"At what fixed point in space, Jehovah dropp'd
His slacken'd line, and laid his balance by,
Weigh'd worlds, and measur'd infinite no more;
Where rear'd his terminating pillar high, and said,
I stand, the plan's proud period; I pronounce
The work accomplish'd, the creation clos'd."

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE USE OF ASTRONOMY.

You told me, mamma, you would favour me with a distinct conversation on the uses of astronomy. Can you not do so to-day?

You are aware, that some of these uses have incidentally developed themselves; but I see no objection to presenting them to you in a collected form, that you may, at one view, cast your eye on them, and thus the more easily retain them in your memory. What has been said will, however, enable you to assist me in making the arrangement. How shall we begin?

I will mention one of which I have been thinking. It appears to me, that an attention to astronomy must greatly improve the mind, by adding to the force and penetration of the human understanding; and that not simply by exposing a number of interesting truths to view, but by banishing a multitude of superstitious opinions and vain fears. Of this I should not perhaps have thought, had I not heard some persons, from their ignorance of astronomy, express their fears at the appearance of a comet; and I was this morning reading an account of the practices of

the superstitious Hindoos at the time of an eclipse.

You may read it, if you please.

"An eclipse happened in the year 1666.— Bernier was then at Delhi; and upon the day on which it happened, ascended the terrace of his house, which was situated near the bank of the Jumnah, whence he beheld an innumerable crowd assembled on either side of the sloping banks of that river, standing in the water as high as the girdle, demurely looking up to the sky, for the purpose of plunging into the stream the instant that they should perceive the eclipse com mence from the dreadful assault of the celestial dragon. In this great and motley assemblage, people of all ages and degrees promiscuously mingled, from the venerable Brahmin, bending beneath the weight of age, to the child of six years old; and from the exalted Rajah to the meanest mechanic. When, at length, that eclipse began, they all raised a mighty outcry, and the whole multitude at once plunged entirely into the water; and this immersion they repeated several times; then standing upright in the water, devoutly lifting up their hands and eyes to heaven, muttering certain prayers all the while with great fervour, from time to time taking water in their hands which they threw up towards the sun, bowing down their heads very low, and moving and twisting their arms and hands in an hundred

different directions; they continued these apish tricks to the very end of the eclipse, when every one throwing a piece of silver to some distance into the water, and giving alms to the Brahmins who attended, they retired, leaving their old ape parel behind them, and putting on new vestments, which they had previously brought, and which lay carefully folded up an the adjoining sand. Upon all the sacred rivers throughout Hindostan, he describes the same crowds as assembled, and the same complex ceremonies as taking place. And not only on the rivers these rites took place, but at the various tanks or reservoirs of sacred water, particularly at the venerated cistern of Tannasar, where were collected together na fewer than one hundred and fifty thousand worshippers."

Your reading brings to my mind another use of astronomy, which is, that astrology is effectually eradicated by the principles of this science. We do not explore the heavens for the sake of pretending to become acquainted with the benign and malignant influences of the heavenly bodies, of unravelling the hidden events of futurity, nor to burden our memories with a catalogue of the guardian, genii of the planets, or with the heaven-born sovereigns, as innumerable as the stars they govern; but for the purposes of enlarging our minds, of in

creasing our information, and of multiplying our comforts.

Will you enumerate some of its other uses?

It is indispensable to the husbandman and the mariner; indispensable in historical records and in religious worship; and indispensable in geography as well as in navigation. I have not, indeed, yet said enough to show you the vast importance of astronomy to those who formerly ventured on the trackless ocean, and the no less trackless deserts of Arabia, and Africa. The stars in the Great Bear were alike the guide of the vessel, and the wagon, of the pilot, and the wagoner. I have introducd the words "historical records;" and should wish to observe, that the deeper we penetrate into the records of antiquity, the more and more we are obliged to see that very distant seas are solely the records of astronomy; that the fictitious story of Osiris or Noah, marching over, subduing, and fertilizing the earth, and instructing its various inhabitants in the arts of husbandry, and in the principles of civilization, was principally to be understood of the sun, performing round the globe his annual apparent revolution, warming and fertilizing, as well as illuminating and invigorating in his progress, its different regions; and that, in the constellations, is to be read a considerable part of the history, theological and civil, of the ancient world. Hence I am