416 LUSTRE OF THE STARS. 



ceeding from we know not what, envelope others ; 

 some approach into intimate union ; others glitter, 

 unattended, in every variety of splendour, and 

 light, glorious light, seems the very atmosphere of 

 all ! for what a lustrous body must that be which 

 becomes manifested to our feeble vision, from dis- 

 tances of which the mind can have no concep- 

 tion * ! Even this moon, our moon as we call it, 

 so comparatively near to us, so particularly atten- 

 dant upon the revolutions of our planet, is all a 

 mystery to us ! We may call certain parts alpine, 

 or volcanic; we may map its continents, its islands, 

 and waters, but it is little more than a vision of 

 imagination. We lose sight of a star, and obtain a 

 view of another, not observed before, and say a 

 system has been removed, or a new one created 

 but what know we ? No real knowledge of the 

 heavenly bodies, as to their natures, laws, and ob- 

 jects, can be obtained but from two sources^ per- 



* Perhaps no human mind ever yet conceived a colour different 

 from what now exists in some known object, or which may be pro- 

 duced by a combination of existent ones ; so probably our concep- 

 tion of the intensity of light is only in proportion to some visible 

 sense of it. The planet Venus is so distant from our sphere, that the 

 space in miles, from its immensity, we can have no conception of, 

 as we cannot rightly entertain a sense of vast space ; yet this star 

 glitters at times with such splendour that we can scarcely look 

 upon it : what then must be the intensity of that light, reflected 

 light, which would proceed from this planet were we placed near 

 it ! We have no faculties to imagine such splendour, nor power of 

 enduring could we experience it He only, the " Father of lights." 



