just as credible after looking through Herschel's forty
feet reflector and reading La Place's Mecanique Celeste as it
would be were this planet, suspended in a hollow dome, the
entirety of material being.

Furthermore, we can reason only from the data we have; and, doing
that, we should conclude, from the intrinsic and incomparable
superiority of spirit to matter, that man and his kindred
scattered in families over all the orbs of space were the especial
objects of the infinite Author's care. They are fitted by their
filial attributes to commune with Him in praise and love. They
know the prodigious and marvellous works of mechanical nature;
mechanical nature knows nothing. Man can return his Maker's
blessing in voluntary obedience and thanks; matter is inanimate
clay for the Potter's moulding. Turning from the gleaming
wildernesses of star land to the intellect and heart, appreciating
the infinite problems and hopes with which they deal and aspire,
we feel the truth expressed by Wordsworth in his tremendous lines:

"I must, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds To which the heaven of
heavens is but a veil. Not chaos, darkest pit of Erebus, Nor aught
of blinder vacancy, scoop'd out By help of dreams, can breed such
fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our minds,
into the mind of man."

Is not one noble thought of truth, one holy emotion of love, one
divine impulse of devotion, better than a whole planet of mud, a
whole solar system of gas and dust? Who would not rather be the
soul that gauges the deeps, groups the laws, foretells the
movements, of the universe, writing down in a brief mathematical
formula a complete horoscope of the heavens as they will appear on
any given night thousands of years hence, than to be all that
array of swooping systems? To think the world is to be superior to
the world. That which appreciates is akin to that which makes; and
so we are the Creator's children, and these crowding nebula,
packed with orbs as thick as the ocean beach with sands, are the
many mansions of the House fitted up for His abode and ours. An
only prince would be of more consideration than a palace, although
its foundation pressed the shoulders of Serpentarius, its turret
touched the brow of Orion, and its wings reached from the Great
Bear to the Phoenix. So a mind is of more importance than the
material creation, and the moral condition of a man is of greater
moment than the aspect of stellar firmament