aises
the mind's interest in nearly the same degree that beauty does. It is an
awakening sight; and one way in which it acts is by exciting a certain
curiosity about the Deity. In what does God possess character, feelings,
relations to us?--all unanswerable questions, but the very entertainment
of which is an excitement of the reason, and throws us upon the thought
of what there is behind the veil. This curiosity is a strong part of
worship and of praise. To think that we know everything about God, is to
benumb and deaden worship; but mystical thought quickens worship, and
the beauty of Nature raises mystical thought. So long as a man is
probing Nature, and in the thick of its causes and operations, he is too
busy about his own inquiries to receive this impress from her; but place
the picture before him, and he becomes conscious of a veil and curtain
which has the secrets of a moral existence behind it,--interest is
inspired, curiosity is awakened, and worship is raised. 'Surely thou art
a God that hidest thyself.' But if God simply hid himself and nothing
more, if we knew nothing, we should not wish to know more. But the veil
suggests that it _is_ a veil, and that there is something behind it
which it conceals."

[Footnote 1: Professor Mozley, "University Sermons," pp. 145, 146.]

Now, this is the feeling which the study of Astronomy very certainly
awakens. Every day the astronomer discovers something which quickens his
curiosity to discover more. Every day he catches new glimpses of the
Almighty Wisdom, which stimulate his desire for a further revelation.
And all he learns, and all he anticipates learning, combine to produce
in him an emotion of awe. What grandeur lies before him in that endless
procession of worlds--in that array of suns and stars extending beyond
the limits of the most powerful telescopic vision! How marvellous it is!
How beautiful! Observe the combination of simplicity with power; note
how a great principle of "law" underlies the apparent intricacy of
eccentric and intersecting orbits. And then the field of inquiry is
inexhaustible. The astronomer has no fear of feeling the satiety of an
Alexander, when he lamented that he had no more worlds to conquer. What
Newton said of himself is true of every astronomer,--he is but as a
child on the sea-shore, picking up a shell here and a shell there, but
unable to grasp a full conception of the mighty ocean that thunders in
his ears!

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