IMMENSITY OF CREATION. 43 



t hat every star which adorns the heavens, and upon which we turn 

 such unheeding eyes, is a sun, giving light, and warmth, and hap- 

 piness to ,its own attendant planets. Nay, more than this, we 

 believe that all those countless myriads of stars which the tele- 

 scope reveals, twinkling from distances so far, that if blotted 

 from existence, their light would continue a thousand years, so 

 long it would take to travel thence to us, are all centres of sys- 

 tems, around which, worlds peopled with intelligences of the 

 highest order, are revolving, and yet, we have obtained but a faint 

 idea of the immensity of Creation. Where is the central throne 

 from which all power emanates ? The throne of the Eternal. 

 Imagination fails. Reason shrinks back abashed, but Faith, with 

 more than telescopic eye, pierces to that centre, and sometimes 

 catches a gleam, a faint ray of the brightness of its glory. What 

 wonder that astronomy should be called the noblest science, 

 since it affords scope for the highest order of intellect, and pre - 

 sents truths unequalled for their grandeur and sublimity. Uncon- 

 sciously we are moving on, life and death is every where around 

 us, but the heavens seem unchangeable, the type of eternity. 

 We an unwilling to believe that the principle within us, whatever 

 it may be called, soul, spirit, or reason, which is thus capable of 

 comprehending sublime truths, perishes, and becomes inanimate, 

 like the dead flowers, and withered leaves. We feel an ardent 

 aspiration after higher and purer knowledge, and cannot doubt 

 that such longings will one day be gratified. 



These maybe called " flights of the imagination," but we would 

 do well to remember, that there are things, which are as far beyond 

 the imagination to conceive, and which are more strange than 

 this, yet of whose reality we cannot doubt. Such is the progres- 

 sion of light,, and of electricity. The eye cannot follow them, nor 

 the imagination, as they rush on, with a speed of 200,000 miles 

 in one second ! And, quicker than this is the transmission of 

 that mysterious influence, called gravitation, which acts with all- 

 controlling force, through distances, utterly inconceivable to the 

 human mind, causing the immense masses of the planetary orbs 

 to rise and fall like bubbles on the ocean wave. Shall we then 

 call all these flights of the imagination, or mere fancy, and with 



