A VOYAGE TO THE RINGED PLANET. 6l 



resembling our own. The grandeur of the universe is 

 incomprehensible, ' the glory of (rod is insufferable ;' 

 but in other worlds we may find creatures as imperfect 

 as ourselves ; there we may witness phenomena that we 

 can understand because they are comparable with those 

 already known to us in such worlds, in fine, we may 

 find safety from ' the persecution of the infinite.' 



It was with a strange feeling that we watched the 

 earth gradually passing from our view. It was night. 

 Our course was directed towards the darkest region of 

 the heavens, and as the faint lights which shone from 

 towns and villages beneath us grew un discernible with 

 distance, we were immersed in a profound darkness, 

 which seemed so much the more awful that around us 

 was almost vacant space. As in our former journey, the 

 sounds of earth gradually subsided into perfect stillness ; 

 though again as we passed the confines of the air what 

 had seemed stillness appeared to us as uproar by con- 

 trast with the silence of interplanetary space. We 

 passed rapidly onwards, directing our course almost 

 exactly towards Saturn (now shining very conspicuously 

 in a somewhat barren portion of the constellation 

 Sagittarius), but giving our attention chiefly to the orb 

 which we had so lately left, for we were curious to 

 know how the earth would appear when viewed from 

 its night-side. We could readily recognize the earth's 

 shape because the stars were now shining with great 

 splendour, in numbers enormously exceeding those 

 which can be seen from the earth on the darkest and 

 clearest night ; and there was a vast circular disc of 



