A Distant World
It is impossible for the finite mind to comprehend the vastness of the spaces that separate us from the stars, even from those that are nearest. Some idea of our marvellous distance from Sirius, the nearest fixed star, and which shines brightest in the heavens, is given by this illustration. A scientific writer says that if people on the star Sirius have telescopes powerful enough to distinguish objects on our planet, and are looking at it now, they are witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem, which took place more than eighteen hundred years ago. The reason of this is that the light which the world reflects, travelling as it does at the rate of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, would take over eighteen centuries to reach the nearest fixed star.