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us the first page in the book of nature. Your tlieme invites 

 our attention to it under the apt metaphor of a book ; no 

 chance medlej of the materialist, or mere evolution of time 

 out of chaos ; but a volume of well-ordered method and sequence, 

 revealing on every page the purposed design of its Author. 

 Turning then to the pages of this ample volume, astronomy 

 is the science which, dealing with the visible present, appeals 

 even to the uncultured mind — to the Syrian shepherd, as to 

 the Indian hunter on the prairies, — in proof of an all-mighty, 

 an all- wise Creator. With upturned eyes, savage and 

 sage alike peer into the immeasurable depths of space lighted 

 up with its galaxy of worlds and suns, marshaled in such 

 harmonious symmetry that they unmistakably reveal the evi- 

 dence of design, order and law ; the governance of a supreme 

 Intelligence. Nor is the royal psalmist alone in learning from 

 them the lesson of devout humility, as he considered the 

 heavens, the work of God's hand ; the moon and the stars 

 which He has ordained ; and realized the marvelous compass 

 of that overruling Providence that can still be mindful of the 

 meanest of His creatures. 



The old Greek, perplexed though he was by the misleading 

 complexities of a stellar universe, revolving, as it seemed to 

 him, around our own little planet, nevertheless realized such a 

 rhythmical harmony and beauty in the motions of the 

 heavenly bodies, cycle on epicycle, orb on orb, that he listened 

 if perchance he might catch some echo of the music of the 

 spheres which seemed inseparable from that stately measure of 

 their nightly round. The same fascinating idea is revived by 

 our own Shakespeare, in lighter mood, when his Venetian 

 lovers meet in the moonlit gardens of Belmont. I say, in its 

 amplest sense, " our Shakespeare," for in this reunion with so 

 choice a gathering of American friends it is ^^leasant to recall 



