Of such redundant natures can it be possible that any can at last be
narrowed down to the bier? Yes, die, and in a sense, intestate, too, as
leaving no intellectual estate? Nothing indeed but an imperfect memory
that ages avow, and is gone? Is this the end of that splendour? But why
not? According to authoritative interpreters, the evanescence, the
nothingness of things glorious, redounds to the glory of Omnipotence.
And with what other aim in view, the theologians would like to know, did
the Magnanimous call out the worlds? Two or three hundred years ago, to
the amazement of the telescopes, a strange star appeared in the
constellation of Cassiopeia, and shining there like a planet for a brief
term, abruptly disappeared, and was seen no more. Nor was any star-dust
left to tell of the fleet passage. True, out of the same Unknown or
Nothing, and back into it again, millions of small meteors come and go;
but extinction is signalised in the instance of stars of magnitude; and
in corresponding degree the glory of God is magnified, who can work such
wonders, to whom the planets are of even less consideration than to the
Grand Mogul his golden buttons.
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