Jude 1:13

Wandering Stars

Wandering stars. Jude 1:13.

If you have been out on a dark night, especially about the month of November, you may have seen what looked rather like a rocket, or a series of rockets, falling from the sky. There was a flash and a long stream of light behind it, and almost before you could say, “Look! ” it had vanished into darkness again.

People usually call these flashes in the darkness “falling stars,” but they are not really stars at all. That name was given to them at a time when their origin and history were unknown. The earth in its journey through space meets small portions of matter. Now you know that the earth has a tremendous pulling power. That is the reason why, if you jump down off a high wall, you don't fly up into the air. And so when our world in its journey round the sun comes into the neighborhood of any of these small portions of matter it pulls them towards itself. Before they meet the earth they are quite cold and invisible, but when they first enter the atmosphere which surrounds the earth they travel at the rate of from ten to forty-five miles in a second, and the speed at which they travel makes them extremely hot and brilliant.

By far the greater number of these meteors are turned into gas before they reach the surface of the globe, but a very few are broken up and descend in the form of meteoric stones, or “meteorites,” as they are called. If you visit a good museum you may see some of these meteorites. They look like a bit of rock with a sort of crust over the top. They are usually black in color and are largely composed of iron. Most of them are covered with little indentations which look rather like thumb-marks. The largest meteorite ever found was discovered in Mexico. It was about thirteen feet long, six feet broad, and five feet thick, and it weighed about fifty tons. Another very large one was brought from Greenland by Peary in 1894. It weighed thirty-six and a half tons, but must have been larger originally, as the Eskimo had chipped away fragments to make weapons. You must not think, however, that meteorites are all large and heavy. The majority are quite tiny; many do not weigh an ounce, and I daresay there are thousands upon thousands so tiny that they have never been found at all.

Now perhaps you will wonder where these meteors come from. How did they happen to get into space and how did they manage to get in our way? Well, you have all heard of comets, and you know that comets are heavenly bodies, very hot and bright, which wander through the heavens. Some of these comets go round the sun just as we do, others go round it once and then seem to disappear for ever. Now when a comet is near the sun it has a tail which looks very much like fiery hair streaming out from it. This tail is formed by the sun's pushing off from the comet some of the lighter matter of which it is composed. Sometimes the tail breaks off altogether, and the matter of which it is composed cools down and becomes solid. These solid bodies get left behind, but they still follow the path where the comet has been. One day the earth crosses that path and comes in contact with these bodies, and so we have a fall of meteors.

Now, boys and girls, God sent you into this world to shine, but He meant you to be something better than a meteor. Don't be one of the people who are too brilliant to do steady work and whose light is certain to go out. Don't be one of those who are fair and pleasant on the outside, but who can't be relied upon. Do your duty faithfully and thoroughly. Never mind how slow you are, or how humble. Shine with your own little steady light. Be a fixed star, sure and steadfast. Someone will be the brighter for your shining.