Men considered the sun, for example, only as a very useful thing which
brought them light with which they could see their foe, and the moon as a
mysterious object sent to make the night a little less dark. Sun and moon
and shining stars were all set in the sky for them, and went through their
wonderful and complicated movements solely for their amusement.

"But what was the real condition of things on the moon at that time? Why,
there was a race of people there of such intelligence and scientific
attainments that they were seeing plainly enough everything that was
taking place on the earth. This will not appear very strange when we
consider our remarkable success in scanning the surface of the moon at the
present day, and remember that the inhabitants of the moon were then
nearing the close of their history, and so at the height of their
civilization.

"Yes, they had watched the coming of man upon the stage with the deepest
interest--with a neighborly interest, in fact--seeing in him the promise
of a companion race and one worthy of the magnificent globe which they
could see was so much larger than their own. Their powerful instruments
enabled them to see objects on the earth as distinctly as we now see
through our telescopes the features of a landscape a few miles distant.

"Keeping thus so close an acquaintance with man and all his works, they
rejoiced at every success he achieved over the lower forms of life, and
grieved at all his failures. Especially were they pained when he tired of
the conflict with his natural foe, and began to battle with his own kind.
As this inhuman strife continued, the folly and wickedness of it roused to
the fullest extent the interest and sympathy of the moon-dwellers, and
they began to ask each other what they could do to put a stop to it. They
themselves had long since given up war and had even outgrown all