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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
entire Universe is approximately equal to the number of the grains of sand in all the se:2-shores on carth. The sun is a small one of this vast nuinber of stars, but it is more than a million times larger than the carili. Astronomical distances are so immense that they are calculated in what are called “lighi-years". One light-ycar is equal to 186,000 x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365 iniles. It represents the distance that a ray of light, covering 186,000 miles per second, travels in one year. The ncarest star, other than the sun, is 4.3 light-years away from the earth. That is to say, a ray of light from that star takes so long to reach the earth; the light from the sun takes only eight minutes.
Only shameless vanity can entertain the idca that this gigantic astral organisation was created to watch over the fate of beings crawling on a tiny speck of dirt whose magnitude, in comparison to the Universe, is 119 larger than one millionth part of a grain of sand! But it is not necessary to measure the absurdity in imagination. It can be more accurately done.
Over the vast cosmic distances, light scrves as the only means of contact among the heavenly bodies. Supposing that stars exercise some mysterious influence on the events of human lifc, that can be done only through the interinediary of light. But there are only three stars, besides the sun, the light from which can reach the earth within one hundred years, that is within the
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