Electro-magnetism is induced by friction. The regions of space are not
empty, but filled with an ether, whose undulations produce light; and
this ether is sufficiently dense to retard the motions of comets. The
friction, produced by the rapid passage of the sun and solar system
through this ether, must be immense, and is one source of electricity,
and the principal source of electro-magnetism. This kind of electricity
differs from the other kinds, in that _its action is always at right
angles to the current, and tends to produce rotation in any wheel,
cylinder, or sphere, along whose axis it flows_.[307] The sun, and all
the planets, traveling in the direction of their poles, the current is
of course in the direction of the axis; and the result is, that while
the sun moves along his grand course, he and all the bodies of the
system will rotate, by the influence of the electro-magnetism generated
by that motion; and if he stops, his and their rotation stops too. Day
and night on earth are produced by the sun's motion causing the earth's
rotation. You can see the principle illustrated by the child who runs
along the street with his windmill, to create a current, which will make
it revolve. The Author of the Bible made no mistake when, desiring to
lengthen the day, he commanded the sun to stand still. It is not the
Creator, but his correctors, who are ignorant of the mechanism of the
universe.

Thus, these long-misunderstood and much-assailed Scriptures are not
only vindicated, but far more than vindicated, by the progress of
astronomical discovery. It not only proves the language of the Bible to
be correct; it assures us that it is divine. The same Hand which formed
the stars to guide the simple peasant to his dwelling, at the close of
day, and to lead the mighty intellects of Newton and of Herschel among
the mysteries of the universe, formed those expressions which, to the
peasant's eye, describe the apparent reality, and, to the astronomer's
reason, demonstrate the reality of the appearance of the heavens, and
are thus, alike to peasant and philosopher, the _oracles of God_.

Nor is this the only instance of such Bible oracles. Thousands of years
before philosophers knew anything of the formation of dew, Moses
described it exactly, and noticed how it differed from the rain which
drops down, while the dew evaporates. "My doctrine shall drop as the
rain, my speech shall _distill_ as the dew."--Deuteronomy xxxii. 2.
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