172 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



are hung wreaths and immortelles, and upon a 

 set day each year thousands of Frenchmen in its 

 presence utter vows of undying remembrance and 

 love. Shall kings and people cherish the memory 

 of their lost territories, and the King of kings take 

 calmly the spoliation of His domains by enemies 

 whose bad ambition would impel them, Titan-like, 

 to wage war upon God ? Infinite as is the great- 

 ness of the Deity, He is glorified by His solicitude 

 for man's happiness ; and lowly as man may be, 

 he has a soul which, under the inspiration begotten 

 by the consciousness of God's love, may rise to 

 angel-like perfections. 



III. Another fact to which the starry heavens 

 bear emphatic witness is the unity of the Author of 

 Creation. 



It is to the Scriptures that we must go for clear 

 and final declarations that the universe is the work 

 of one infinitely wise and powerful Being, but many 

 striking confirmations of this doctrine are furnished 

 by astronomical phenomena. To whatever part of 

 the stellar region the attention is directed, there is 

 discovered, amid great diversity of detail, a complete 

 uniformity of plan, evidencing the presence and 

 supremacy of one intelligent Will. Just as Columbus 

 opened out a new world in which the laws of nature 

 were identical with those of the old world, so the 

 discovery of one planet after another, one star after 

 another, has but furnished illustrations of what 

 applies also to our earth. It was a thrilling 

 moment for Galileo when through his newly con- 

 structed telescope he gazed for the first time upon 



