or face, and that some of them were of a very considerable size. He
named the matter to a number of his friends who, looking through the
telescope for themselves, saw that such was really the case.

'Now there happened to be an order of persons in the Land of dreams
whose business it was to praise the Sun, and extol its Light. And they
had a theory to the effect, that the Light of the Sun was unmixed, and
that the Sun itself was one uniform mass of brightness and brilliancy,
without speck, or spot, or any such thing. They held that the Head of
their order was the Maker of the Sun,--that He Himself was Light, and
that in Him was no darkness at all; and that the Sun was exactly like
Him, intense, unmingled, and unvarying Light. When these people heard of
the alleged discovery of the spots, they raised a tremendous cry, and
some howled, and some shrieked, and all united in pronouncing the
statement a fiction, and in denouncing in severe terms, both its author,
and all who took his part, as deceivers; as the enemies of the Sun, as
blasphemers of its Author, and as the enemies of the human race.

'This was one of the great controversies which this world-wide
convention had met to bring to an end.

'As I took my place in the Hall, one of the Professors of the Solar
University was speaking. He said the story about the spots was a wicked
calumny; and he went into a lengthy and labored argument to show, that
the thing was absurd and impossible. 'The Sun,' said he, 'was made by an
All-perfect Artificer,--made on purpose to be a Light, the Great Light
of the world, and a Light it must be, and nothing else but a Light; a
pure unsullied Light all round, without either spot, or speck of any
kind, or any varying shade of brilliancy in any part.' He added, 'To say
the contrary, is to do the Sun injustice, to dishonor its All-glorious
Author, to alienate the minds of men from the Heavenly Luminary, to
destroy their faith in his Light and warmth, to plunge the world into
darkness, and reduce it to a state of utter desolation. If the Sun is
not _all_ light, he is _no_ Light at all. If there be dark spots on one
part of his face, there may be dark spots on every part. _All_ may be
dark, and what seems Light may be an illusion; a false Light, 'that
leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.' He is not to be trusted. Every
thing is uncertain.' And he called the man who said he had seen the
spots, an impostor, a blasphemer, a _scavenger_, an a