and blessing."

III.

REDEMPTION GLORIFIES GOD THROUGHOUT ALL THE UNIVERSE.

With a small band of fishermen at His side, and no place on earth
where to lay His head, Jesus pointed to the sun, riding high in heaven
or rising over the hill-tops to bathe the scene in golden splendour,
and said, "I am the Light of the world." A bold saying; yet the day is
coming, however distant it appears, when the tidings of salvation
carried to the ends of the earth, and Jesus worshipped of all nations,
shall justify the speech; and the wishes shall be gratified, and the
prayers answered, and the prophecies fulfilled, so beautifully
expressed in these lines of Heber:

"Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till, like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole."

But shall our world be the limits of the wondrous tale? Though ever
and deeply interesting as the scene of redemption, just as to patriots
is the barest moor where a people fought and conquered for their
freedom, our earth holds in other respects but a very insignificant
place in creation. In a space of the sky no larger than a tenth part
of the moon's disc, the telescope discovers many thousands of stars,
each a sun, attended probably by a group of planets like our own:
their number indeed is such that many parts of the heavens appear as
if they were sprinkled with gold-dust; and probably there are as many
suns and worlds in the universe as there are leaves in a forest, or
rather, sands on the ocean shore.

Boldly venturing out into the regions of speculation, some have
thought that, if sin defile any of these worlds, its inhabitants may
share in the benefits of the atonement which Christ offered in ours;
and that beings further removed than we from the scenes of Calvary,
and differing more from us than we from the Jews of whom the Messiah
came, may, as well as we, find a Saviour by faith in Jesus; and that
for this end the work of redemption has perhaps been revealed to such
as, removed from our earth many millions of miles, never even saw the
planet that was its theatre and scene. There may be nothing in this. I
dare not say it is impossible; but these speculations touch the deep
things of God, and we would not attempt to be wise above that which is
written. Still, Scripture affords ground for believing, for hoping, at
least, that the story of redemption has been told in other worlds than
ours, and that the love of G