The Art of IllustrationSpurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon)
Religion
The Art of Illustration
Spurgeon, C. H. (Charles Haddon)
Homiletical illustrations; Preaching
Far, far beyond Jupiter is SATURN. That respectable planet has been very
much slandered, but I am happy to inform you that he does not deserve
such treatment. He is nearly 900,000,000 miles from the sun. I wonder
whether any brother here, with a large mind, has any idea of what a
million is; I do not suppose that he has, and I am sure that I have not.
It takes a vast deal of thinking to comprehend what a million means; but
to realize what is meant by a million miles is altogether beyond one's
mental grasp. A million pins would be something enormous; but a million
miles! And here we are talking of nine hundred millions of miles; well,
I give up all thought of understanding what that is so long as I am in
this finite state. Why, when you speak of nine hundred millions, you
might as well say nine hundred billions at once; for the one term is
almost as incomprehensible as the other; and yet, please to recollect
that this vast space is to our great God only a mere hand's-breadth
compared with the immeasurable universe that he has created.
I said that Saturn had been greatly slandered, and so he has. You know
that we have, in our English language, the word "saturnine," as a very
uncomplimentary description of certain individuals. When a man is
praised for being very hearty and genial, he is said to be jovial, in
allusion to Jove, or Jupiter, the brightly shining planet; but a person
of an opposite temperament is called saturnine, because it is supposed
that Saturn is a dull planet, dreadfully dreary, and that his influences
are malignant and baneful. If you have read some of the astrological
books which I have had the pleasure of studying, you have there been
told that, if you had been born under the influence of Saturn, you
might almost as well have been born under the influence of Satan, for it
will come to about the same thing in the end. He is supposed to be a
very slow sort of individual, his symbol is the hieroglyphic of lead;
but he is really a very light and buoyant personage. His diameter is
about nine times as great as that of the earth, and while in volume he
is equal to 746 worlds as large as ours, his weight is equal to only 92
such globes. The densities of the planets appear to diminish according
to their distance from the sun, not in regular proportion, but still
very largely so; and there seems to be no reason why those which are
most remote, and travel slowly, should be made so dense as those which
are nearer the central orb, and revolve more quickly around him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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