iderations the most proper for raising our ideas of
the works of God. Modern discoveries make it probable that each of these
stars is a sun, having planets and comets revolving round it, as our sun
has the earth and other planets revolving round him.--A ray of light,
though its motion is so quick as to be commonly thought instantaneous,
takes up more time in travelling from the stars to us, than we do in
making a West-India voyage. A sound, which, next to light, is considered
as the quickest body we are acquainted with, would not arrive to us from
thence in 50,000 years. And a cannon-ball, flying at the rate of 480
miles an hour, would not reach us in 700,000 years.

"From what we know of our own system, it may be reasonably concluded,
that all the rest are with equal wisdom contrived, situated, and
provided with accommodations for rational inhabitants.

"What a sublime idea does this suggest to the human imagination, limited
as are its powers, of the works of the Creator! Thousands and thousands
of suns, multiplied without end, and ranged all around us, at immense
distances from each other, attended by ten thousand times ten thousand
worlds, all in rapid motion, yet calm, regular and harmonious,
invariably keeping the paths prescribed them: and these worlds peopled
with myriads of intelligent beings, formed for endless progression in
perfection and felicity!"

The thought that would immediately occur to a dispassionate man in
listening to this statement, would be, What a vast deal am I here called
on to believe!

Now the first rule of sound and sober judgment, in encountering any
story, is that, in proportion to the magnitude and seemingly incredible
nature of the propositions tendered to our belief, should be the
strength and impregnable nature of the evidence by which those
propositions are supported.

It is not here, as in matters of religion, that we are called upon by
authority from on high to believe in mysteries, in things above our
reason, or, as it may be, contrary to our reason. No man pretends to
a revelation from heaven of the truths of astronomy. They have been
brought to light by the faculties of the human mind, exercised upon such
facts and circumstances as our industry has set before us.

To persons not initiated in the rudiments of astronomical science, they
rest upon the great and high-sounding names of Galileo, Kepler, Halley
and Newton. But, though these men are eminently entitled to honour an