endowed it with such a beautiful transparency, that each little star shoots its radiance on the eye, and the whole sublime hemisphere seems like an immense and gorgeous dome, studded with diamonds; a fit temple for the worship of the Creator. The untutored savage, though he regards the stars only as so many lamps suspended from the azure vault, to enlighten and cheer his abode, is struck with admiration at the gift; and, with a heart overflowing with gratitude, falls down to bless the Great Spirit who bestowed it. Ignorance and astonishment have gone still farther; and, in almost all nations, traces are to be found of the worship of the heavenly bodies,-a rude, but not altogether unnatural form of religion to the uninstructed mind. The "Hosts of Heaven," are assuredly the most striking and appropriate visible emblems of the glory of the Almighty Unseen; and, where the mind has been unaccustomed to reflect on any objects but those which strike the senses, the mistake may, without difficulty, be accounted for. Certainly such a belief is neither so strange nor so revolting, as the worship of cows and serpents, or even of men and devils, with examples of which the history of heathen mythology abounds.

Science, however, even in its earliest efforts, easily shook off this supersition; and, as it advanced, opened up new wonders in the sky, which extended the views, while they intensely excited the curiosity of man, and gave deep exercise to his intellectual faculties. Hence have resulted discoveries which have overwhelmed the mind with astonishment. It does appear little less than miraculous, that a worm of earth, like man, who is bound to a little spot of this remote planet; whose abode upon it is but threescore and ten years; whose bodily strength is inferior to that of many other animals; whose powers of vision are so limited; whose intellect, in ordinary circumstances, rises so little beyond a mere provision for daily subsistence; that this being, with faculties and means apparently so inadequate, should have been en

abled, by dint of an insatiable desire of knowledge, and an unwearied perseverance, to overcome so many difficulties, and to forge a key, by which the mysteries of the universe have been unlocked, and a near view has been obtained of the secret springs, which, under the fiat of the Creator, move the amazing machinery of the material world. Little did the early inhabitants of the earth think, when they gazed, in stupid surprise, on the tiny sparks which bespangled the heavens, that each of these was a globe of fire, compared with which the earth they inhabited, was but as a ball, which a child tosses in his hand; or that the distance at which they were situated, was so amazing, that a hundred millions of miles was but as the length of an infant's step. Yet these are truths now familiar to every mind, and established by demonstrations, on which scepticism itself dare not breathe a doubt.

The world of wonders into which astronomy introduces us, is calculated at once to enlarge and to depress the mind; to depress it with a sense of its own insignificance; to enlarge it with views and exercises so immense, that, as it expands, it perceives more and more clearly the immeasurable vastness of the grasp it is required to take; and, though constantly enlarging, in proportion to its efforts, feels itself, at every step, left hopelessly behind, till at last it is lost in infinitude.

When a man confines himself to his own little locality, and looks around him on the subject earth, which his plastic hand converts from a wilderness into a garden; or on the lower animals, whom he subdues to his will, and causes, by the superiority of his mental powers, to supply his wants, and administer to his comforts; or, even on the waters of the far-spread ocean, whose proud waves he conquers, and over whose trackless wastes he makes his way; or on the free and capricious air, whose fury he controls, and whose blandness he renders subservient to his pleasures or his profit,-in such contemplations, he may find much to foster self-complacency, and to per

suade him that he is, in reality, that lordly being which pride and vanity delight to portray. But the scenes which astronomy unfolds, are altogether of a different tendency, and ought to repress those swellings of selflove, which a more partial and contracted view of his situation may excite. The voyager who has compassed the earth, when he returns to his native village, is surprised to find that every thing has, to his view, contracted in its dimensions, and become comparatively mean and sordid in its appearance. The houses have shrunk into hovels; the village-green, from a broad-spread lawn, has dwindled into a miserable court-yard; miles have diminished into furlongs; and magnificent estates into sorry farms. This effect has been produced by a contrast with the expansion of his own views, and a similar result arises from the contemplations of the astronomer. Expatiating in the infinity of the universe, the things of earth seem to lessen while he regards them. As he pursues his inquiries, the contrast becomes daily more apparent and more mortifying. He begins to perceive an emptiness in those things which formerly engaged his attention, and interested his affections, which he did not previously suspect. He finds himself placed on a little planet, whose comparative insignificance is such, that, were it struck from the face of creation, its fate would be but like that of a falling star, which loses itself in the heavens, and is remembered no more. And, as to himself, what an atom is he? How humbling and appalling is the thought!

But the mind cannot rest here. If the creation be so inconceivably extensive, what is the Creator? This is the most interesting and elevating of all inquiries. When the mind has dwelt upon it, till its importance is appreciated, and its various bearings perceived, and then turns back upon itself, the reflection naturally occurs, Am not I a child of this Almighty Parent?" Is it not in His universe that I exist? Has He not constituted me a part of the system which His Infinite Wisdom has established?

66

And what, then, is that system with reference to me, and the race with which I am connected?

Such views open up, to the inquiring mind, the whole field of Natural and Revealed Religion, and lead irresistibly to the conclusion, that there is no satisfactory account of man's nature and destiny, but in the inspired word, and no resting place for his hopes, but in the life and immortality which have been brought to light in the gospel of Jesus?

SECOND WEEK-SATURDAY.

II. THE STARRY HEAVENS.-METEORIC SHOWERS.

BEFORE entering on the consideration of the more general facts which the study of the starry heavens opens to our view, I must mention a celestial phenomena of a very singular nature, connected with two days in the present week, which has lately attracted the attention of the scientific world. The following account of it we extract from Mrs Somerville's publication on the Physical Sciences.

"On the morning of the 12th of November 1799, thousands of shooting stars, mixed with large meteors, illuminated the heavens for many hours, over the whole continent of America, from Brazil to Labrador; it extended to Greenland, and even Germany. Meteoric showers were seen off the coast of Spain, and in the Ohio country, on the morning of 13th November 1831; and during many hours on the morning of 13th November 1832, prodigious multitudes of shooting stars and meteors fell at Mocha, on the Red Sea, in the Atlantic, in Switzerland, and at many places in England. But by much the most splendid meteoric shower on record, began at 9 o'clock in the evening of 12th November 1833, and

lasted till sunrise next morning. It extended from Niagara and the northern lakes of America, to the south of Jamaica, and from 61° of longitude in the Atlantic, to 100° of longitude in Central Mexico. Shooting stars and meteors, of the apparent size of Jupiter, Venus, and even the full moon, darted in myriads toward the horizon, as if every star in the heavens had started from their spheres. They are described as having been as frequent as flakes of snow in a snow-storm, and to have been seen with equal brilliancy over the greater part of the continent of North America.

"Those who witnessed this grand spectacle, were surprised to see that every one of the luminous bodies, without exception, moved in lines, which converged in one point in the heavens; none of them started from that point; but their paths, when traced backward, met in it, like rays in a focus, and the measure of their fall, showed that they descended from it in nearly parallel straight lines toward the earth.

66 By far the most extraordinary part of the whole phenomenon is, that this radiant point was observed to remain stationary near the star Leonis, for more than two hours and a half, which proved the source of the meteoric shower to be altogether independent of the earth's rotation, and its parallax showed it to be far above the atmosphere.

"As a body could not be actually at rest in that position, the group must either have been moving round the earth or the sun. Had it been moving round the earth, the course of the meteors would have been tangential to its surface, whereas they fell almost perpendicularly, so that the earth in its annual revolution must have met with the group. The bodies that were nearest, must have been attracted toward the earth by its gravity; and as they were estimated to move at the rate of fourteen miles in a second, they must have taken fire on entering our atmosphere, and have been consumed in their passage through it.

VOL. I.

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