emy and Hipparchus; yea, as
they moved and shone when the morning stars sang together, and all the
sons of God shouted for joy. All has changed on earth; but the glorious
heavens remain unchanged. The plough has passed over the remains of
mighty cities, the homes of powerful nations are desolate, the languages
they spoke are forgotten; but the stars that shone for them are shining
for us; the same eclipses run their steady cycle; the same equinoxes
call out the flowers of spring, and send the husbandman to the harvest;
the sun pauses at either tropic, as he did when his course began; and
sun and moon, and planet and satellite, and star, and constellation, and
galaxy, still bear witness to the power, the wisdom, and the love of Him
who placed them in the heavens, and upholds them there.

* * * * *

=_191._= DESCRIPTION OF THE SUNRISE.

Much, however, as we are indebted to our observatories for elevating our
conceptions of the heavenly bodies, they present even to the unaided
sight, scenes of glory which, words are too feeble to describe. I had
occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence
to Boston; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning.
Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken
only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the
train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night,--the sky was without a
cloud,--the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had
just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre, but little
affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the
day; the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence
in the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her
newly-discovered glories from the naked eye, in the south; the steady
pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the
north, to their sovereign.

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded,
the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue
of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children,
went first to rest; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted
together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained
unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of
angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the
glories of nigh