64 



THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS. 



How various may be the circumstances of climate and temperature in places 

 receiving exactly the same influences from the sun's rays, will be apparent by 

 a reference to the tropical regions of our own globe. There under the same 

 influences of the same solar heat, we have in different elevations every variety 

 of climate and temperature. On the general surface, near the elevation of the 

 sea, we have the fierce climate of the torrid zone ; we have only to ascend 

 the mountains to a certain height, to behold the trees, fruits, and flowers, of the 

 temperate zone ; while at a still greater elevation, we encounter all the atmo- 

 spheric phenomena and vegetable productions of the frigid zone. In the low 

 valleys of the Andes are rich bananas and palms, while the elevated parts of 

 the range produce oaks, firs, and the tribes common to the north of Europe. 

 The oak flourishes on them at elevations varying from six to ten thousand 

 feet. At fifteen thousand feet of height vegetation disappears, save the lichens, 

 and then we enter the solitude of everlasting snow, in which every living thing 

 disappears. 



How easy, then, and how natural, is it not, to conceive that atmospheric ar- 

 rangements like those which, under a tropical sun, produce at certain eleva- 

 tions the moderate temperature of our own climate at others, less or greater, 

 the fierce heat of the line, or the rigor of the poles may be the means of 

 modifying the varieties of effect which would be produced in different planets 

 by their different distances from the sun ! 



Such is, then, the brief view which we offer of that vast body of analogy 

 which leads the intelligent and reflecting mind, that loves to see the most ex- 

 alted attributes of Divine power manifested throughout all parts of creation, to 

 the conclusion that the planets are worlds, fulfilling in the economy of the uni- 

 verse the same functions, and are created by the same Divine hand, for the 

 same moral purposes, and with the same destinies, as the earth. 



