While the lessons which have been reported were going on, the religious interest in the church was deepening. Mr. Wilton did not cease to make his sermons instructive, but, in addition to the instruction, he made them more and more pungent and persuasive. He aimed to gather up the impressions and convictions already wrought in the minds of his hearers and combine them for united and immediate effect. He believed that this was to be a reaping-time.
Mr. Hume was becoming interested, not because he had been at church, for he had not been there, but the Holy Spirit of God was working upon his heart. He was becoming uneasy in his unbelief. For some reason, he knew not why, his opinions were becoming[Pg 121] more and more unsettled. He did not like to go to the house of God; his self-will and pride of consistency rebelled against the thought of hearing and believing the gospel; but he was restless and discontented away from the place of worship. His associations with his infidel comrades grew distasteful. His Sundays were days of distress: with his attention relieved from business cares, thoughts of God and eternity pressed upon him, and he could not escape them. At length he determined to go and hear Mr. Wilton again: perhaps he should hear something which he could so positively reject as to set his mind at rest. He went, accordingly, the next Lord’s Day, and heard a very impressive sermon.
The text for the forenoon was Ps. lxvi. 5: “Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.” The sermon gave first a brief and rapid review of some striking displays of God’s displeasure at the sins of men: that ancient world of men whose “thoughts were only evil continually” he overwhelmed with the flood; he burned with fire from heaven Sodom and Gomorrah, Zeboim and Admah, those lascivious and festering cities[Pg 122] of the plain; he sent his torturing and consuming plagues upon the Egyptians, and sunk the army of Pharoah like a stone in the deep waters of the Red Sea: “they sank as lead in the mighty waters;” he caused the earth to open and receive Korah and his adherents, and bade his angel in “one night” to touch with death the thousands of Sennacherib’s army. This record of divine wrath against evil-doers has startled the consciences of wicked men, and will continue to startle them so long as the ungodly live upon the earth. It is easy for unbelievers to call the word of God a record of fabulous wonders, but that record lives and will live, and its words assert their divinity by touching and burning the consciences of men as if they were tongues of fire.
“But to the thoughtful man,” said Mr. Wilton, “there is a manifestation of God’s displeasure at sin even more impressive than these miraculous judgments. The Creator has built his wrath against sin into the very fabric of the universe; he has written it upon the very atoms and elements of matter and of mind, and graved it upon the ‘nature of things.’ The forces of Nature are all instinct with holy wrath against[Pg 123] ungodliness. Evil doing works out evil consequences by the regular course of nature. Babylon, Nineveh, and Tyre were great and prosperous, and as mighty in wickedness as in commerce and war. In the height of their prosperity God denounced upon them disaster and desolation, and by the natural processes of evil their decay and destruction came upon them. No miracle broke the harmony of their mighty march to decay and the silence of death. Great nations have perished, but not till they became corrupt. Rome fell, but luxury first gendered luxuriant vices, and vices enervated her hardihood and undermined the defences of her courage. No righteous nation ever perished. No nation ever fell into decay till ripe in sin and ready for moral putrefaction. But against wicked and corrupt nations wars and desolations are determined, and the end thereof is with a flood. The very forces of Nature seem allied in firm compact with the laws of God, ready with resistless hand to avenge their transgression and to visit evil upon evil-doers. This steady march of all the forces of the world in bringing decay and wretchedness upon sinners is more impressive[Pg 124] than any single desultory example of avenging wrath.
“But perhaps an unbeliever replies, ‘Not so; there is a natural law of development, decay, and death, apart from sin. Trees grow up, become old, and die. Men pass from childhood up to manhood, and from manhood down to second childhood, and return to the dust whence they came. By a like principle, nations pass through similar changes of development, decay, and desolation. But in all this there is no manifestation of divine favor or disfavor.’
“This is narrow and false reasoning. If a single great city had become corrupt while all the world beside remained righteous, and God had denounced his displeasure upon it and had executed his wrath by sudden and tremendous judgment, that one city standing out in single and solitary ungodliness and desolation, who would deny, who could deny, that the fate of that unhappy city was a manifestation of divine displeasure? If a second example were made of a second ungodly city, would the expression of divine wrath be weakened? Nay; every man would say that it is made stronger. What if a third example be made of a third city? What[Pg 125] if every wicked city is made an example? What if God embody his displeasure at evil-doing in the structure of the world, and give to the very atoms of matter and the elements of mind such natures that by the working of their own proper forces, without a miracle, they shall bring pain and evil, decay and death, upon the ungodly? What is this but writing his wrath against sin upon the earth and sky, upon matter and the consciences of men, declaring by this that till the heavens and the earth and the spirits of men be no more he will never withdraw his indignation? This is what God has done. The wicked man sets in motion the machinery which works out his own everlasting undoing. His own hand sows the seeds of death, and as those seeds germinate they strike their roots into his corruptions and draw their nourishment from his evil life. Thus do sinners go on ‘treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgments of God.’
“But remember that God has not left the world in these later ages without the testimony of wrathful judgments which ought to startle and alarm the consciences of the wicked like the fires of Sodom. Let me give you what I [Pg 126]suppose to be a true record of the fate which befell a band of bold blasphemers. In that uprising of infidelity which took place near the close of the last century there was formed at Newburg, N. Y., through the influence of a man known as ‘Blind Palmer,’ an association of infidels under the name of the Druidical Society. The object of the society was to uproot and destroy revealed religion. In pursuit of this object they descended to the most blasphemous mockery. At one of their meetings they burned the Bible, baptized a cat, partook of the bread and wine as appointed for the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, and gave the elements to a dog. Then the wrath of God broke out upon them. ‘On the evening of that very day he who had administered the mock sacrament was attacked with a violent inflammatory disease; his inflamed eyeballs were protruded from their sockets; his tongue was swollen, and he died before morning in great bodily and mental agony. Dr. H——, another of the same party, was found dead in his bed the next morning. D—— D——, a printer who was present, three days after fell in a fit, and died immediately. In a few days three others were drowned. Within five years from the time the[Pg 127] Druidical Society was organized all the thirty-six original members—actors in the blasphemous ceremonies spoken of—died in some strange or unnatural manner. Two were starved to death, seven were drowned, eight were shot, five committed suicide, seven died on the gallows, one was frozen to death, and three died, the record says, accidentally.’ Be sure of this: God has not left the world nor forgotten his judgments against his enemies, neither is he tied up and hampered by the laws of Nature. ‘God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword: he hath bent his bow and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death.’
“But remember, also, that God does not limit his expression of wrath to these natural agencies. The smile of God beams direct upon the soul as the warm rays of the sun fall upon the cold earth, and the frown of God throws a shadow which darkens the soul with the gloom of eternal death.”
This discourse stirred the mind of Mr. Hume in a wonderful manner. The story of God’s judgments upon wicked men and dissolute cities he had read many a time in his boyhood,[Pg 128] but the rapid review of them by Mr. Wilton seemed to bring them up with a lifelike vividness. And that view of the forces of Nature, as allied with the moral laws of God to work out wrath upon evil-doers, was new to him, but his own mind quick as thought suggested many more illustrations than Mr. Wilton had time to give. He remembered that all manner of vices—drunkenness, lust, devotion to gay, sensual pleasures—bring ruin to men. He had noticed that the saddest faces are those of worn-out lovers of pleasure, and he knew that lovers of pleasure are very quickly worn out—that five years of sensuality will waste the powers of life more than fifty years of good work. He knew also that infidels and blasphemers, whatever else they might be, were unhappy men, and died joyless, foreboding deaths. He was not exactly angry, but his heart rebelled against thus being held by the mighty power of God, willing or unwilling, and against the thought that even Nature herself had conspired against him. It seemed to him hard that he was born into such a world, and that there was no escape from it. He did not consider at the moment that God and his works were against him only because he was against[Pg 129] God, and that by submitting to God in loving obedience all the forces of God’s world and God’s providential government would turn in his favor—“that all things work together for good to them that love God.”
At length better thoughts came to him. “I must know,” he said to himself, “whether these things are so. I have never examined the subject to discover the truth, but have tried to find reasons for disbelieving the Bible and denying the gospel. I ought to look at the other side. If Nature and Nature’s God have blessings in store for the willing and the obedient, why should not I know this and receive my share?”
Under the impulse of thoughts like these he formed the sudden resolution to join Mr. Wilton’s Bible class—that is, if he would receive him willingly, of which he had no small doubt. Coming directly forward at the proper time, he said to Mr. Wilton:
“I have learned what your class is studying, and should like, I hardly know why, to join your class for a few Sundays, if you are entirely willing.”
Mr. Wilton, of course, did not know the exact[Pg 130] state of Mr. Hume’s mind; he did not know but that he came with a contentious spirit to bring up objections and propose hard questions; but he felt certain that, whatever his state of mind, the Spirit of God was bringing him to take this step. He had prayed for him; in prayer his soul had travailed in pain for him; and he felt that by way of the throne of grace he had obtained a hold upon Mr. Hume—that the Holy Spirit had bound a cord between them which could not be broken. He believed, therefore, that, whether he came penitent or angry, good would result from his coming. He gave him, therefore, a hearty welcome.
“I am not only willing,” he said, “but very glad, to have you come; and as I know that you have kept yourself informed of the latest phases of modern science, I hope we shall have your help in unfolding the subject which we are engaged in studying. I think you will be able to do us good.”
“Your kind welcome ought certainly to incline me to do anything which I can to help the interest of your study, but I only ask the privilege of sitting with your class as a silent listener.”
[Pg 131]The Sunday-school opened as usual, and the classes entered upon their work.
“You have come in, Mr. Hume, at just the proper point in the progress of our lessons,” said Mr. Wilton. “We have been preparing the way by a brief review of the laws of heat. We have gone over the effects of heat; the conduction, radiation, and convection of heat; thermal reflection, absorption, and transmission; specific and latent heat. We have tried to form a conception of the existence and operations of heat according to the dynamic theory that heat is a mode of atomic motion. This review would have had little interest to you. We are now prepared to look at the goodness and wisdom of God in the management of heat. We are not trying to prove the existence of a Creator and Governor—we are only looking at the mighty and wise works of that God in whom we already believe. We shall find the works of God planned and wrought out with wondrous skill, and that wonderful skill is employed in the interest of goodness. God has planned and wrought for the benefit of his creatures. His wisdom and goodness are exhibited on the grandest scale and in gigantic proportions. This is all that is[Pg 132] needed practically to demonstrate the existence of God. A good conscience does the rest. Being once assured that there is a Creator, a good conscience leaps to the conclusion that we ought to obey and serve him. Nay, the very work and existence of a conscience implies a divine Lawgiver and Ruler. To a good conscience a God is a necessity. But as we are not now attempting to show that there is a God, but to study his works, we will pass this point.
“With respect to the subject before us, let us first notice that heat is a necessity to the world and to man, and that God has made ample provision for that need. What the condition of the world would be without heat we can only conjecture. In the polar regions a natural temperature of seventy degrees below zero has been observed. At this temperature all the water upon the globe would turn to ice hard as adamant; all vegetation would cease, and with the disappearance of vegetable life all animal life must perish. The whole earth would be a frozen, lifeless, silent waste in the midst of silent space. Some lines in Byron’s picture of universal darkness would fitly describe the state of the world:
[Pg 133] ‘The waves are dead, the tides are in their grave,
The winds are withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds are perished.’
This description would be no figure, for motion as well as life depends upon heat. Yet seventy degrees below zero is but the beginning of cold. ‘By mixing liquid protoxide of nitrogen with bisulphate of carbon in a vacuum, M. Natterer produced a temperature of two hundred and twenty degrees below zero.’ At this temperature some of the so-called permanent gases—as carbonic acid, chlorine, and ammonia—can be compressed into liquids, and it is believed that in the complete absence of all heat all the gases would become solids. But by the agency of heat the world teems with active life. Vegetation clothes the earth with a garment of beauty; and earth, air, and sea swarm with living creatures full of enjoyment. This great need of the world is bountifully supplied. The power and wisdom of God are employed in producing happiness.
“This, however, is but a part of the benefit which heat confers upon the world. The chief inhabitant of the earth is man, and man was created for something higher than bare existence. He was created for civilization and [Pg 134]culture. The savage state is not, as some self-styled philosophers dream, the natural state of man. Nothing is so much against Nature. The natural state is that condition in which he attains the fullest development. Let a brute be placed in so unfavorable conditions that his growth is dwarfed and his natural instincts are not called into exercise, and no one would look upon that as a natural state. But man, wild, uncultured, undeveloped, is spoken of as being in his natural state. There could be no greater mistake. Culture and civilization are according to Nature, but culture and civilization require that man should get the mastery of Nature and subdue her forces. Till man gets the victory over the forces of this rough world, he spends a precarious existence in a hard struggle to gain a meagre support for his animal life. But when once science brings art, and the mastery of Nature is gained, man can rise into culture and beauty. Opportunity is given for development. He blossoms into greatness and strength. Ideal and spiritual ends take the place of mere subsistence.
“But by what agency does man achieve the mastery of Nature? By the agency of heat.[Pg 135] By the aid of heat man subdues the world. Heat brings the lustrous metal from its native ore; heat fashions the metal into a thousand shapes for the use of men; heat reigns as king in the curious processes of the chemist’s laboratory, and the laboratory is the mother of all those modern arts which bless and beautify human life. By heat man prepares his food; by heat he drives his machinery; by heat he outstrips the flight of the winds; by heat he turns winter into summer and in his own dwelling makes for himself a perpetual springtime. For these purposes of human comfort and culture, God has provided generous stores of heat and placed them under man’s control. He has placed in man’s hands the means by which he can generate a heat which devours the hardest metals like stubble and a cold greater by far than Nature ever produces. We see that the Creator has provided for man as a being susceptible of culture and development, as a being of soul and sentiment, of spirit and aspiration. God has fitted the world to be the dwelling-place of spiritual beings like man.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Hume at this point, “that the first word I speak in your class[Pg 136] should be a question which amounts to an objection.”
“I shall be glad,” said Mr. Wilton, “to hear your question, even though it be an objection. I will also answer it if I can.”
“I wished to ask why it is, if God designed to provide for man’s wants, that man can supply his wants, especially his higher wants—the wants of his intellectual and spiritual nature—only with the greatest difficulty and toil? The brutes supply their need with comparative ease, but man with boundless thought and labor.”
“Your question is an important one, and deserves an answer. For myself, I look upon the fact to which you refer as one of the many points in which this world is adapted to human needs. Man is put in a condition which requires boundless thought and toil for the supply of his higher wants just because he possesses a nobler nature and such thought and exertion are needed for its development. Which is the more desirable condition for a young man to be placed in—one in which his every wish is anticipated and his every aspiration is gratified without exertion on his own part, or one in which opportunity and means are furnished[Pg 137] for self-help, one in which he can supply his wants and satisfy his aspirations only by the exercise of his best abilities? Which will encourage the larger manliness and nurture the higher culture and strength? He who has no need for exertion rises at best only to a soft and feeble luxury, without mental vigor or moral force. What does man need besides scope and reward for exertion? Effort and struggle are necessities of our nature. This is especially true of man’s higher faculties. Human greatness and goodness are not created by a word: they must be developed by exertion. For this reason God has made exertion necessary, and as much more necessary with man than with the brutes as his culture is more the result of voluntary, intelligent exertion. Does this explanation seem to you satisfactory, Mr. Hume?”
“I have no fault to find with it; I must think of it.”
“Very well, then; if no other one has a question to ask, we will look at another subject. We will survey the storehouses of heat which God has prepared for warming the earth. Samuel, you may name the first great source of heat.”
[Pg 138]“I think, sir, that the sun is the chief source of heat.”
“We certainly receive the larger part of our heat from the sun. No one can doubt this. So much of our heat comes from the sun that the temperature of the earth varies according to the sun’s heat, as if that were the only supply. If but a fleecy cloud pass between the sun and the earth, we feel a decided change of temperature. A few hours less of sunshine each day, and a few degrees more of inclination to the sun’s rays, change summer to winter and make the difference between the torrid and the frigid zones. Withdraw the heat of the sun altogether, and the whole world would become a desert of frozen death.”
“What is the cause of the sun’s heat?” asked Peter.
“You have asked a question which I cannot answer, and which no man can answer. The most careful and patient observations have been made to discover if possible the constitution of the sun; learned and curious conjectures have been brought forward to explain the source of its heat; but the positive results have not been very large. It is certain that the sun is a globe[Pg 139] revolving upon its axis in a period of twenty-five days, nine hours, and thirty-six minutes. This is known by the motion of dark spots upon its surface. The appearance of the sun as seen through a telescope is that of a globe of fire, its surface often in a state of violent agitation and flecked here and there with dark, irregular, changeable spots. These spots are sometimes of enormous dimensions—thirty thousand or fifty thousand miles in diameter. They present a dark centre with a narrow border or penumbra of lighter shade. To account for these spots, it has been conjectured that the body of the sun is dark, but surrounded by a double envelope of clouds, the outer layer of which is intensely luminous. Openings in such enveloping clouds would present an appearance like the spots upon the sun. According to this supposition, the heat and light of the sun proceed, not from the body of the sun, but from this luminous enveloping cloud. But granting that this supposition is true, it gives no explanation of the origin of the sun’s heat. Laplace conjectured that the sun is a globe of fire in a state of violent, explosive conflagration, and that the spots are enormous crater-like caverns in its surface. Newton [Pg 140]conjectured that comets falling into the sun and being consumed feed the solar fires and maintain its temperature. The reception of the dynamic theory of heat has led to the revival, in a modified form, of this conjecture of Newton. It is suggested that meteors or meteoric matter falling into the sun generates its heat by the force of concussion. To show that the intense heat of the sun might be thus generated, elaborate calculations have been made. It has been demonstrated that if the sun were a solid mass of anthracite coal, its combustion would maintain its heat at its present rate of emission only five thousand years, while the falling of the planet Jupiter into the sun would generate an equal amount of heat for thirty-five thousand years. A lump of coal falling from the earth to the sun would produce three thousand times more heat by the concussion than by its combustion.
“The nearest approach that has been made, of an exact and scientific kind, toward determining the constitution of the sun’s surface has resulted from an examination of the solar spectrum. A ray of light, by passing through a triangular prism of glass, is, as you know,[Pg 141] divided into its elements, or constituent colors. The ray of light is spread out like a half-open fan. This divided and expanded ray, thrown upon a screen, is called the spectrum. An examination of the solar spectrum by a microscope shows certain fine dark lines across it. The lines are invariably the same in their position and grouping. The spectrum of the stellar light is found to differ from that of the solar light, and the light of one star differs from that of another star. Light from incandescent metallic vapors gives bright lines across the spectrum. Each metal has its own number, position, grouping, and color of these spectral lines. By comparing the solar spectrum with the spectra of the various metals—the processes are curious and the explanation difficult to be understood—corresponding lines are discovered, and the conclusion is reached that the sun’s atmosphere contains the vapors of several of our well-known metals, as iron, nickel, sodium, potassium, and others. This is a most curious and marvelous scientific feat, to make an approximate chemical analysis of the sun and stars by means of their light. The conclusions, however, seem trustworthy.
[Pg 142]“Can you tell us, Ansel, whether the earth receives heat from the moon and stars?”
“I cannot, sir.”
“I should be glad, Mr. Hume, to have you instruct us upon this point.”
“In regard to the fixed stars,” answered Mr. Hume, “counting them as the remote suns of other planetary systems, we must believe that they radiate more or less heat upon the earth; some indeed have extravagantly maintained that we receive from them nearly as much heat as from the sun. The heat received from them is so small that we perceive no difference whether they be hidden, or shine with their utmost brilliancy. I do not know that investigations have been made to determine scientifically their exact thermal influence upon the earth. But little more can be said about the heat of the moon. The light of the full moon, concentrated by a two-foot burning-glass and thrown upon the bulb of the most delicate thermometer, produces no perceptible effect. By means of the electroscope or galvanometer, it is said, however, that the moon’s heat has been detected. At a late scientific convention held in Chicago, Prof. Elias Loomis read a paper, in which he[Pg 143] stated that Mr. Harrison of England, by a comparison of observations made for sixteen years at Greenwich, nine years at Oxford, and sixteen years at Berlin, has discovered that the moon exerts a sensible influence upon the temperature of the earth, the highest temperature occurring from six to nine days after the new moon and the lowest about four days after the full moon. The conclusion, the opposite of what we should naturally expect—the higher temperature occurring when the enlightened face of the moon is turned from the earth—was explained by supposing the moon’s heat to be dark heat which would be absorbed by the vapors and the clouds, and thus tend to warm and dissipate them. By the dispersion of the clouds, the radiation of heat from the earth’s surface would go on more rapidly and the temperature would fall. According to this explanation, the lunar heat reduces instead of raising the temperature of the earth. The difference of temperature due to the moon’s influence Mr. Harrison believed to be two and a half degrees. Upon extending his calculations through forty-three years of observations made at Greenwich, he found the difference reduced to about one degree. As[Pg 144] for myself, I confess myself still a skeptic touching the supposed influence of the moon upon temperature.”
“Upon that subject, I think,” said Mr. Wilton, “that we must wait patiently for more light. The popular superstitions which refer sickness and health, and every kind of good or evil fortune, to the benign or malignant influence of the moon, we, of course, must reject. Samuel, will you name the second chief source of heat?”
“I am obliged to answer as Ansel answered just now—I cannot tell. The enormous amount of wood and coal burned amounts to something, but this can have very little effect upon the temperature of the earth.”
“The second great store of heat is the internal heat of the earth,” said Mr. Wilton. “The importance of this store of heat we can easily understand by considering that the earth is a mass of molten mineral matter cooled and hardened upon the surface. The crust upon which we live is warmed from beneath by an ocean, or rather a globe, a world, of glowing molten rock. Deep excavations have been made in mining operations, and artesian wells have been bored to still greater depths—as deep as two thousand,[Pg 145] three thousand, or thirty-five hundred feet. The heat of the sun penetrates not more than seventy-five or a hundred feet; below that depth the temperature of the earth remains the same throughout the year. Below the point of constant temperature the heat of the earth is found to increase regularly and constantly. The rate of increase varies in different regions, but the average rate is about one degree of temperature for each fifty or sixty feet of descent. From this rate of increase it is easy to calculate the temperature at any given depth. At a depth of less than two miles water would boil. At twelve miles in depth the rock becomes incandescent. At twenty-two miles silver melts, at twenty-four miles gold melts, and at thirty-five miles cast iron becomes liquid. Volcanic eruptions also demonstrate the existence of immense masses of molten rock in the interior of the earth; and we can account for the existence of volcanoes only by supposing that they now communicate or once communicated with the deep interior heat of the earth. The thickness of the earth’s crust is, however, a matter of conjecture. The melting point of different substances rises as the pressure upon them increases, and as the[Pg 146] density of the rock increases its conducting power becomes greater. The crust of the earth, therefore, may be fifty miles in thickness, or it may be one hundred miles or two hundred or three hundred miles. The effect of this internal heat in maintaining the temperature of the earth must be very great.”
“I want to ask,” said Peter, “how this internal heat came to exist, and how it is maintained?”
“This, like your former question, is altogether beyond our knowledge. All that we certainly know is that God made it thus. The process of creation, if indeed God did not create the earth by a word, without a process, is a matter of sublimest and most venturesome conjecture. According to the opinion of some, the elements of which the earth is composed were created separate and uncombined, and were suffered afterward to unite by their chemical affinities. This chemical combination would be nothing else than a tremendous conflagration, and the result would be the most intense heat of which we can form a conception. Others have dreamed of a ‘fire-mist’ created of God and by some means condensed into worlds. The temperature of the earth is maintained, so far as we[Pg 147] know, only by the poor conducting quality of the enveloping crust preventing its cooling. At the present rate of radiation, millions of years would be required to render the change of temperature perceptible.
“What is the third great natural source of heat? I will ask Mr. Hume.”
“Mechanical action, or force transmuted to heat.”
“Will you please explain this?”
“Strictly speaking,” said Mr. Hume, “this is not to be counted an original source of heat. But heat is used in the production of winds and waves, the flow of rivers, and all the ceaseless activities of the world, and this force reappears from time to time transmuted again to heat. Whenever in the friction of air and of water, in the dashing of matter against matter and force against force, motion and force seem to be lost, heat is produced. The water of the sea after long storms is said to be sensibly warmed. We can appreciate the amount of heat generated in this manner only by considering in how many thousand ways force is meeting force and motion is destroyed. All this lost motion—lost as sensible motion—reappears as atomic[Pg 148] motion, that is, as heat. Such heat has been applied to artificial uses. Heat generated by the friction of iron plates ground together has been used for heating buildings.”
“And this transmutation of living force and heat,” added Mr. Wilton, “is but one of many illustrations of God’s economy in the management of heat. Nothing is wasted. The voices of Nature all echo the words of Jesus: ‘Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.’
“The fourth source of heat is chemical action. What is the chief form of this which is used for the production of heat? Samuel may tell us.”
“Combustion, I think, sir.”
“That is right; and the most common form of combustion is the combination of carbon with oxygen. This is commonly employed, not because it generates the most intense heat, but because carbon exists so abundantly, and is the most available and the cheapest. The most common form of carbon is wood and coal. This is that storehouse of heat which God has placed in man’s keeping. Without this the larger part of the earth’s surface would be uninhabitable. This renders culture and civilization[Pg 149] possible. Without it the arts could have no existence. The key of this storehouse of heat God has given to man, so that he may enter in and use its treasures at his pleasure. In the finer arts where very great heat is required, hydrogen is used in place of carbon. Jets of oxygen and hydrogen gas thrown together constitute what is called the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, and generate the intensest heat which can be produced by man.
“Another source of heat not often mentioned is electrical force. This, like mechanical force, may be transmuted into heat. An electric current sent through an insufficient or poor conductor heats it, and, if the current be sufficiently strong, consumes it. Thus lightning-rods are sometimes melted and buildings set on fire.
“These, then, are the natural reservoirs of heat: 1, the sun and other heavenly bodies; 2, the internal heat of the earth; 3, living force, or motion; 4, chemical action; 5, electric force.
“We can hardly over-estimate the abundance of these natural supplies of heat. The world is warmed on the most munificent scale. The earth receives from the sun heat sufficient to boil three hundred cubic miles of ice water per[Pg 150] hour, and the whole sum of the sun’s heat would boil 700,000,000,000 cubic miles of ice water in the same time, that is, the heat radiated by the sun would boil a mass of ice water of the size of our globe in twenty-five minutes.
“The amount of carbon provided by the Creator is enormous beyond conception. Vast regions of country are covered with dense forests, but the fuel from the forests is but a handful in comparison with the fuel stored up in coal-beds below the surface of the earth. Mr. Mitchel estimated the extent of the coal-beds of a portion of Europe as follows: Great Britain, 12,000 square miles; Spain, 3500; France, 1700; Belgium, 5180. Mr. R. C. Taylor has made a like estimate for North America, giving to British America 18,000 and to the United States 134,000 square miles.
“These estimates, you will notice, say nothing of Asia, Africa, South America, or the islands of the sea, and include only the smaller part of Europe. In the United States, also, new coal-fields are constantly discovered. The supply of carbon for fuel seems exhaustless. In the British islands about 100,000,000 tons of coal are mined annually. At this rate the known supply would[Pg 151] last for a thousand years. In the United States the supply has no known limit.
“You will keep in mind that this supply of heat is also a supply of mechanical force. The coal-fields are an exhaustless storehouse of heat and power. They warm the dwellings of man and drive millions of engines working with the strength of Titans for human welfare.
“In this bountiful supply of heat to warm the earth and serve human needs must we not see a kind design on the part of the Creator? God has provided that which the world needs. He has provided without stint or limit. The general heating of the globe he accomplishes by his own power. He has provided for human culture, development, and happiness by placing stores of heat under man’s control. He has furnished scope and means and encouragement for achieving greatness and goodness. He has put man in the condition which a wise father would desire for his son.
“In our next lesson we will look at the preservation and distribution of heat, some of the primary elements and arrangements upon which the temperature of the earth depends.”