You must remember also what you learnt about the motion of the earth, and
how things are not what they seem. You know that the earth turns round once
a day, though it _seems_ as if it stood still, and the sky, with its sun
and moon and stars, turned round.
When you watch the rising sun, remember that, though it seems actually to
climb the sky, and to mount higher and higher as the day goes on; and then,
when it is setting, to go slowly down, down, behind the far away hills or
the shining waves--it is all seeming. Just as, when you are going along
in a fast train, the fields and trees and sheep all seem to be in motion,
flying past you; yet you know that _you_ are moving as the train moves, and
flying past _them_; so it is not the sun moving across the sky which makes
day and night, but these changes are caused by the movement of our earth,
as she spins round upon herself like a great top.
You remember that Galileo was accused of denying the truth of the word of
God, because the Bible speaks in many places of the sun _"arising"_ and
_"going down."_ His accusers forgot that God does not teach us astronomy,
but speaks in His word of things as they appear to our eyes.
We have seen that our earth, with her faithful companion the moon, is not
only the traveller round the sun; he is the great centre, and around him
all the moving-stars, or planets, travel in their varied paths. But the
moon has a little journey of her own to take besides this long one, for she
travels round the earth, and takes nearly thirty days on her way.
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