d not flesh and bones, as they saw him
have," is now resident in a place. Where He is, there shall his people
be also. Why, then, when the Bible employs all that is beauteous in
earth, and glorious in heaven, to describe the adornments of the palace
of the King of kings, should we hesitate to believe that the power and
wisdom of God are not exhausted in this little earth of ours, but that
other worlds may as far transcend ours in glory, as many of them do in
magnitude?--or, to allow that the glorious visions of Ezekiel and John
were not views of nonentities, or mere visions of clouds, or of some
incomprehensible symbols of more incomprehensible spiritualities, but
actual views of the existing glories of some portion of the universe,
presented to us as vividly as the dullness of our minds and the
earthliness of our speech will permit? It is certain that the recent
progress of astronomical discovery has revealed celestial scenery which
illustrates some of the most mysterious of these visions.

It has long been known, that "one star differeth from another star in
glory," and that the orbs of heaven shine with various colors. Sirius is
white, Arcturus red, and Procyon yellow. The telescope shows all the
smaller stars in various colors. Under the clear skies of Syria their
brilliance is vastly greater than in our climate. "_One star shines like
a ruby, another as an emerald, and the whole heavens sparkle as with
various gems._"[320] But the discovery of the double and triple stars
has added a new harmony of colors to these coronets of celestial jewels.
These stars generally display the complementary colors. If the one star
displays a color from the red end of the spectrum, the other is
generally of the corresponding shade, from the violet end. For instance,
in O2 Cygni, the large star is yellow, and the two smaller stars are
blue; and so in others, through all the colors of the rainbow. "It may
be easier suggested in words," says Sir John Herschel, "than conceived
in imagination, what a variety of illumination two stars--a red and a
green, or a yellow and a blue one--must afford a planet circulating
around either, and what cheering contrasts and grateful vicissitudes a
red and a green day, for instance, alternating with a white one, and
with darkness, must arise from the presence or absence of one, or other,
or both, from the horizon."[321] But suppose one of the globular
clusters--for instance, that in the constellation Herc