424 SKETCHES OF CHEAT I OX. 



her blood curdled in her veins, her sister planets in their 

 graves or hurrying toward them, she herself shall plunge 

 again into the bosom of her parent sun, whence, unnum- 

 bered ages since, she whirled forth with all the gayety of a 

 youthful bride. 



Such is the position to which science conducts us. We 

 feel that we stand here upon sure foundations. We have 

 no means of measuring accurately the length of eternity's 

 years, but we know they exceed ours a million-fold. We 

 can clearly translate the watchword of the hosts of space. 

 "JVbt for perpetuity" is written upon every lineament of 

 the solar system. We contemplate the matter of the sys- 

 tem aggregated into a cold and blackened mass at the 

 centre. No more sun, no more planet, no more satellite, 

 no more comet, or metorite, or zodiacal luminosity, but 

 winter, and the silence of death, and the darkness of Na- 

 ture's midnight, penetrated only by starlight, whose ma- 

 ternal source may even then have been blotted out — a sol- 

 itary grave upon a distant plain, in the midst of the howl- 

 ing desolation of an arctic winter. 



But imagination, indefatigable, with wing unwearied 

 while yet there remains another height to scale, pausing 

 here but an instant, throws her glances still beyond. Into 

 that remoter eternity which stretches still beyond the sep- 

 ulchre of the solar system her vision penetrates. Shall we 

 venture to delineate the vicissitudes which she sees trans- 

 piring in that deeper depth? They are the figures of 

 things but faintly limned against the curtains of infinity. 

 But yet there is no religion which forbids us to reproduce 

 that ethereal vision. Let us exhaust the revelation of Na- 

 ture, and seize upon knowledge which lies next door to the 

 supernatural world. 



Astronomy calls every star a sun, and declares that our 

 solar orb is but one in a firmament of suns. When we 



