PART THE SECOND.

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE STARRY HEAVENS.

My dear mamma, you have directed my attention to the solar system: I have beheld the sun an immense body of fire placed in the centre, I have seen the planets, satellites, and comets, perform their revolutions around him. What shall we talk about to-day?

Shall we, my child, inquire, if there is nothing beyond those limits? The planetary system has its boundary, but space has none. There are but six planets visible to the naked eye. What then is that multitude of other stars, which sparkle in our firmament? The planets all circle around the sun, but the other stars do not own his dominion, they move not around him. To all common observation they remain motionless, each " the independent sovereign of his own territory." What are these distant fires lighted up in the distant parts of the universe?

Propose not the question to me, my dear

mamma, or propose it, only that I may be instructed by you.

My dear child, each of these luminaries, which we term stars, indicates a system as vast and as splendid, as the one which we inhabit. Worlds, roll in these distant regions, and these Worlds must be the mansions of life, and of intelligence! In yon silvered canopy of heaven we see the broad aspect of the universe, where each shining point, presents us with a sun, and each sun, with a system of worlds, where the Divinity reigns in all the grandeur of his high attributes, where he peoples immensity with his wonders, and travels in the greatness of his strength, through the dominions of one vast and unlimited monarchy.

What then may be the number of suns and of systems?

The unassisted eye of man, can take in a thousand, and the best telescope, which his genius has constructed, can take in eighty millions.

May this then be the extent of the universe? That is impossible! Why subject the dominion of the universe, to the eye of man, or to the powers of his invention?" Fancy may take its flight far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope, it may expatiate on the outer regions of all that is visible, and shall we say there is nothing there?"

Never did these words of David appear to me
Lord, what is man,

half so full of meaning,

that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou regardest him?"

That I dare say is the case, and there are three or four interesting positions connected with our present subject, which, if I can place in a view simple enough, will tend to fix, and rivet, the impression that is now made. My first position will be, that these suns move; then, that these suns, which move, are innumerable; that these innumerable moving luminaries are infinitely distant; and, lastly, that these distant suns form clusters, or systems.

Will you begin with the first observation, mamma; and show me that these suns are in motion?

Yes. The action of two forces is, we know, necessary to enable the satellites to circle around their primaries, and to support the primaries in their revolution round the sun. We know also, that each of these bodies has a compound motion, and that each one, while it turns upon its own axis, revolves round a common centre. We are assured, the sun has one of these motions. He turns on his axis. May he not also, in common with the planets, have a second motion? may he not be describing a tract in space, and in so doing be carrying all the planets, and all their secondaries, along with him?

L

Mamma, what do you think? does it appear to you probable?

Yes; it does appear to me highly probable, that the plan which we find adopted in our humbler astronomical walk, is pursued in the loftier regions of immensity; and in this opinion we shall rather be confirmed by this consideration, that, in the course of ages, the stars in one quarter of the celestial sphere, are receding from each other, and in the opposite quarter, they are drawing nearer to one another.

Is this by a very slow motion?

By an advance of about fifty seconds in a year; so that it will require 25,791 years, for the equinoctial points to perform an entire revolution, westward round the globe.

This is slow indeed!

Nevertheless it is, in one sense, a perceivable motion; for the stars, which were formerly in Aries, are now in Taurus, and those, which were in Taurus, are in Gemini, and so of the others; and those stars, which rose and set at any particular season of the year, in the time either of Hesiod, or Eudoxus, or Pliny, do not -answer to the descriptions of these writers: so that it is probable, that in the same manner, as -the planets with their satellites revolve round the sun, the sun with his tributaries, revolve round some common centre, "describing the sweep of such an orbit in 6pace, and completing

the mighty revolution in such a period of time, as to reduce our planetary movements, and our planetary seasons, to a very humble rank in the scale of a higher astronomy."

What may this common centre be?

It may be one immense body, whose emanations bind all the revolving bodies, and keep them harmoniously performing their parts. It may be one common system, which regulates the others, by the number and the size of the bodies, of which it is composed. The possibility of this is supported by the fact, that there is room for all this in immensity on the one hand, and it is rendered probable by the records of actual observation on the other, which present us with a gradation in the works of God truly astonishing.

The satellites accompany the planets, the planets follow the sun, and the sun himself is connected with a system of stars, over which presides another sun of superior magnitude, and force, and so on, through a number of variations, and degrees, which the imagination cannot reach. Thus much for the first position.

Shall we now, mamma, proceed to the second, that these suns, which move, are innumerable?

Yes; since the invention of the telescope, the number of the fixed stars is proved to be infinitely greater, than the arithmetic of man can compute. For instance, the galaxy, or