6"cp ^s^o3 
 
 Warfield Librarv 
 
 IN THE 
 
 NOV 6 1925 
 
 H 
 1 J_^ 
 
 H 
 
 J 
 
 BY 
 Prof. C. A. VOUNG, Pti.D., LL.D., 
 
 PRINCETON. 
 
 CRANBURY. N. J : 
 
 CtKORCK W. BURROCGHS. I'RINTKK. 
 
 1B94. 
 
COI'VRICHT. 1S94. 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. C. A. YOl'NC;. 
 
God's Glory in the Heavens. 
 
 IT is still as true as when the Psalmist wrote it first, that "the "^ 
 "heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth 
 "His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night 
 " unto night showeth knowledge." In some ways it is even truer 
 now than then, because to-day the words have a more impressive and 
 a grander significance than they could have had to David. To him 
 the heavens were not so ver}' vast, nor so very far awa3' ; and for 
 him they, and the sun and moon, were mere appendages of the 
 earth, of no importance or significance except as beautiful and use- 
 ful servants of mankind. Now we know an immeasurable universe, 
 compared with which our great world itself is the merest speck — a / 
 drop in the ocean, a mote in the sunbeam. 
 
 "He that sitteth upon the heavens," "he whom the heavens 
 of heavens cannot contain." was indeed, to the ancient Hebrew, 
 very great as compared with any earthly potentate ; but what shall 
 we now say of Him who inhabits the immensity of space revealed 
 by Science ; who by His immediate, all-pervading presence, actuates 
 and vivifies the universe of universes : of Him to whom we still, 
 but with a clear understanding, address the adoring words of the 
 prophet ; " Of old, O Lord, hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, 
 "and the heavens are the work of th^- hands : they shall perish, but 
 "Thou shalt endure : as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they 
 "shall be changed ; but Thou art the same and thy years shall have 
 " no end." 
 
 I think it is unquestionable that, as men have come to know \ 
 more of the material universe, they have had continually revealed 
 to them something more of the glory and majesty of its Creator. 
 Here, and for the present, we see, of course, only " through a glass 
 " darkly" : but as time goes on we catch more frequent glimpses 
 of the ineflable brightness and the majestic outlines : we recognize 
 more and more distinctly the presence and the power of the Omnipo- 
 tent ; lying still beyond our vision and our touch indeed, but inti- 
 mated, and to some extent manifested, in all the phenomena which 
 we can apprehend. 
 
 ; 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 Here, however, let me admit a limitation as to the extent of 
 this natural revelation of God, so far, at least, as it appears in the 
 science of astrononi}'. ;' I dare not say that I am able to see in the 
 phenomena of the starry heavens verj' much that bears on His moral 
 attributes ; very little, for instance that goes to demonstrate His 
 holiness, His justice, or His mercy. For such evidence, apart from 
 Revelation, we must look rather to the moral law written upon the 
 human heart ; and especially to the course of histor\', where we 
 clearly recognize "the power, not ourselves, which makes for right- 
 " eousness," and find evidence as to the character of Him who 
 overrules the conflicts of the nations and directs the evtr-ascending 
 progress of the human race. , 
 
 I may add, too, that one finds in the system of the stars less 
 evidence, perhaps, of the Divine "ingenuity," — if I may be allowed 
 to use the expression reverently — fewer cases of obvious " contriv- 
 " ance " than in the world of organic nature. It is in the structure 
 of living beings that the most striking instances of this sort occur. 
 Such organs as the eye and ear and the human hand, and the won- 
 derful arrangements by which the continuity and permanence of races 
 are maintained, have few if any parallels among the stars. There are, 
 it is true, numberless adaptations between the astronomical condi- 
 tions of the earth, on the one hand, and on the other the character- 
 istics and structure of its inhabitants, both animal and vegetable ; 
 and these adaptations may fairly be adduced, as Whewell and others 
 have adduced them, in evidence of the Creator's intelligence, which 
 has fitted together the habitation and its inmates. But the study 
 and discussion of these adaptations belongs to the naturalist rather 
 than to the astronomer, and I shall content m\-self with this mere 
 allusion to them. 
 
 The really impressive lessons of the stars, it seems to me, relate 
 to the greatness and eternity of God, His unity, His omnipresence, 
 and all-pervading activity ; and especially the wonderful manner in 
 which, by a few simple laws. He has built and organized the sub- 
 limely glorious architecture of the heavens, radiant throughout with 
 a clear intelligence, which we, His creatures, can recognize and 
 measurably comprehend. I think that astronom\- stands unrivalled 
 among the sciences in the emphasis with which she teaches these 
 lessons : no other science so forcibly, so overwhelmingl}-, impresses 
 the thoughtful mind with the infiniteness of God, and the relative 
 insignificance of man and the little globe on which we live. " What 
 " is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that 
 "Thou visitest him!" This the student of astronomy learns to 
 say with a profounder and more intelligent humility than anj- other 
 person can. 
 
 And, on the other hand, he too, I think, is likelj- to recognize 
 more fully than other men the high dignity of our human nature, 
 made in the image of God and partaking of the divine ; able in a 
 
most real sense to "comprehend" the whole material universe, to 
 share the thoughts of God, and to think them after Him. 
 
 I do not forget, indeed, the " infinity of littleness" that lies, so 
 to speak, below us — the world of microscopic organisms and struct- 
 ures, of molecules, and atoms, and light-waves ; nor do I den}' that 
 here also is to be found a revelation of God, which, in its logical 
 force and import, is as well worthy of consideration as that contained 
 in the story of the stars. But it seems to me harder to read : the 
 type is not so large, the sentences are more intricate, and the lan- 
 guage is far less familiar. At an}- rate, that is not what we have 
 to deal with at present. 
 
 And now let us, in the first place, consider the vasfness of the 
 material universe as in some sense a revelation of God's greatness. 
 Clearl}' He is greater than any or all of the worlds that He has 
 made ; and so in contrasting the immensity of that portion of crea- 
 tion which we can see, with the littleness of our own sphere oj 
 action, we shall advance toward a true conception of the tremendous 
 meaning of His omnipresence : advance towards it, I say, not reach 
 it ; for it is more than probable, nay it is certain, that our sensible 
 universe is but an infinitesimal fraction of the mighty whole. The 
 domain of astronomy is but a little corner of God's material king- 
 dom ; yet even this little corner is so vast that we can attain to 
 some conception of its immensity only by degrees, beginning with 
 the smaller and the nearer, and so ascending step by step through 
 unimaginable heights until we reach the limits of our human obser- 
 vation. 
 
 Compared with ourselves, and with the region we can fairly see 
 around us, the sphere upon which we live is certainly immense : he 
 who has travelled much and made its circuit appreciates its great- 
 ness. When one has ridden wearj^ days and nights to reach the 
 coast of the Pacific, and then has steamed some three weeks or 
 more across that great, lonely, sailless ocean to the islands of Japan, 
 and spent another two months in coasting along the shores of China 
 and Siam, and traversing the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea, and 
 the short-cut at Suez, and sailing over the blue Mediterranean and 
 the rough Atlantic to his home again ; such a man, I say, begins 
 to know something of the magnitude of this world of ours. All 
 the thousands of millions (probably about fifty thousand millions) 
 of human beings who have inhabited the earth since its histor}^ 
 began could be seated, as roomily as we are here, upon the surface 
 of the single State of New Jersey. Compare a man even with moun- 
 tains or lakes or rivers, not to speak of continents and oceans, and 
 how small he is : how feeble as against the wild powers of wave 
 and storm and earthquake. If we could have no, knowledge of any- 
 thing beyond the earth itself, we should rightly feel that a man, or 
 even the whole human race, is as the small dust of the balance 
 when weighed against the world. 
 
But we are not so restricted in our kno\vlerl;^e. The heavens 
 arc full of objects that from the be^^inninj,' must have riveted the 
 attenticm and excited the curiosity of men. Nearest of them all, 
 and most interesting, on account of her constant changes ;uid rapid 
 motion, is the Moon. How we ascertain her distance from us I 
 have no occasion to explain : it is enough that astronomers can 
 measure it with accuracy, and have done so, finding it to be a little 
 more than thirty tinjes the diameter of the earth, or nearly 239,000 
 miles. So remote is she that even our largest tele.scopes cannot 
 bring her optically nearer than eighty miles. The great telescope of 
 the Lick Observatory, the most powerful instrument in the world 
 at present, will sometimes, when all the conditions of the air are 
 kindly, bear a power of about 3,000 ; and then the observer sees the 
 surface of our satellite about as a person in New York City would, 
 with unassisted vision, look into Philadelphia, if he were raised 
 high enough to bring the towers of the rival cit}- above the hori- 
 zon. As for the Moon herself, while we find that she is indeed 
 much smaller than the earth, yet she is a real world, large enough 
 to carry a population at least equal to that which now inhabits the 
 earth. It is true, however, I may say in passing, that we find the 
 condition of afifairs there to be such that no inhabitants like those 
 which dwell upon the earth could live upon her surface. This 
 splendid orb that rules the night, and so beautifully brightens our 
 hours of darkne.ss, is an airless waste, frozen and lifeless, so far as 
 we can ascertain. "God's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts 
 like ours ;" at least this often turns out to be the case. 
 
 T,et us in imagination leave the region of the earth and attempt 
 tlif journey to the Sun. It is unnecessary and would i)e out of 
 place to discuss this evening the methods by which astronomers 
 have been able to stretch their measuring lines across the tremen- 
 dous abvss and so to affix their scale of miles to the great map of 
 the .solar system : for this distance ot the sun is now the unit ol all 
 human measures in the celestial spaces ; like the golden reed with 
 which the angel measured the walls of the New Jerusalem. The 
 problem has not l)een an easy one, and its first approximate solu- 
 tion was attained only in the la.st century by means of the tran- 
 sits of Venus in 1761 ami 1769. Since then various other methods 
 have been devised and carried out, all of which practically agree in 
 showing that the mean radius of the orbit of the earth is a little 
 less than 93,<kk),ooo miles — to be exact, 92,880,000 miles, with a pos- 
 sible uncertainty of perhaps icx),otx) miles one way or the other. 
 This is more than 3,7«.x) times the circumference of the earth. 
 
 It is a distance so great that figures convey no adequate con- 
 ception, and we are driven to all .sorts of illustrations to make it in 
 the least intelligible. We c<)mi)are it with railway journeys, and 
 find that the Ivujpire State Kxpress, on a .schedule of sixty miles an 
 hour, woidd occupy 174 years upon the trip, running day and night. 
 
without a sino^le stop or slackening^ of speed. We find that if sound 
 could travel unimpeded through the celestial spaces it would require 
 fourteen years for the boom of one of the great explosions on the 
 sun to reach us ; and if, at the time, some meteoric mass were pro- 
 jected toward us, and should rush unretarded along its path with 
 the speed of the swiftest cannon-ball, an interval of nearlv seven 
 years would elapse before the arrival of the missile. The flash of 
 the light itself, darting 186,330 miles each second, is eight minutes 
 and a third upon the wa}-. It is a tremendous distance, and yet 
 across the abyss the Sun e.xerts its power upon the Karth, and con- 
 trols the motion of the huge mass as it whirls along its orbit, hold- 
 ing it to its course by bonds of attraction, invisible and impalpable 
 indeed, but in strength equivalent to the breaking strain of ropes 
 of steel attached to ever}- square inch of the whole Earth's surface. 
 Stated in cold figures, the mutual attraction between the Sun and 
 Earth amounts to an unceasing ])ull of 3,600,000 millions of millions 
 of tons (36 followed by 17 ciphers). 
 
 And not only does the Sun's attraction control the orbital motion 
 of the Earth, but across the j-awning gulf he pours the streams of 
 radiance which we call light and heat, supplying all the energy 
 that operates upon her surface. By sun power the winds blow and 
 the waters run and engines drive their wheels — nay, even plants 
 and animals grow and move aiid perform their varied functions 
 only by virtue of the energy which is brought them in the solar 
 rav's. We cannot undertake at this time to follow out its Protean 
 transformations and show exactly how to justify such statements : 
 but they are stricth- true, — and only a part of the truth ; for to all 
 the planets of our system the Sun, from the material point of view, 
 is the symbol and vice-gerent of the Deitj' Himself : — the most mag 
 nificently glorious of all created objects : — the single one whose 
 removal would be a death-chill to every form of activity. 
 
 Compared with the Earth, the Sun is immense in magnitude ; x 
 so huge that if the earth were placed in the centre of his globe, the 
 distant Moon would be but little more than halfvva}' to its surface, 
 — so vast that its bulk is 1,300,0(^0 times that of our own great 
 globe, and its mass 330,000 times as great. If the intensest heat 
 and most dazzling brilliance may be spoken of as " fire," then is the 
 Sun a globe of fire, unmatchable except among the stars : a fire, 
 however, far too hot to " burn " in any such sense as the fires of 
 our terrestrial furnaces : — no fuel is being consumed ; but for thous- 
 ands and probably for millions of jears the tremendous globe of 
 elementary gases has, by its gradual condensation, maintained its 
 blaze, and ])ossibly even increa.sed the fury of it. Every square foot 
 of its enormous area still pours off continuously an amount of heat 
 equivalent to more than ten thousand horse power of energy, and 
 keeps up a temperature far higher than that of our fiercest furnace. 
 It seems at first as if here we had repeated before us the miracle 
 
8 
 
 of the burninj? bush, and on a scale as much <?rander as the heavens 
 are vaster than the Earth. It is not so, however, — the end will 
 come : hut in such a process centuries and niilleniutns count only 
 like minutes in our life. 
 
 The Karth and Moon are not the only attendants of the Sun. 
 His domain is vastly more e.xtensive. Four planets, which in scale 
 of ma|(nilu(k- are of the same order as the Earth, are nearest to 
 him. The ICarth is third in distance, while Mercury and Venus 
 revolve within her orbit, and Mars, attended by its two pigmy 
 moons, pursues its course at a distance once and a-half as great as 
 ours. And it is perhaps worth noting as we pass that this planet 
 Mars is better situated for our observation than any other, and so 
 is better known to us ; aKso, that in many of its conditions it is the 
 most ICarth-like of all the heavenly bodies within our range of 
 obser\-ation ; and there, if anywhere, there may be life to some 
 e.xtent re.sembling that which inhabits the Earth. But of the actual 
 existence of living beings upon it, we have no proof of any kind, 
 nor any reasonable ground for either assertion or denial ; nor is 
 there any rea.son to e.xpect that we shall ver}- soon come to know- 
 ledge more definite as to the fact. 
 
 Far beyond Mars revolve the so-called "major planets" — the 
 giant Jupiter, with its five attendants ; the ringed Saturn, accom- 
 panied by eight ; Uranus, with its fairy retinue of Ariel, Umbriel, 
 Titan ia, and Ol>eron ; and still beyond, and thirty- times as far from 
 the Sun as we are, the remote Neptune with its single moon. You 
 do not need to be told now that half a centur\- ago this planet was 
 discovered bj' the computation of Leverrier and Adams before any 
 human eye ever recognized it. Trusting implicitly in the dominance 
 of law, the}' argued, from some slight but otherwise unaccountable 
 p>eculiarities in the motion of Uranus, that such a planet must exist : 
 they figured out its place in the heavens, and communicated their 
 results to friends, who had access to telescopes ; and when the tube 
 was duly pointed, there, like a little star, was found the great world, 
 solemnly moving along its appointed path. The}' had followed out 
 the thought of Cod, "the great Geometer," who works by rule and 
 plummet in all the universe of matter, and " lie gave them their 
 heart's desire " in permitting them thus to find what he had hid- 
 den from all the generations of their predecessors. 
 
 The.se outer worlds are all immensely greater than the Earth : 
 the bulk of Jupiter is I2(X) times as great, and that of Saturn more 
 than 7tK>, while Iranus and Neptune are respectively about 75 and 
 90 times larger than the Earth. It is a great, an immense domin- 
 ion, this of the Sun : no less than 5,600 millions of miles in diameter. 
 
 If this were all, if this were the whole of the universe revealed 
 by a.strononiy, we might well say that the science had added much 
 to the meaning of the Psalmist's song of praise. But vast as the 
 solar system really is. it is hardly nu)re than the merest speck as 
 
compared with the universe of stars. For the stars which to the 
 eye look like mere glimmerin<j points of light, and even defv the 
 power of the telescope to give them any apparent size, are really 
 suns: — some of them certainly many times vaster than our own, — 
 all shining, not like the planets with a borrowed light, but each 
 with a special radiance of its own, and appearing small only because 
 of their inconceivable remoteness. They are so far awa\-, indeed, 
 that it is possible to measure the distance of even the nearest of them 
 only by processes and observations the most delicate and refined in 
 all the range of instrumental science. Even now a half-page list of 
 twentj'-five or thirty would include all the star-distances which can 
 be regarded as fairly known, though at present the catalogue is 
 beginning to grow with some rapidity through the new resources of 
 photograph}'. 
 
 As the Earth describes its enormous orbit around the Sun, itis \ 
 a necessary corsequence that, to us upon the Earth, everything must 
 seem as if we ourselves were at rest, while every other bod}- in the 
 heavens possessed, in addition to its own motion, our own reversed. 
 Every star, therefore, must, and reall}' does, appear to sweep out in 
 the sky an annual so-called "parallactic orbit" 186,000,000 miles in 
 diameter, the precise counterpart of our own real motion around the 
 Sun; and were the stars at any "reasonable" distance (say not 
 more than two or three thousand times our distance from the Sun), 
 this parallactic motion would be conspicuous, and the inter-stellar 
 spaces would have been bridged by Tycho 300 years ago. 
 
 In fact the parallactic motion of the stars is so slight, so minute, 
 that, as has been already said, it can be detected only by the most 
 scrupulous precision of observation. In the case of our nearest 
 neighbor, Alpha Centauri, the whole width of its apparent annual 
 swing is less than the thickness of a human hair as seen across a 
 lecture-room : small, however, as such an angle is, it can be meas- 
 ured now, and as a result we find that this next door neighbor of 
 ours, this nearest of all our Sun's companions, is 275,000 times as 
 far away as we are from the Sun : a distance so enormous that light 
 itself is four years and four months on the way. As for our rail- 
 wav train at sixt\' milts an hour, it would require nearly fort}'- 
 eight million years for it to make the journey. If the Earth could 
 l)e released from the attraction of the Sun, and should travel straight 
 on with its present speed of nearh* nineteen miles a second, it would 
 take it nearly 43,500 years to clear the distance. A whimsical illus- 
 tration of John Herschel's (slightly modified to make it agree with 
 the latest results) is that it would require nearly 4,000 vessels of 
 600 tons apiece to carry peas enough to mark the road, by dropping 
 one each mile. Another, by Dr. Huggins, is that the railway fare 
 to this nearest of all stars, at a cent a mile (a half-penny, of course, 
 in the original), would be somewhat more than 250,000 millions of 
 dollars ; which, according to a recent estimate that I have some- 
 

 lO 
 
 wliere seen, is at least five times as much as all the money in the 
 world, counting all the gold and silver and every form of paper 
 currency. 
 
 But Alpha Centauri is the nearest star. Of the rest whose dis- 
 tance has been measured, the three or four that come next (Bessel's 
 6i Cygni and Sirius, the primate of the stellar host, among them) 
 are from two to three times as remote, and those tiiat stand lowest 
 on the list are at least ten times as far away ; — from twenty to forty 
 "light-years," to use the now usual way of expressing a stellar 
 distance. At least twice as many other stars have been carefully 
 observed, and show either no sensible parallax at all or a parallax 
 so small that it is impossible to be quite sure of its reality : and 
 among these unconquered stars are still some of the brightest of 
 them all. 
 
 Our present means and methods do not permit us to measure 
 with certainty anj' stellar distance much e.Kceeding thirty' or forty 
 light 3-ears : but from the facts at hand it may be safeh' inferred that 
 among the stars which the telescope reveals multitudes must be 
 hundreds and even thousands of time as remote as the nearest ; that 
 we look upon stars so far away that the light by which we see 
 them now must have started upon its journey before the pyramids 
 were built. The visible universe of stars bears about the same rela- 
 tion to the dimensions of the solar system as the great globe of the 
 earth to a gold dollar or a collar-button. I am not speaking at 
 random, but stating the result of a serious calculation. According 
 to Profes.sor Newcomb, the stars visible with our present telescopes 
 seem to be irregularly scattered through a di.sc-like space (shaped 
 something like a' watch), wilh a diameter of something like 30.000 
 light-years in the plane ol the milky-way, and three or four thou- 
 sand in thickness. 
 
 As for the nebulre and star-clusters, they are among the stars 
 and form part of the stellar universe ; at least this is unquestionably 
 true of most of them. Forty or fift\' years ago a different view pre- 
 vailed, however, and is verj' prominent in the writings of Dick, 
 Nicol, Mitchel and others of that period. It was then generally 
 supposed that nebulae are only star-clusters, so remote that the sepa- 
 rate stars cannot be seen, and that the star-clusters which the teles- 
 cope resolves are composed of stars really as large as the sun. They 
 thought that our sun and the conspicuous stars, together with the 
 milky-wa\-, form a clu.ster by themselves, and that the telescopic 
 clusters and the nebulje are similar swarms of stars and suns far 
 beyond the limits of our own galactic group. The association of 
 large stars with small, in many of the clusters, the frefpient and 
 intimate connection of stars with nebulfe, and especially the now- 
 demonstrated gaseous nature of the nebul.ne, negative this view on 
 the whole. At the same time it is by no means impo.ssible that 
 among the star clusters there ma}' be here and there such a stellar 
 
11 
 
 swarm as that view contemplates : it may be that here and there 
 we catch fjlimpses of universes beyond the limits of our own. 
 
 I shall not raise the question of the absolute infinity of the 
 universe of matter, or even of space itself. It is enough for me 
 that thus far we find no evidence, no sugj^cstion even, of a limit 
 and a bound to the material dominion of the deity. However far 
 we penetrate, there still seems to ])e an infinity beyond. 
 
 Some of you, no doubt, remember the dream of Richter, the 
 German poet — a dream in form, j^erhaps, but after all only a shadow 
 of the overwhelming reality. May I quote it to you in part? 
 
 " God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, 
 " saying, come thou hither and see the glory of my house. And 
 *' to the servants that stood around his throne he said, take him, and 
 " undress him from his robes of flesh : cleanse his vision and j)ut a 
 " new breath into his nostrils ; only touch not with change his 
 " human heart, the heart that weeps and trembles. It was done ; 
 " and with a mi;4^hty angel for his guide the man stood ready for 
 " his infinite voyage ; and from the terrace of heaven, without sound 
 " or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space. JSome- 
 *' times with the solemn flight of angel wing they flew through 
 " wastes of darkness, through wildernesses of death that divided the 
 *' worlds of light : sonietiaies they swept over frontiers that were 
 " quickening under prophetic motions from (rod. Then from a dis- 
 " tance that is counted only in heaven, light dawned for a time 
 *' through a sleepy film : by unutterable pace the light swept to 
 " them, they b\' unutterable pace to the light. In a moment the 
 " rushing of planets was upon them ; in a moment the blazing of 
 ■' suns was around them. Then came eternities of twilight that 
 *' revealed, but were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left 
 " towered might}' constellations that by self-repetitions and answers 
 " from afar built up triumphal gates, whose architraves, whose arch- 
 '■ ways, horizontal, uprighl, rested, rose, at altitudes, b}- spans that 
 *' seem ghostly from infinitude. Without measure were the archi- 
 " traves, jjast number were the archways, beyond memory the gates. 
 " Within were stairs that scaled the eternities below, — below was 
 " above to man .stripped of his gravitating body : depth was svval- 
 " lowed up ill height immeasurable, height in depth unfathomable. 
 " Suddenly as thus the\' rode from infinite to infinite, suddenly as 
 " thus they swe|)t over abysmal worlds, a mighty cry arose that 
 " systems more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, other heights 
 " and other depths were coming, were nearing, were at hand. Then 
 " the man sighed and stopped, shuddered and wept. His overladen 
 " heart uttered itself in tears ; and he said, ' Angel, I will go no 
 " ' farther : for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insuf- 
 " ' ferable is the glor\- of God. Let me lie down in the grave and 
 " ' hide me from ihe persecution of the infinite, for end I see there 
 " ' is none.' And from all the listening stars that shone around 
 " issued a choral voice, 'The man speaks truly : end there is none 
 " 'that ever yet we heard of.' "End, is there none?' the angel 
 " .solemnly demanded : ' Is there indeed no end ? and is this the 
 " "sorrow that overwhelmed you?' But no voice answered. Then 
 " the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens, 
 "saying: 'Hud there is none to the universe of God. Lo, also 
 " ' there is no beginning.' " 
 
12 
 
 "O Lord, our r.od.jThou art very great ! Heaven and Earth 
 " are full of the majesty of Thy Glory ! " 
 
 / / And the Time-Scale of the universe matches its spatial extent. 
 
 '"Sy " Our little lives are bounded by a sleep." Not so with the life, the 
 growth, maturity and decay of worlds and systems. As we study in 
 the geological record the histor}' of our small globe, we find that 
 even after it became a world, ages upon ages, millions upon million.s 
 of years must have been occupied in fitting it for human habitation. 
 It may not yet be possible to count with certainty the time consumed 
 in each successive stage, and so to fix the length of the "creative 
 days ;" but it is clear beyond all questioning that the whole summed 
 up duration of the earth bears some such ratio to a human life, as 
 the earth's vast bulk to that of a human body. 
 
 And when we consider the present condition and peculiarities 
 of the solar S3'stem, and note in it the evident traces of a formative 
 process — an evolution from a pre-existing chaos, facts and phenom- 
 ena which seem to mark it as a growth rather than a structure — 
 and when we consider how slow and gradual such a process must 
 have been, we are forced to conclude that the Earth's duration, as 
 a habitable world, can be but a minute fraction of the time elapsed 
 since the s\stem itself took form and order. And in the heavens 
 we seem to find bodies in all the various stages of our own history 
 as a .system. There are nebulae which are mere formless clouds of 
 luminous gas ; others that are more or less globular, and partly 
 condensed around a .star-like point in the centre : .some are like 
 spiral whirlpools, and there are some in which there .seems to be a 
 central globe, with whirling rings around it, like the strange appen- 
 dages of Saturn, which suggested to La Place his famous theory of 
 planetary evolution. There are stars with wisps of nebula attached 
 to them, like those of the Pleiades. There are stars whose spectra 
 seem to be intermediate between those of nebuUe and finished suns : 
 there are other stars whose spectra suggest an intenser heat and a 
 more dazzling radiance than that of our own central orb, and also 
 others that match its spectrum with precise exactitude. Others yet 
 .seem to be on the downward grade and verging towards extinction- 
 And one of the most remarkable results of the work of the past 
 few years is the certain demonstration of the existence of stars that 
 in mass and bulk resemble the bright stars near them, but tlieni- 
 •selves are dark and utterly invisible. One cannot say for sure that 
 they have lost their light, because we do not know with certainty that 
 they ever shone ; jjiesumably the}' did, however : and now, their use- 
 fulness as suns outlived, they await the changes by which, as in 
 all other departments of the creation, the remains of tho.se that have 
 perished are utilized in the building up of new forms and activities ; 
 or possibly some sort of stellar resurrection, by which they them- 
 selves .shall be restored to the ranks of the shining ones. 
 
 As the elder Ilerschel expres.ses it in speaking of the sidereal 
 
13 
 
 universe, the case is like that of a forest in which one finds all 
 stages of arboreal life together : there are the seeds and saplings, 
 3'oung trees of rapid growth, and those that are in the fnll strength 
 ■of their maturity — those also that have begun to fail, and over all 
 the ground the prostrate trunks and decaying debris of those that 
 have died and fallen. Though an observer cannot in any short time 
 study the life-history of a single individual tree, yet by a few hours 
 study of the forest he can form a fair idea of the successive stages 
 of that history. So we can also conclude something as to the dura- 
 tion of the stellar universe, and we find it beyond all human concep- 
 tion. Individual stars and sj-stems indeed give clear indications 
 that they are by no means eternal ; but the great whole, — it must 
 be that its duration exceeds as much the countless ages of the life 
 of any single sjstem, as that of the entire human race surpasses 
 that of any man. In time, as well as in space, the Divine presence 
 and activity declares itself to us as transcending all limits we can 
 fathom. 
 
 What now is to be said of the Pozi'cr of God as revealed in the 
 astronomical universe ? Whether we consider the forces which act 
 between the heavenh- bodies, their tremendous masses, and the swift- 
 ness with which they move, the figures which e.xpress the so-called 
 "molar energy" of the universe are utterly be3ond conception; — 
 on the same stupendous scale as the measures of space and time. 
 Add to this "molar energy" the "molecular energy" of heat and 
 light, of electric and magnetic activity', and that of chemical affini. 
 ties — energies, acting within either the bodies themselves or radiat- 
 ing from world to world through the depths of space — and the total 
 result is simply overwhelming. As the dimensions of the universe 
 and its duration exceed all human powers of expression or concep- 
 tion, so also does its actuating energy. 
 
 Attempt, for instance, a comparison between the energy expended 
 in driving across the ocean the largest vessel of the Atlantic steam 
 fleet and that stored up in the revolution of the Moon upon its axis. 
 We find that this stored-up energy of the slowly-turning little satel- 
 lite, which occupies a month in each rotation, exceeds the other in 
 the proportion of more than 50,000 millions to one. The Earth's 
 energy of axial rotation is more than 800,000 times greater than that 
 of the Moon, and the energy of the Earth's orbital motion, as she 
 rushes on at the speed of nearly nineteen miles a second, exceeds 
 the rotational energy b}' more than 11,000 times. 
 
 What shall we say, then, of the stored-up energy of such a 
 planet as the swiftly-whirling giant Jupiter.^ Or that of the Sun 
 and its attendant planets in the tremendous journey they are mak- 
 ing through inter-stellar space with the velocity of about ten miles 
 a second (that is at least twenty-five times as great as the speed of 
 the swiftest cannon ball) ? What, then, must be the total energy 
 of all the whirling, rushing, flying universe of stars and systems ! 
 
 :w 
 
14 
 
 Then a.s to the heat-energy of the universe (to consider no other 
 form of molecular activity), recall that every square yard of the sur- 
 face of the vSuu is pouring off continuously about five times as much 
 power as that exerted by the great engines of the Campania at her 
 highest speed ; and then remember the millions upon millions of 
 other suns as great and fiercely hot as ours. 
 
 Consider, too, the forces, the pulls and pushes, that fill the uni- 
 verse : how, in some mysterious way, each separate atom of the 
 mighty whole is urged tow^ard every other b}' what we call "'attrac- 
 tion " — a name to hide our ignorance. To one who has not thought 
 much about it, it .seems a very simple thing, this attraction ; and 
 in a sense it certainly is "simple," a fundamental fact as certain 
 as the results of the most elementary mathematics, and no more to 
 be called in question : and 3^et it is an inscrutable mystery so far ; 
 one that defies all explanation as obstinately as the kindred prob- 
 lem, how the indwelling spirit of man or animal calls into action 
 and controls the power exerted by the muscles. Even if it should 
 become clear hereafter that in some wa\- these interatomic forces, 
 this attraction of gravitation, and the electric and magnetic forces 
 of the universe, are all but various consequences of the constitu- 
 tion of the mysterious space-filling " ether " of the physicist, the con- 
 clusion would still be untouched that, in the last anah'sis, we are 
 compelled to recognize all the forces and energies of nature as mani 
 festations of the power of the omnipotent, omnipresent, immanent 
 deity. May I quote to you a passage from a suggestive paper by 
 Sir John Herschel, published .some thirtj' years ago, allowing myself 
 .some liberties of condensation and omission. It is a dialogue between 
 one Hermogenes and his wife, Hermione. They have been talking 
 about the atomic theory of matter, but have rather wandered off 
 and now she sa3's : 
 
 "(She): Do come back to our dear atoms: I love the delicate 
 " little creatures. There is something so fairy-like about them. 
 
 "(He) : Well, they have their idiosyncrasies. I mean they obey 
 " the law of their being. They comport themselves according to their 
 " primary constitution. They conform to the fixed rule implanted 
 " in them at the instant of their creation. They act and react upon 
 " each other according to the rigorously exact, mathfuiatically-deter- 
 " mined relations laid down from the beginning. They work out 
 " the preconceived scheme of the universe by their — their — col . 
 
 " (Shk) : Their.'' Stop, .stop! My dear Hermogenes, where will 
 " you land us? Obey /(jws ■' Do they k)io:c them — can they loiuni- 
 '" ber them? How else can they obey them? Comport them.selves 
 " according to their primary constitution ? Well, that is so far intel- 
 " ligible : they are as they are, and not as they are not. Conform 
 " to a fixed rule ! But, then, they must be able to apply the rule 
 " as the case arises. Act and react according to determinate rela- 
 " tions ! I suppose you mean relations with each other. But how 
 " are they to know these relations ? Here is your atom A, there 
 " is your atom B (I sj)eak as you have taught me to sjieak), and 
 " a long interval between them and no link of connection. How 
 
15 
 
 is A to know where B is, or in wliat relations it stands to B ? 
 Poor, dear little atoms ! I pity them. 
 
 "(Hei: You may spare your sympathy; they are absolutely 
 blind and passive. 
 
 "(She): Blind and passive! The more tlie wonder liow thej- 
 come to perceive those same relations you talk about, and how 
 they comport themselves (act, I should sa}) on that perception. I 
 have a better theorv of the universe. 
 
 "(He): Tell it nie. 
 
 "(She): In the beginning was the nebulous matter or Akaseh. 
 Its bou;;dle.ss and tumultuous waves heaved in chaotic wildness, 
 and all was oxygen, hydrogen, and electricity. Such a state of 
 things could not continue, and as it could not be worse, altera- 
 tion was necessarily improvement. Then came 
 
 "(He): Now it is my turn to say. Stop ! Stop! Let us be 
 serious. Remember, it was 3'ou who began the conversation, and 
 I only allowed myself to be drawn into it. The fact is I have 
 so far only been tr3-ing you, and I see you are apt. There lies 
 the real difficulty about these atoms. These same ' relations in 
 'which they stand to each other' are anything but simple ones; 
 they involve all the ' ologies ' and all the 'ometries.' Their 
 movements, their interchanges, their ' hates and loves,' their 
 'attractions and repulsions,' their 'correlations,' their what not, 
 are all determined on the very in.stant. There is no liesitation, no 
 blundering, no trial and error. A problem of dynamics which 
 would drive Lagrange mad is solved instanter, so to speak, on the 
 gallop. A differential equation which would belt the Earth is 
 integrated in an eye-twinkle. In short, these atoms are most won- 
 derful little creatures. 
 
 " (She) : Wonderful indeed ! Anyhow, they must have not only 
 good memories, but astonishing presence of mind to be always 
 ready to act, and always to act without mistake in ever}' compli- 
 cation that occurs. 
 
 "(He): Thou hast said it. This is just the point. The pres- 
 ence of Mind is what solves the whole difficulty ; so far, at least, 
 as it brings it within the sphere of our own consciousness, and 
 into conformity with our own experience of what action is. When 
 we know that we act, we are al.so conscious of will and effi^rt ; 
 and action without zvill or effort is to us, constituted as we are. 
 unrealizable and inconceivable." 
 
 Yes, it is God him.self who works in and through the whole 
 stupendous mechanism, and his greatness appears to us in the rela- 
 tions of power as clearly as those of space and time. '-^^ 
 
 Again, the whole astronomical universe manifests not ow\y powerS^^ 
 but intelligence and wisdom. Our planetary system is not a jumble, 
 but an orderly organization, governed by laws of extreme simplicity 
 and beauty— l^ws which our human intelligence delights to search 
 out, recognize and apply in scientific prophec}'. And while the 
 stellar system is different and much more complicated, so that as 
 3^et we can only partly comprehend its plan, yet here also we catch 
 glimpses of divine symmetries, and begin to make out the harmo- 
 nies, intricate but exquisite, of the multitudinous chorus. 
 
 Surely it is one of the keenest pleasures possible to man, when 
 at the appointed moment, fixed long ago as the result of laborious 
 
r6 
 
 calculations, the obedient stars come to some predetermined aspect, 
 or Mercury keeps punctually his rendezvous with the Sun (as he 
 will next November), or when at the very second of prediction the 
 shadow of the Moon sweeps over the place where the observer has 
 stationed himself; or when what seemed at first capricious erran- 
 cies of some distant planet are recognized as the legitimate effect 
 of an unknown attraction, and so become the demonstration of an 
 unsuspected world, and the means of its discovery. 
 
 But let me add here, as something to be torne in mind from 
 the philosophical point of view, that the astronomical prediction of 
 events can never be absolutely precise. If our means of observation 
 were delicate enough to note the million-millionths of a second of 
 time or arc as easily as now we note the single seconds themselves, 
 an accurate almanac would be impossible ; because the majestic 
 course of even astronomical events is really ithough at present only 
 imperceptibly) swerved and disturbed by causes that are unpredict- 
 able — such as the actions of animals and men. One cannot build 
 a house or even throw a stone without in fact, and to some extent, 
 deranging the rotation of the Earth and changing the length of 
 the day : to say nothing of the immensel}' greater disturbances due 
 to such natural causes as storms, volcanoes and earthquakes. I 
 think it is something more than merelj' "fortunate" that we and 
 what we can do are so proportioned to the universe, and our powers 
 of observation so limited, that we cannot perceive in the heavens 
 any trace of these little ripples and quivers in the progress of 
 astronomical phenomena. Otherwise we should be hopelessly con- 
 fused. We are made so small in size and power that we can exer- 
 cise our freedom and disturb the universe as much as we are able 
 without obscuring the manifestation of the heavenly laws. We can 
 do no more mischief than flies upon a locomotive, and may be allowed 
 so to speak, to play with the universe as much as we please. 
 
 I have spoken of our system as a "'structure" of sublime and 
 beautiful simplicit3\ but I did not mean to intimate that it had been 
 made by building. It appears much more likel}' that it has arrived 
 at its present state by a process of growth and evolution. I do not 
 propose to discuss the process here, but only to say that if this view 
 is correct, it seems to me to evince a still mere admirable and ailor- 
 able intelligence, — I speak it reverently — than any mere "construc- 
 tion " from read\--made material : as much more wonderful as the 
 evolution of a plant from its seed, or a bird from its ^^^ ; is more 
 wonderful than the making of a watch or the erection of a house. 
 The old-fa.shioned view that Ciod made the Sun and planets one by 
 one, and set them whirling upon their axes, and made them travel 
 around the Sun in orbits nearly circles and nearly in one plane, 
 because such a S3stem would be the best and most stable possible, — 
 this view, I say, seems to me far less honorable to the Divine intel- 
 ligence and power than that which sujiposes Him so to have con- 
 
17 
 
 trived and energized the matter ont of which the worlds are made 
 that from a chaotic nebula should have resulted the present stately 
 cosmos by the simple operation of the laws and forces He first 
 imposed: — never forgetting, however, that the power of God him- 
 self has all the time been immanent and operative in all these so- 
 called " natural processes." It is true that as yet the exact course 
 and methods of this evolution are only dimly understood ; but one 
 cannot doubt that, as we rise to clearer perception and fuller com- 
 prehension, we shall find in them still more wonderful revelations 
 of the divine intelligence. ^ . 
 
 One other point remains to be noted briefly, — how the Unity ot\ 
 God declares itself in the revelations of Astronomy. Identity of 
 substance and of law, similarity of plan and purpose run through 
 the whole. As to material, the only astronomical "specimens," the 
 only pieces of non -terrestrial matter upon which we can actually 
 place our hands, are the meteorites which fall upon the Earth from 
 time to time. It may not be perhaps quite certain that they all 
 have had their origin outside our solar s^-stem, but the prevailing 
 opinion is that they come from far beyond, from interstellar space. 
 Now, we do not find in them a single chemical element unknown 
 upon the Earth ; nor any combination of elements disobedient to 
 the laws of terrestrial chemistry, though we do find in them manj- 
 minerals which are never met with elsewhere, and seem to have 
 been formed under conditions very different from those that exist 
 upon the Earth. Their whole testimony, not conclusive, perhaps, 
 but relevant and weighty so far as it goes, tends to indicate a wide- 
 spread identity of matter and of law. 
 
 The more recent evidence of the spectroscope also bears in the 
 same direction with still more force, and with a far broader reach. 
 It is hardly necessary for me here to enter into explanations how 
 the light of every shining body carries with it a more or less satis- 
 factory record of its constitution and condition. The lovely ribbon 
 of color which we call its spectrum is marked with transverse lines 
 and bands, sometimes bright and sometimes dark ; and these are 
 characters which, to those who can read them, tell more or less com- 
 pletely the story of its state and nature. Now, in the spectra of 
 the heavenly bodies — of the Sun and stars and nebulae — we find the 
 clear record of the presence of familiar elements. Here and there, 
 it is true, we meet with characters which we cannot decipher, some 
 of which possibly may indicate bodies unknown upon the Earth : 
 but always, and still more strikingly, stand out the well-known 
 lines of hydrogen and calcium, of sodium, magnesium and iron — 
 the same which are the most conspicuous in the spectrum of the 
 Sun (and Rowland says that if the Earth were heated to the solar 
 temperature, its spectrum would be practically the same as that of 
 the Sun itself). The names of many of our terrestrial metals are 
 written upon some of the remotest stars as plainly as any monu- 
 
 \ 
 
\ 
 
 i8 
 
 mental inscription. Sirius and \'e<^a, indeed a lartje majority of all 
 the stars, exhibit hydrogen as distinctly as any be'.l-jar upon the 
 laboratory table : and in its luminous properties the slellar hydro- 
 gen is identical with the solar, and the solar with the earthly. The 
 sodium of Arcturus and the magnesium and iron of Capella ring 
 out in perfect luminous unison with the same molecules upon the 
 Earth. And it seems to me, notwithstanding certain adverse criti- 
 cisms, that Herschel and Maxwell are quite justified in maintaining 
 that the molecule of every element, say hydrogen or iron, bears all 
 the marks of a " manufactured article," containing precisely a definite 
 quantity of matter, put together in a definite waj-, and of definite 
 dimensions and structure : as well-made and as accurately pitched 
 as an}' tuning-fork ; — and everywhere the same in all portions of the 
 universe as yet open to human exploration. 
 
 So also the law of gravitation appears, with the highest proba- 
 bility, to be actually (though not necessarily) universal. The motions 
 of the double stars are precisely what the}' ought to be if the same 
 attractions which control the movements of the planets are also 
 dominant in those distant regions. These "binaries," as they are 
 called, move in oval orbits around a point between them, which is 
 presumably their common centre of gravity ; and when we compute 
 their motion on the hypothesis of gravity, they follow obediently 
 in the path described. It is true that the demonstration is not yet 
 complete. Other laws of force are conceivable which would corres- 
 pond to such an orbit : but they all involve the condition that the 
 force, instead of depending solely upon the mass and distance of 
 the bodies, must also be determined in part by the direction of the 
 line that joins them, and that in a manner complicated and improb- 
 able. When spectroscopic observations have been longer carried on, 
 it will be possible to decide the matter definitely, and I have not 
 the slightest doubt that it will then appear that gravitation alone 
 explains and rules the motions of the stars. 
 
 I might instance other wa\-s in which the oneness of the starry 
 heavens appears : the manner in which the stars classifj- themselves 
 according to their spectra ; the similarit\' of the forms and charac- 
 teristics of the nebuhe, and in many cases the curious connections 
 between stars and nebula?. Here we have identical appearances 
 and behaviors manifesting themselves in objects and regions sepa- 
 rated by distances so vast that light must recjuire milleniums to 
 cross them. In short, the "Universe of Astronomy," immense as 
 it is in space and time and energy, is not an aggregate of many 
 differing and discordant and unrelated parts, but a single, magnifi- 
 cent whole, an orderly " cosmos " of organized activity ; and its 
 oneness illustrates and declares the Unity of the Creator, the one 
 Eternal, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, All-wise GOD, glorious forever 
 and ever. 
 
 And now, finally,!, let us for a moiuent emphasize one other 
 
 V 
 
19 
 
 thought that has recurred continually to my own mind, as I pre- sJ 
 same it has to yours, while we have been considerinjj the great 
 universe of matter, law and energy, which the eye and the tele- 
 scope reveals to us ; — this, namely, that after all the human mind 
 and soul is greater and more wonderful, higher and nobler than 
 even the stars of heaven. We are made in the image of God, an 
 expression the fullness of whose meaning I imagine we shall better 
 understand hereafter : we share His nature. — I speak it reverently, — 
 and his eternal life. Strange as it sometimes seems, when we mea- 
 sure our weakness and littleness against the immensities of the 
 heavens, still it is true that God " /s mindful of man, and visits 
 the Son of man," in whom is the breath of the Most High/ I do not 
 remember ever to have seen the thought more strikingly e.xprtssed 
 than in a poem which appeared anonymously some dozen years ago, 
 but is now known to have been written by the late Mr. R. A. 
 Proctor. May I read it in closing, allowing myself a few slight 
 changes from the original, the better to adapt it to my pnrpo.se. 
 
 VOICES OF THE STARS. 
 
 B}' "Vega " (R. A. Proctok). From Knowledge, Oct. 12, 18S3. 
 
 I watched the depths of darkness iufiiiite, 
 
 Bestrewu with stars, till dreaininpf I beheld, 
 
 From out the mystic realms beyond my ken, 
 
 A star come forth with even-gliding rush ; 
 
 Till sweeping ever onward shone its orb 
 
 With all the mighty meaning of a Sun — 
 
 A Sun girt round by many-peopled worlds. 
 
 And worlds as yet not peopled, being young. 
 
 And worlds long since unpeopled, being old 
 
 And dead. Their ruling Sun shone on them — 
 
 Ou the living, on the yet unfashioned, 
 
 On the dead : on all it .shone, though idly 
 
 Where'er as j-et life had not sprung from forth 
 
 The teeniiuv; womb of Time : and idly toj 
 
 Where life had ceased to be. On all the.se worlds 
 
 The mystic force which lives in matter worked 
 
 Its mighty will. Dead worlds and worlds since born. 
 
 And worlds astir with myriad forms of life 
 
 Swept circling round the stately ruling orb. 
 
 .\s it swept past I heard its solemn voice 
 Proclaiming through the realms of space the .song — 
 The everlasting song of Life and Death — 
 Of wealth, of life and everlasting waste 
 And dearth of life. It sang of present, past. 
 And coming plenitudes of life ; of past 
 And coming wastes of death . infinitudes 
 At once of Life and Death, each without end. 
 Without beginning each. 
 
 " Along my path 
 " In front," it said, " and l)ackwards whence I came, 
 " And all around, above, below my course, 
 
20 
 
 • Lie millions such as I, through L-ndlcss realms 
 
 ' Of star-strewn space. There is no end to God's 
 
 ■ l>omain of suns, and systems ruled by suns — 
 
 ' No end ; and no beffiuuinjf, through all space — 
 " But everlastiuj;, mystic, wonderful, 
 
 ■ Our hyinniujj song sounds ever round the throne 
 
 • of Ilim, who reigns supreme the life of all." 
 
 Then as the Psalmist sang of old I said — 
 Because so moved I could not choose but speak — 
 
 ■ What, I.ord, is man that thou shouldst care 
 
 ■ For him or for his kind,— the son of man that Thou 
 
 ■ Shouldst mindful be of him or his?" Then rang 
 A voice of solemn thunder through the spheres — 
 
 ' Say, rather. What is space or time to Me 
 
 ' That thou shouldst deem mere mightiness of mass 
 
 ■ Or plenitude of time can outweigh mind 
 
 ' And soul ? Can worlds and suns have knowledge of my power ? 
 
 ' Can .(iions after -lions sing my praise as man 
 
 ' Gifted by me with power to know my power can tell 
 
 ' The meaning of the nnisic of the spheres ?" 
 
 Then I replied — "Nay, Lord, but if the words 
 ' Of men are worth the utterance they are thine. 
 ' Lo we are but the creatures of Thy hand : 
 ' We see but part of all Thy wondrous work. 
 ' Could we but .see the glory of Thy light, 
 ' Could we but hear the thunder of Thy power. 
 
 We should become both blind and deaf— 
 
 • Deafened by pealing tones, made blind by light. 
 ' In Thee alone we live and move. In Thee 
 
 We have our being. But shall the finite hymn 
 
 The praises of the Infinite? Shall weak man 
 
 The creature, paint with erring brush the Sun 
 
 Of might and power and wi.sdom, evermore supreme?" 
 
 The answer came — " Shalt thou, my creature, doubt 
 ' Or hold my will in question ? Learn that the least 
 ' Of all the countless minds My Will has made 
 
 Outweighs, not once, but many thousand times 
 
 The mightiest mere mass : the thoughts of human hearts 
 
 Outvie the movements of a million suns, 
 
 The rush of sy.stems, infinite through space."