257 



size and in glory. Nay, every star, as some suppose, is 

 not barely a world, but the centre of a magnificent 

 system ; has a retinue of worlds enlightened by its 

 beams, and revolving round its orb : all which are lost 

 to our sight, in immeasurable wilds of ether.* 



" But could you soar farther yet, could you wing 

 your way to the highest apparent star, you would (here 

 see other skies expanded, another sun distributing his 

 beams by day, with other stars, that gild the horrors of 

 the alternate night: and other, perhaps nobler, systems 

 established, through fhe boundless dimensions of space. 

 Nor does the dominion of the great Sovereign, terminate 

 even here. Even at the end* of this vast tour, you would 

 find yourself, advanced no farther than the sulurls of 

 creation : arrived only at the frontiers of the great 

 Jehovah's kingdom. 



" Think on this. When innumerable bodies, many 

 of them more than a hundred thousand miles in diame- 

 ter, are set in motion : when the orbits in which they 

 move, are extended to hundreds of millions of miles: 

 when each has a distinct and separate sphere, for finish- 

 ing his vast circuit : when none is cramped, but each 

 freely expatiates in his unbounded career : when every 

 one is so immensely distant from the others, that they 

 appear to each other, as only so many spots of light : 

 how astonishing is the expanse which yield's room for 

 them all, and their widely diffused operations ! To 

 what lengths did the Almighty builder stretch his line, 

 when he marked out the stupendous platform ! I won- 

 der at such an immeasurable extent : my thoughts are 

 last in this abyss of space. 



" To go one step farther still : when I contemplate 

 those ample and amazing structures, erected in endless 

 magnificence, over all the ethereal plains: when I look 

 >n thtm as so many repositories of light, or fruitful 



*A11 this is spgl.eu on the Newtonian Hypothesis. 



