256 



spread out into wideband immeasurable plains. For the 

 loftiest mountains bear no more proportion to the whole 

 surface of the ball, than a particle of dust on the astro- 

 nomer's globe, bears to its whole circumference. We 

 may fancy that it has deep foundations, and rests on 

 some solid basis. But it is pendent in the wide transpa- 

 rent ether, without any visible support, either from 

 above or beneath. It may seem to remain stili and mo- 

 tionless : but it is continually sailing through the depths 

 of the sky, and in the space of twelve months, finishes 

 the mighty voyage. This periodical rotation produces 

 the seasons, and completes the year. And all the time 

 it proceeds in its annual circle, it spins upon its own cen-" 

 tre, and turns its sides alternately to the great fountain 

 of light. By this means, the day dawus in one hemis- 

 phere, while the night succeeds in the other. Without 

 this expedient, one part of it sregions* would during half 

 the great revolution, be scorched \vith excessive heat, 

 and languish under an uninterrupted glare : while the 

 other would jbe frozen to ice, and buried under dismal 

 and destructive darkness. 



" The earth in the revolution which it performs daily 

 on its cwn axis, whirls about at the rate of above a 

 thousand miles an hour. What an amazing force must 

 be recjuisite, to protrude so vast a globe, and wheel it 

 on, loaded with huge rocks and mountains, with such a 

 prodigious degree of rapidity ? 



" Mean time the sun which seems to perform its daily 

 stages, is fixed and iwmoveable. It is the great axle of 

 heaven, about 'which the eart t and many larger orbs 

 wheel their stated courses. And small as it seems, it is 

 for larger than the earth : Sir Isaac New ton supposes, 

 900,000 times. Are we ready to cry out, how mighty is 

 the Being ;who kindled such a prodigious fire ? And 

 keeps alive from age to age, such an enormous mass of 

 flame] And yet this sun, with all its attendant planets, 

 are but a very small part of that grand machine, the uni- 

 verse. Every star is really a vast globe, like the suu iu 



