forms--into combinations which are subject to new processes.
Dark cosmical bodies may, by a renewed process of light, again become
luminous."[278]

In confirmation of the fact adduced in support of this view, by La
Place, "that those stars which have become invisible, after having
surpassed Jupiter in brilliancy, have not changed their place during the
time they continued visible," he adds, "The luminous process has simply
ceased." Bessel asserts[279] that, "_No reason exists for considering
luminosity an essential property of these bodies._" And Nichol sums up
the matter in the following emphatic words: "No more is light _inherent_
in the sun than in Tycho's vanished star; and with it and other orbs, a
time may come when, through the consent of all the powers of nature, he
shall cease to be required to shine. _The womb which contains the future
is that which bore the past._"[280]

Here, then we behold astronomy presenting to our observation facts and
processes so similar to those which revelation presents to our faith,
that all those men who are most profoundly versed in her lore, reasoning
solely from the facts of science, and without any reference to the
Bible, unanimously conclude that there was such a state of darkness and
confusion before our era, as the Bible declares--that its causes were
most probably such as the Bible implies--and that the sudden
illuminating of dark bodies, and their extinction, and even
re-illumination, are facts so perfectly well authenticated as matters of
observation in regard to other suns, that no reasonable man can hesitate
to believe any credible assurance that our sun has passed through such a
process. With what feelings, then, are we to regard men who, in
defiance of the most common facts, and in contradiction to the
demonstrations of science, blaspheme the God of truth as a teacher of
falsehood, because he speaks of light distinct from that of the sun?
Surely, such men are those whom he describes as "having the
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through
the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts.
In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that
believe not."[281]

These facts, of the sudden kindling of stars, their gradual passage
through all the hues of a dying conflagration, and their final
extinction, and present blackness of darkness, are facts of fearful omen
to the enemies of God. They are the origina