190 The Story of tJie Constellations. [Sess. 



the starry heavens, which are always overhead and which I 

 don't half know to this day ? " I remember well my old 

 master in astronomy ; it was a dilapidated celestial globe that 

 no one cared for, and without a stand. I annexed it, mounted 

 it roughly, and found it a most efficient guide to the stars. 

 And now to our theme : Of what use are the stars to man ? 

 We know that their distance is so great that they can hardly 

 be looked upon as influencing the earth in any material sense. 

 They give a little light if the moon is absent and the sky 

 happens to be free from clouds. We get a good answer from 

 the Scriptures : " Let there be lights in the expanse of the 

 heavens to divide between the day and the night ; and let them 

 be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years." These 

 words indicate with a wonderful prescience the most im- 

 portant use that has been made by man of the heavenly 

 bodies, including sun, moon, and stars. Without the aid of 

 the stars but little progress could be made in accurately de- 

 termining times and seasons, for they are our fixed reference 

 points in the heavens by which the motions of the sun, moon, 

 and planets can be determined with any requisite degree of 

 accuracy. Though we know quite well, now, that all the 

 stars have a proper motion of their own, the velocity of some 

 indeed being quite astounding, yet so vast is their distance 

 that even the lapse of centuries makes but slight alteration in 

 their relative positions as viewed by us, and we call them the 

 fixed stars. 



The study of the stars has reacted on man himself to his 

 no small advantage. Problem after problem presented itself, 

 and ways and means had to be devised for finding a solution. 

 Many of these problems had no direct bearing on human 

 affairs ; but there is in man a restless, resistless passion for 

 knowledge for its own sake, the glory of fathoming the 

 unknown, which is always urging him to raise if he can the 

 veil which shrouds the mystery. His faculties have thus 

 been stimulated in a high degree, as witness the inventions to 

 improve vision and measurement, that marvel of modern 

 science the spectroscope, not to mention the great science of 

 mathematics so indispensable in all accurate astronomical 

 work, but little relished by the many, of whom 1 am one. 

 Fortunately one can go a long way without the higher 



