train. Why should we strip the rest of this princely attendance? Why may not each of them be the centre of his own system, and give light to his own worlds? It is true that we see them not, but could the eye of man take its flight into those distant regions, it should lose sight of our little world before it reached the outer limits of our system-the greater planets should disappear in their turn, before it had described a small portion of that abyss-the Sun should decline into a little spot, and all its splendid retinue of worlds be lost in the obscurity of distance-he should at last shrink into an almost invisible atom, and all that could be seen of this magnificent system should be reduced to the glimmering of a little star. Why resist any longer the grand and interesting conclusion? Each of these stars may be the token of a system as vast and as splendid as the one we inhabit. Worlds roll in these distant regions, and these worlds must be the mansions of light and intelligence. In yon gilded 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 attributes-where he peoples immensity with his wonders, and travels, in the greatness of his strength, through the dominions of one vast unlimited monarchy.

The contemplation has no limits. If we ask the number of suns and of systems, the unassisted eye of man can take in a thousand, and the best telescope which the genius of man has constructed can take in eighty millions. But why subject the dominions of the universe to the eye of man, or to the powers of his genius? Fancy may take its flight far beyond the ken of eye or of telescope. It may expatiate in the outer regions of all that is visible; and shall we have the boldness to say that there is nothing there? that the wonders of the Almighty are at an end because we can no longer trace his footsteps? that his omnipotence is exhausted, because human art can no longer follow him? that the creative energy of God has sunk into repose, because the imagination is enfeebled by the magnitude of its efforts, and can keep no longer on the wing through those mighty tracks, which shoot far beyond what eye has seen or the heart of man hath conceived-which sweep endlessly along, and merge into an awful and mysterious infinity?

CHALMERS'S ASTRONOMICAL DISCOURSES.1

1 This distinguished divine, whose death in May 1847 excited so universal a regret,

THE UNSEEN CREATION.

And, after all, although it be a mighty and difficult conception, yet who can question it? What is seen, may be nothing to what is unseen; for what is seen is limited by the range of our instruments. What is unseen has no limit; and though all which the eye of man can take in, or his fancy can grasp, were swept away, there might still remain as ample a field over which the Divinity may expatiate, and which he may have peopled with innumerable worlds. If the whole visible creation were to disappear, it would leave a solitude behind it; but to the infinite mind, that can take in the whole system of nature, this solitude might be nothing

a small unoccupied point in that immensity which surrounds it, and which he may have filled with the wonders of his omnipotence. Though this earth were to be burnt up, though the trumpet of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger of the Divinity has inscribed on it, were to be put out for ever-an event so awful to us and to every world in our vicinity, by which so many suns would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes of life and of population would rush into forgetfulness-what is it in the high scale of the Almighty's workmanship?—a mere shred, which, though scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. Though this earth and these heavens were to disappear, there are other worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; and the sky which mantles them is garnished with other stars. Is it presumption to say, that the moral world extends to these distant and unknown regions; that they are occupied with people; that the charities of home and of neighbourhood flourish there; that the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in; that piety has its temples and its offerings; and the richness of the divine attributes is there felt and admired by intelligent worshippers?-CHALMERS'S ASTRONOMICAL DISCOURSES.

possessed a mind imbued with noble conceptions of science in relation to the social improvement of mankind-in its development, to the human heart and intellect, of the attributes of God as the Father and Governor of the universe. Dr. Chalmers was born at Anstruther in Fife in 1780. He filled the most important offices in the Church and in the Universities; and after a life of active practical usefulness, of literary celebrityhaving seen the seeds of ideas he had scattered germinate into ripe plants, and institutions he may be said to have founded rise into solid structures-he died suddenly in the midst of his labours at the age of 67.

C

ILLUSTRATION OF THE GALAXY.

Suppose, first, that the rim of a grindstone is split in the middle, along the line of the rim, and through about onethird of its circumference; which split, however, does not reach so far down as the centre of the grindstone: also let the divided parts be separated towards the middle of the division, so as to form a vacancy resembling in shape one of the compartments of an orange. Suppose, secondly, that the sandstone is considerably more porous than stone is,—then let its minute atoms represent stars, the pores or intervals being the interstellar spaces; and observe what an inhabitant of a sun or world near the centre of a cluster of such a configuration would perceive in his heaven. It would seem exactly like our own celestial vault. Towards the sides of this mass the view would be comparatively unadorned-dark space looming from beyond the visible stars; while, in the direction of the circumference, a countless throng of small remote stars would, although separately unseen, illume the sky, forming a splendid zone, divided like our Milky Way through part of its shadowy course. Is it repulsive to compare our magnificent universe to an object so ordinary, so trifling? Alas! endow it once with form, and, whatever its actual dimensions, besides the vastness of the infinity which environs it, all are shrivelled up, and their majesty disappears! We can speak of our cluster only as of a limited object, a speck, one individual of an unnumbered throng; we think of it, in comparison with creation, only as we were wont to think of one of its own stars.-NICHOL'S1 STELLAR UNIVERSE.

ILLUSTRATION OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

It is impossible, by any diagram, to represent the immense space filled by the Solar System; the distant and dreary Neptune being so remote, that a beam of light must occupy upwards of four hours2 in passing from the central luminary to its cold and cheerless sphere. By the following considerations, however, something of a picture may be ap

1 Dr. J. P. Nichol, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Glasgow, is the author of several works designed to diffuse popularly correct scientific idens of his science. 2 The velocity of light is 12,000,000 miles in a minute.

proached to, of what the relations of this mechanism are. Place as the Sun, in the midst of an open field, a globe two feet in diameter: the outer known limit of the system, viz., the orbit of Neptune, would, in a right representation, be placed at the remoteness of a mile and a quarter; compared with the globe representing the Sun, the size of Neptune itself would be that of a small cherry,-the Earth dwindling into a pea; and the superb Jupiter being represented by an orange. The thoughts inevitably suggested by the aspect of a scheme like this, are, indeed, not easily expressed. So trifling, after all, is the position of our world,—a mere constituent of a secondary and dependent scheme,—not even one of the orbs that adorn the midnight, but a dependent on one of them, for our Sun is akin to the fixed stars. And yet how fraught with noble works is even this little world! Observe its sunsets; its mornings and evenings; its flowers and majestic forests; its organized families, with man at their head, possessed by aspirations so lofty, and powers of thought that can raise his mind through all that is transient, towards the illimitable and eternal. How gorgeous must be that creation, of which a minor world is so rich as ours! how marvellous the Power, and perfect the Beneficence that sustains so grand and harmonious a fabric !-NICHOL.

ACTION OF GRAVITY AMONG THE NEBULAR CLUSTERS.

Sir William Herschel counted no less than 225 subordinate clusters within the extent of the Milky Way he examined; and as all these were of a kind to mark the action of gravity, he concluded, as I do now, from similar aspects among the farther heavens, the existence of a clustering power to draw the stars into separate groups—a power which had broken up the uniformity of the (galactic) zone, and to whose irresistible influence it was still exposed. "Hence," says he, in one of those bold moments in which he fearlessly traversed the infinitudes alike of past and future, "hence we may be certain, that the stars will then be gradually compressed through successive stages of accumulation, till they come up to what may be called the ripening period of the globular cluster and total insulation; from which it is evident that the Milky Way must forcibly be broken up, and cease to be a stratum of scattered stars. We may also," he

continues in the same lofty mood, "draw an important additional conclusion from the gradual dissolution of the Milky Way; for the state into which the incessant action of the clustering power has brought it is a kind of chronometer that may be used to measure the time of its past and present existence; and although we do not know the rate and the going of this mysterious chronometer, it is nevertheless certain that since a breaking up of the parts of the Milky Way affords a proof that it cannot last for ever, it equally bears witness that its past duration cannot be admitted to be infinite." How wonderful the vista thus thrown before the human eye! Change ever succeeding change: no rest, no inertia in this universe; as if, even through its noblest fabrics, the end of created existence were yet unaccomplished. Onward it passes-quietly as the leaf grows, but ever elaborating new grandeurs to fill space, and to manifest, by emblems, the power, the beneficence, the ineffable glory of the Supreme. NICHOL.

TELESCOPIC APPEARANCE OF THE MAGELLANIC CLOUDS.

The clouds of Magellan are two bright spaces of comparatively small magnitude,1 which appear like two patches torn from the Milky Way. Let the telescope be turned thitherward, and a vision arises of a splendour surpassed by no phenomenon in astronomy. Sir John Herschel, the first who accurately analyzed these spots, frankly confesses that the brilliancy of the larger nebula caused him to record expressions of delight and astonishment which he would scarce choose to submit to a cooler criticism. They are, in fact, a congeries of nebula-a system, so to speak, of galaxies, in which all variety of shape, condensation, and character, appear in their highest splendour. How wonderful and pregnant with interest unspeakable this new unfolding of our firmament creation! May not all we have seen-nay, all we can see, even by aid of telescopes the farthest piercing, be in its turn only a corner of some mightier scheme-even like one solar system among the myriads of fixed stars? Probably Coleridge was not in error-“ It is truly not impossible that to some infinitely superior being the whole universe may be as one plain-the distance between planet

1 See note 2, p. 3.