286 
ing to revelation, may be seen in this. Science has enabled 
man to discover the speed at which light travels through space,* 
and by this means to have some faint conception, not only of 
the magnitude of creation, of the greatness of the Creator, and 
of the insignificance of the created, but also of the time which 
must have elapsed since the heavens and the earth were called 
into existence by the will and power of God. Assuming light 
to travel at its well-ascertained speed of 192,000 miles each 
second of time, it passes from the moon to the earth in rather 
more than one second ; from the sun to the earth in about eight 
minutes; but to Neptune, the most distant planet yet disco- 
vered in the solar system, upwards of four hours are consumed 
in its flight. A parallax has been found for each of the nine 
fixed stars, or suns to other systems, which form what astrono- 
mers term “ stars of the first magnitude,” and the result is seen 
in the computation that light proceeding at the same speed 
requires three years to pass from a Centauri, the nearest of the 
fixed stars, to our system ; while from Capella, the farthest 
fixed star of the first magnitude, a period of seventy years 
would be required. But even this is as nothing compared witli 
what science has further determined respecting the magnitude 
of the Universe, and the consequent distance of some of the 
stellar orbs from our system, when the heavens and the earth 
were originally called into existence by their Omnipotent 
Creator. 
73. It is nearly a century ago that a foreign musician, at 
that time in the comparatively humble position of organist at 
the Octagon Chapel, Bath, who was subsequently known as 
the celebrated Sir William Ilerschel, and father of another 
emiuent astronomer in the person of Sir John Ilerschel, con- 
ceived the grand idea of gauging the universe with the assistance 
of his newly-formed telescope, which then excited the wonder 
of the age. It would require too much time to detail the 
means employed by this illustrious discoverer; it will be suffi- 
cient to name some of the results, which may be expressed in 
* Roomer, the Danish astronomer, by means of Jupiter’s satellites, was the 
first to discover the estimated speed of light ; the accuracy of which has been 
confirmed by Professor Wheatstone’s test of a rotating mirror, in which arti- 
ficial light is made to pass over a distance of 30,000 feet to the same point 
from which it emanated. Herr Bessel, of Germany, was the first to give 
Roomer’s discovery a practical value, by finding a parallax for a fixed star 
marked in the maps as “ (51 cygni,” which proved its distance from us to be 
such as to require light, travelling at the rate of 192,000 miles each moment 
of time, a period of nine years to reach our system. A grand achievement 
in the progress of science, which Sir John Hcrschel has justly termed “ the 
greatest and most glorious triumph that practical astronomy has over 
witnessed.” 
