BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 217 



to their happiness; many of them, perhaps, in a far 

 greater state of purity than the inhabitants of our 

 earth; in possession of superior degrees of bliss; and 

 all under the direction, indulgence and protection, of 

 infinite wisdom and goodness;" so that the poet is 

 correct in his reasoning: 



What read we here? Th' existence of a God? 

 Yes; and of other beings, man above; 

 Natives of aether ! sons of higher climes !" 



In this view of the subject, what a grand and mag- 

 nificent spectacle does the starry heavens present! 

 What lofty anotenlarged ideas must it give of the 

 Deity, to suppose every star which we behold a sun, 

 and each sun the centre of its respective system, of 

 planets and comets moving within the sphere of its 

 attractive energy, and irradiated by its beams! Must 

 not such a consideration inspire us with the grandest 

 and most sublime ideas of that Being, who has not 

 only formed, but launched forth, those numerous orbs 

 into the immensity of space, and who preserves them 

 in the greatest order and regularity, so that there is 

 not the least danger, nor the smallest possibility, of 

 their running into confusion? But, to stretch our ima- 

 gination still farther beyond the boundaries of the 

 visible creation, and to suppose other stars, and con- 

 sequently other suns and systems of inhabited worlds, 

 moving in the same beautiful order and regularity 

 beyond these, how awful the thought ! how over- 

 whelming the consideration! What an august, what 

 an amazing conception does this give of the works 



