d air, perish
in one universal catastrophe."

Then suddenly starting to his feet, he drew himself up to his full
height, and murmured solemnly, "I feel like a God! and I recognize my
fellow-men but as pygmies that I spurn beneath my feet."

"Summerfield," said I calmly, "there must be some strange error in all
this. You are self-deluded. The weapon which you claim to wield is one
that a good God and a beneficent Creator would never intrust to the
keeping of a mere creature. What, sir! create a world as grand and
beautiful as this, and hide within its bosom a principle that at any
moment might inwrap it in flames, and sink all life in death? I'll not
believe it; 't were blasphemy to entertain the thought!"

"And yet," cried he passionately, "your Bible prophesies the same
irreverence. Look at your text in 2d Peter, third chapter, seventh and
twelfth verses. Are not the elements to melt with fervent heat? Are not
the 'heavens to be folded together like a scroll?' Are not 'the rocks to
melt, the stars to fall, and the moon to be turned into blood?' Is not
fire the next grand cyclic consummation of all things here below? But I
come fully prepared to answer such objections. Your argument betrays a
narrow mind, circumscribed in its orbit, and shallow in its depth. 'Tis
the common thought of mediocrity. You have read books too much, and
studied nature too little. Let me give you a lesson today in the
workshop of Omnipotence. Take a stroll with me into the limitless
confines of space, and let us observe together some of the scenes
transpiring at this very instant around us. A moment ago you spoke of
the moon: what is she but an extinguished world? You spoke of the sun:
what is he but a globe of flame? But here is the Cosmos of Humboldt.
Read this paragraph."

As he said this he placed before me the Cosmos of Humboldt, and I read
as follows:

Nor do the Heavens themselves teach unchangeable permanency in the works
of creation. Change is observable there quite as rapid and complete as
in the confines of our solar system. In the year 1752, one of the small
stars in the constellation Cassiopeia blazed up suddenly into an orb
of the first magnitude, gradually decreased in brilliancy, and finally
disappeared from the skies. Nor has it ever been visible since that
period for a single moment, either to the eye or to the telescope. It
burned up and was lost in space.

"Humboldt," he added, "has not told us who set that world on f