210 ASTRONOMYANDTHEBIBLE
lation. Everydaythatwelive,wearenearertoitby
almost,perhapsquite,amillion ofmiles. For every
sentencethatweutter,for everystepthatwetakein
thestreets,wearemilesnearertothisstar. Weap-
proached itbytens ofthousands of miles while the
writerhas beenpenning these lines, and the reader
hasbeen carriednearer by a thousand miles while
perusingthem.
"Nothingcan give us abetter conception of the
enormousdistanceofthestarsthanthereflectionthat
notwithstanding the rapid motion, carrying unceas-
inglyforward,.. .ordinaryobservationwouldfailto
showanychangeintheappearanceofthe constella-
tion towardwhichwearetraveling. Fromwhatwe
knowofthedistanceofVega,'wehavereasontosup-
posethatour solarsystem will notreachthe region
inwhichthestaris now situateduntil theendofa
periodrangingsomewherebetweenhalfamillionand
a million of years from the present time."
—New-
comh's"AstronomyforEverybody,"pages^2^,^26.
ButtheearthwillneverfindVega,forVegaisalso
goingonitsown journey,andispassingawayfrom
itspresentpositionalmostasfastasweareapproach-
ingit.
Whatisthustrueofourown sunandofVegais
true also, so far as we know, of every star in the
heavens. Theyare allflying swiftly, like ballsshot
fromcannons. Indeed, itisa slowmovingstarthat
doesnot exceedthevelocity ofa cannonball. The
mostcommonvelocitiesarefivetothirty-fivemilesa
second. Yes,there aretwostars,one ofthemArc-