174 LECTURES. 



this distance — one hundred and seventeen thousand years would 

 thus be occupied ; and, if you thought of travelling it at all, you 

 would find that it could not he accomplished in seventy-four mil- 

 lions of years. Having thus ascended where the nearest of the 

 fixed stars are, let us, in the next place, ascertain wha,t they are — 

 whether planets or suns, or what ? We all know with how much 

 facility we see a bright light, though it may be very small. A can- 

 dle or taper can be seen in foggy weather long before the building 

 containing it ; and even in the case of reflected light, the merest 

 spicula of glass, how brightly it shines, and how readily it can be dis- 

 tinguished from the dark substances surrounding it. The light of a 

 star must be very intense, for even when highly magnified by a 

 telescope, so that its light is enfeebled, it yet shines brightly, though 

 appearing nearly as a mere point ; and if the light of it is reflected 

 light why do we not see the body that illuminates the star ? What 

 is that body ? It cannot be the sun, because, even at the very moderate 

 distance of the planets, it becomes very feeble ; if, then, we could 

 suppose the light coming from the stars to be reflected lights we 

 would be at a loss to discover the luminous body that shines upon 

 them. But it has been ascertained, by careful experiment, that the 

 light of the very brightest fixed star, Sirius or the Dog star, which, 

 if the nigiit were clear, my audience might see as they passed out of 

 the lecture room — we say it has been ascertained that the actual light 

 emitted by this star, (with quite a probable allowance for distance,) 

 is full sixty-three times that of our sun ; such is not always the 

 case, as some stars do not give quite as much light as the sun. But 

 it is true, notwithstanding, that if many of the stars are not suns they 

 are more. It is unnecessary to contend about the name, for you must 

 either call them suns or invent a name which shall inean a larger 

 thing. When we make the statement that all the fixed stars are suns, 

 are we aware of the sublimity involved in that statement ? I under- 

 took to show my audience, as well as I could, a short time ago, what 

 constituted a single sun ; but it is also true that the tiny ray which 

 gladdens our eye, as shooting from some twinkling star, it trembles in 

 the casement ; it is true that this is a miniature sunbeam, and the 

 faint and feeble glow of starlight, which sometimes, like a semi- 

 transparent veil, covers the fair face of nature is woven of the 

 scattered glory of thousands of suns. In the very fact that it is thus 

 but faint and feeble we have the most speaking illustration of their 

 awful distance ; when we arrive at such a distance as this, it becomes 

 quite evident that such a unit as the earth's distance from the sun is 

 altogether too small. The distance of the earth from the sun must be 

 taken some 500,000 times or more, in order to make a comparison, and 

 we must therefore resort to something that will give us an adequate 

 measuring unit. This may be found in the velocity of progression of 

 the light which comes from the stars themselves. According to two 

 different and independent results this velocity is about 192,000 miles 

 per second ; the distance of the earth from the sun will thus be repre- 

 sented by 85 minutes. It takes a very trifle more than that for 

 light to pass from the sun to the earth. The Ifght comes from a 

 Centauri, the nearest of the fixed stars, in 3| years ; from 61 in the 



