which spans the
sky, "to consist entirely of stars, _scattered by millions, like
glittering dust_, on the background of the general heavens."

Yet still it was not supposed to be at all impossible to estimate their
numbers. Even this distinguished astronomer, a few years ago, computed
it at eight or ten millions. Schroeter allowed twenty degrees of it to
pass before him, and withdrew from the majestic spectacle, exclaiming,
"What Omnipotence!" He calculated, however, that the number of the stars
visible through one of the best telescopes in Europe, in 1840, was
twelve millions; a number equaled by a single generation of Abraham's
descendants, far below the power of computation, and utterly
insignificant, as compared with the sands of the sea.

Had our powers of observation stopped here, the great promise must still
have seemed as mysterious to the astronomer, as it once seemed to the
Patriarch. But if either the Father of the Faithful, or the Father of
Sidereal Astronomy, had deluded himself with the notion, that he fully
comprehended either the words or the works of Him who is wonderful in
counsel, and excellent in working, and argued thence that, because the
revealed words and the visible works seemed not to correspond, they were
really contradictory, he would have committed the blunder of modern
Infidels, who assume that they know everything, and that as God's
knowledge can not be any greater than theirs, every Scripture which
their science can not comprehend must be erroneous. The grandest truths,
imperfectly perceived in the twilight of incipient science, serve as
stumbling-blocks for conceited speculators, as well as landmarks on the
boundaries of knowledge to true philosophers, who will ever imbibe the
spirit of Newton's celebrated saying: "I seem to myself like a child
gathering pebbles on the shore, while the great ocean of knowledge lies
unexplored before me;" or the profound remark of Humboldt: "What is seen
does not exhaust that which is perceptible."

But the progress of science was not destined merely to coast the shore
of this ocean. In 1845, Lord Rosse, and a band of accomplished
astronomers, commenced a voyage through the immensities, with a
telescope which has enlarged our view of the visible universe to one
hundred and twenty-five million times the extent before perceived, and
displayed far more accurately the real form and nature of objects
previously seen. Herschel's researches into the Architectu