But to be serious, child, our fathers made to themselves many gods indeed, of the sublime phenomena and powers of Nature, and worshiped them admiringly; but to us only the names remain, and those who offer to Apollo never think of the sun.
With my laborer, who is an Arab, it is different.

He believes the light-giving globe itself to be a god; and you, I perceive, do not think him wholly wrong.

But when you see a youth throw the discus with splendid strength, do you praise the discus, or the thrower ?" "The thrower," replied Melissa.

"But Phoebus Apollo himself guides his chariot with his divine hands." "And astronomers," the Christian went on, "can calculate for years to come exactly where his steeds will be at each minute of the time.

So no one can be more completely a slave than he to whom so many mortals pray that he will, of his own free-will, guide circumstances to suit them.
I, therefore, regard the sun as a star, like any other star; and worship should be given, not to those rolling spheres moving across the sky in prescribed paths, but to Him who created them and guides them by fixed laws.