THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 18 



Mazzaroth in his season ? or canst thou guide Arcturus 

 with his sons ? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven I 

 canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth V** 

 Job xxxviii. 31 — 33. Who can help being amazed 

 when he casts his eyes again over yonder vast expanse 

 which almost appears, to use Milton's expression, 

 ' powdered with stars ;* more especially when he is 

 informed by the discoveries of the telescope, that that 

 luminous Zone in the heavens, called the * Milky Way,' 

 is a vast assemblage of stars, too small, or too distant, 

 to be visible to the naked eye ! The number of the 

 heavenly bodies appears at first sight to confound 

 calculation ; and though science has numbered and 

 arranged those which are visible, yet how is the 

 imagination even of the wisest lost and bewildered 



* The expressions used here, refer to the particular seasons of 

 the year, when the sun rises about the same time as these signs. 

 The 'Bands of Orion,' are descriptive of Winter, as the * Sweet 

 influences of Pleiades' are of Spring ; the latter of these signs 

 is better known by the name of the * Seven Stars,' and Orion 

 is easily observed by the three remarkable stars usually termed 

 * Orion's Belt :' by the Arabians, * Jacob's StaflF.' Arcturus, 

 perhaps, ought to have been rendered * the Great Northern 

 Sign,' t. e. the * Great Bear, 'commonly called * Charles's Wain,' 

 and sometimes 'the Plough.' Mazzaroth, according to Ctay- 

 sostom, means the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and our 

 marginal version adopts this explanation. 



