the advances of modern science ever tend to bring before us with more and more significance the surpassing glory with which Milton tells us the sun is crowned. I shall endeavor to give in this article a brief sketch of what has recently been learned as to the actual warmth which the sun possesses and of the prodigality with which it pours forth its radiant treasures. I number among my acquaintances an intelligent gardener who is fond of speculating about things in the heavens as well as about things on the earth. One day he told me that he felt certain it was quite a mistake to believe, as most of us do believe, that the sun up there is a hot, glowing body. "No," he said; "the sun cannot be a source of heat, and I will prove it. If the sun were a source of heat," said the rural philosopher, "then the closer you approached the sun the warmer you would find yourself. But this is not the case, for when you are climbing up a mountain you are approaching nearer to the sun all the time; but, as everybody knows, instead of feeling hotter and hotter as you ascend, you are becoming steadily colder and colder. In fact, when you reach a certain height, you will find yourself surrounded by perpetual ice and snow, and you may not improbably be frozen to death when you have got as near to the sun as you can. Therefore," concluded my friend, triumphantly, "it is all nonsense to tell me the sun is a scorching hot fire." [Illustration: THE SUN: FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY LEWIS M. RUTHERFURD IN NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 22, 1870. Professor C. A. Young, writing to the editor of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE, pronounces this "still the best photograph of the entire sun" with which he is acquainted.]