CHAPTER XII.

TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE.

No kind of knowledge is more useful to man than the knowledge of his own

ignorance; and no instrument has done more to give him such knowledge

than the telescope. Faith is the believing of facts we do not know, upon

the word of one who does. If any one knows everything, or thinks he

does, he can have no faith. A deep conviction of our own ignorance is,

therefore, indispensable to faith. The telescope gives us this

conviction in two ways. It shows us that we see a great many things we

do not perceive, tells us the size and the distances of those little

sparks that adorn the sky, and leads us to reason out their true

relations to our earth. Then it tells us, that what we see is little of

what is to be seen; that our knowledge is but a drop from the great

ocean, a rush-light sparkling in the vast darkness of the unknown. It

tells us, that we do not see right, and that we do not see far; and that

there may be things, both in heaven and earth, not dreamed of in our

philosophy. Further, it confirms the Bible testimony concerning the

facts of its own province, by removing all improbability from some of

its most wonderful narratives, attesting the accuracy of its language,

and confirming, by some of its most recent discoveries the truth of its

statements. Our space will only allow us to select five illustrations of

the tendency of faith in the telescope, to produce faith in the Bible.

1. One of the latest astronomical discoveries throws light upon one of

the most ancient scientific allusions of the Bible, and one which has

perplexed both commentators and geologists; _that which hints at the

second causes of the deluge_. Not that it is at all needful for us to be

able to tell where God Almighty procured the water to drown the ungodly

sinners of the old world, before we believe his word that he did so;

unless, indeed, somebody has explored the universe, and knows that there

is not water enough in it for that purpose, or that it is so far away

that he could not fetch it; for, as to the fact itself, geology assures

us that all the dry land on earth has been drowned, not only once, but

many times. It is not the province of the commentator, but of the

geologist, to account for the phenomenon.

Several solutions of the difficulty of finding water enough for the

purpose have been proposed. One of these supposes that some of the

internal caverns of the earth are filled with water, which, when heated

by neighboring volcanic fires, would expand one twenty-third of its

bulk, and flow out, and raise the ocean. When the volcanic fire was

burnt out, and the water cooled, it would of course contract to its

former dimensions, and the ocean recede. These caverns they suppose to

be meant by "the fountains of the great deep," in Genesis vii. 11.

But the Bible describes another, and plainly a very important source of

the waters of the deluge, in the rain which fell for forty days and

forty nights. At present, all the water in our atmosphere comes from the

sea, by evaporation; and the quantity is too insignificant to cover the

globe to any considerable depth. Divines and philosophers were perplexed

to give any adequate explanation of this language, and considered it

simply as Noah's description of the appearance of things as viewed from

the ark, rather than an accurate explanation of the actual causes of the

deluge. Now, it is certainly true, that the Bible does describe things

as they appear to men. It is, however, beginning to be discovered, that

these popular appearances are closely connected with philosophical

reality. Our purblind astronomy and prattling geology may be as

inadequate to expound the mysteries of the Bible philosophy as was the

incoherent science of Strabo and Ptolemy. The experience of another

planet, now transacting before our eyes, admonishes us not to limit the

resources of Omnipotence by our narrow experience, or to suppose that

our young science has catalogued all the weapons in the arsenal of the

Almighty.

The planet Saturn is surrounded by a revolving belt, consisting of

several distinct rings, containing an area a hundred and forty-six times

greater than the surface of our globe, with a thickness of a hundred

miles. From mechanical considerations it had been proved, that these

rings could not be of a uniform thickness all around, else when a

majority of his seven moons were on the same side, the attraction would

draw them in upon him, on the opposite side; and once attracted to his

surface, they could never get loose again, if they were solid.[283] It

was next ascertained that the motions of the moons and of the rings were

such, that if the inequality was always in the same place, the same

result must follow; so that the ring must be capable of changing its

thickness, according to circumstances. It must be either composed of an

immense number of small solid bodies, capable of shifting freely about

among themselves, or else be fluid. Finally, it has been demonstrated

that this last is the fact; that the density of this celestial ocean is

nearly that of water; and that the inner portion, at least, is so

transparent, that the planet has been seen through it.[284] "The ring of

Saturn is, then, a stream or streams of fluid, rather denser than water,

flowing about the primary."[285] The extraordinary fact, which shows us

how God can deluge a planet when he pleases, I give not in the words of

a divine, but of a philosopher, whose thoughtless illustration of

Scripture is all the more valuable, that it is evidently unintentional.

"M. Otto Struve, Mr. Bond, and Sir David Brewster, are agreed that

Saturn's third ring is fluid, that this is not of very recent formation,

and that it is not subject to rapid change. And they have come to the

extraordinary conclusion, that the inner border of the ring has, since

the day of Huygens, been gradually approaching to the body of Saturn,

and that we may expect, sooner or later--perhaps in some dozen years--to

see the rings united with the body of the planet. _With this deluge

impending, Saturn would scarcely be a very eligible residence for men,

whatever it might be for dolphins._"[286]

Knowing, as we most certainly do, that the fluid envelopes of our own

planet were once exceedingly different from the present,[287] here is a

possibility quite sufficient to stop the mouth of the scoffer. Let him

show that God did not, or prove that he could not, suspend a similar

series of oceans over the earth, or cease to pronounce a universal

deluge impossible.

2. That sublime ode, in which Deborah describes _the stars in their

courses as fighting against Sisera_[288] has been rescued from the grasp

of modern scoffers, by the progress of astronomy. It has been alleged as

lending its support to the delusions of judicial astrology; by one class

desiring to damage the Bible as a teacher of superstition, and by

another to help their trade. The Bible reader will doubtless be greatly

surprised to hear it asserted, that the Bible lends its sanction to this

antiquated, and, as he thinks, exploded superstition. He knows how

expressly the Bible forbids God's people to have anything to do with

it, or with its heathenish professors. "Thus saith the Lord, Learn not

the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for

the heathen are dismayed at them."[289] And they will be still more

surprised to learn, that those who object against the Bible, that it

ascribes a controlling influence to the stars, are firm believers in

Reichenbach's discovery of _odyle_; an influence from the heavenly

bodies so spiritual and powerful, that they imagine it able to govern

the world, instead of God Almighty.[290]

The passage thus variously abused is a description, in highly poetic

strains, of the battle between the troops of Israel and those of Sisera;

of the defeat of the latter, and of an earthquake and tempest, which

completed the destruction of his exhausted troops. The glory of the

victory is wholly ascribed to the Lord God of Israel; while the rain,

the thunder, lightning, swollen river, and "the stars in their courses,"

are all described, in their subordinate places, as only his

instruments--the weapons of his arsenal.

"Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir,

When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom,

The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped,

The clouds also dropped down water;

The mountains also melted from before the Lord,

Even that Sinai, from before the Lord God of Israel."

Then, after describing the battle, she alludes to the celestial

artillery, and to the effects of the storm in swelling the river, and

sweeping away the fugitives who had sought the fords:

"They fought from heaven;

The stars in their courses fought against Sisera;

The river Kishon swept them away;

That ancient river, the river Kishon."[291]

After describing some further particulars the hymn concludes with an

allusion to the clearing away of the tempest and the appearance of the

unclouded sun over the field of victory:

"So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord;

But let them that love thee be as the sun, when he goeth forth

in his might."

Where is there the least allusion here to any controlling influence of

the stars? You might just as well say, "The Bible ascribes a controlling

influence over the destinies of men, to the river Kishon;" for they are

both spoken of, in the same language, as instruments in God's hand for

the destruction of his enemies.

But it is objected, "Even by this explanation you have the Bible

representing the stars as causing the rain." Not so fast. If a man were

very ignorant, and had never heard of anything falling from the sky but

rain, he might think so. And if the Bible did attribute to the stars

some such influence over the vapors of the atmosphere, as experience

shows the moon to possess over the ocean, are you able to demonstrate

its absurdity?

Deborah, however, when she sang of the stars _in their courses_ fighting

against Sisera, was describing a phenomenon very different from a fall

of rain--was, in fact, describing a fall of ærolites upon the army of

Sisera. Multitudes of stones have fallen from the sky, and not less than

five hundred such falls are recorded.

"On September 1, 1814, a few minutes before midday, while the sky was

perfectly serene, a violent detonation was heard in the department of

the Lot and Garonne. This was followed by three or four others, and

finally by a rolling noise, at first resembling a discharge of musketry,

afterward the rumbling of carriages, and lastly that of a large building

falling down. Stones were immediately after precipitated to the ground,

some of which weighed eighteen pounds, and sunk into a compact soil, to

the depth of eight or nine inches; and one of them rebounded three or

four feet from the ground."

"A great shower of stones fell at Barbatan, near Roquefort, in the

vicinity of Bordeaux, on July 24, 1790. A mass fifteen inches in

diameter penetrated a hut and killed a herdsman and bullock. Some of the

stones weighed twenty-five pounds, and others thirty pounds."

"In July, 1810, a large ball of fire fell from the clouds, at Shahabad,

which burned five villages, destroyed the crops, and killed several men

and women."[292]

Astronomers are perfectly agreed as to the character of these masses,

and the source whence they come. "It appears from recent astronomical

observations that the sun numbers among his attendants not only planets,

asteroids, and comets, but also immense multitudes of meteoric stones,

and shooting stars."[293] Ærolites are, then, really stars. They are

composed of materials similar to those of our earth; the only other star

whose materials we can compare with them. They have a proper motion

around the sun, in orbits distinct from that of the earth. They are

capable of emitting the most brilliant light, in favorable

circumstances. Some of them are as large as the asteroids. One, of

600,000 tons weight, passed within twenty-five miles of the earth, at

the rate of twenty miles a second. A fragment of it reached the

earth.[294] "That ærolites were called _stars_ by the ancients is

indisputable. Indeed, Anaxagoras considered the stars to be only stony

masses, torn from the earth by the violence of rotation. Democritus

tells us, that invisible dark masses of stone move with the visible

stars, and remain on that account unknown, but sometimes fall upon the

earth, and are extinguished, as happened with the stony star which fell

near Aegos Potamos."[295]

When Deborah, therefore, describes the _stars in their courses_ as

fighting against Sisera, it is an utterly unfounded assumption to

suppose that she has any allusion to the baseless fancies of an

astrology everywhere condemned by the religion she professed, when a

simple and natural explanation is afforded by the fact, that stars do

fall from the heavens to the earth, and _that they do so in their

courses_, and just by reason of their orbital motion; and that the

ancients both knew the fact, and gave the right name to those bodies.

Let no reasonable man delude himself with the notion that God has no

weapons more formidable than the dotings of astrology, till he has taken

a view of the arsenals of God's artillery, which he has treasured up

against the day of battle and of war.

Here it may be well to notice the illustration which the remarkable

showers of meteors, particularly those of November, 1833, shed upon

several much ridiculed texts of Scripture. Scientific observation has

fully confirmed and illustrated the scientific accuracy of the Bible in

such expressions as, "the stars shall fall from heaven;" "there fell a

great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp;" "and the stars of

heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely

figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." Whatever political or

ecclesiastical events these symbols may signify, there can be no

question, now, that the astronomical phenomenon used to prefigure them

is correctly described in the Bible. Most of my readers have seen some

of these remarkable exhibitions; but for the sake of those who have not,

I give a brief account of one. "By much the most splendid meteoric

shower on record, began at nine o'clock, on the evening of the twelfth

of November, 1833, and lasted till sunrise next morning. It extended

from Niagara and the northern lakes of America, to the south of Jamaica,

and from 61° of longitude, in the Atlantic, to 100° of longitude in

Central Mexico. Shooting stars and meteors of the apparent size of

Jupiter, Venus, and even the full moon, darted in myriads toward the

horizon, _as if every star in the heavens had darted from their

spheres_." They are described as having been as frequent as the flakes

of snow in a snow-storm, and to have been seen with equal brilliancy

over the greater part of the continent of North America.[296]

The source whence these meteors proceed is distinctly ascertained to be,

as was already remarked with regard to the ærolites, a belt of small

planetoids, revolving around the sun in a little less than a year, and

in an orbit intersecting that of the earth, at such an angle, that every

thirty-three years, or thereabouts, the earth meets the full tide on the

twelfth of November. These meteors are true and proper stars. "All the

observations made during the year 1853 agree with those of previous

years, and confirm what may be regarded as sufficiently well

established: the cosmical origin of shooting stars."[297]

3. The language of the Bible with respect to _the circuit of the sun_ is

found to have anticipated one of the most sublime discoveries of modern

astronomy. True to the reality, as well as to the appearance of things,

it is scientifically correct, without becoming popularly unintelligible.

There is a class of aspirants to gentility who refuse to recognize any

person not dressed in the style which they suppose to be fashionable

among the higher classes. A Glasgow butcher's wife, in the Highlands,

attired in all the magnificence of her satins, laces, and jewelry,

returned the courteous salute of the little woman in the gingham dress

and gray shawl with a contemptuous toss of the head, and flounced past,

to learn, to her great mortification, that she had missed an opportunity

of forming an acquaintance with the Queen. So a large class of

pretenders to science refuse to become acquainted with Bible truth,

because it is not shrouded in the technicalities of science, but

displays itself in the plain speech of the common people to whom it was

given. They will have it, that because its author used common language,

it was because he could not afford any other; and as he did not

contradict every vulgar error believed by the people to whom he spoke,

it was because he knew no better; and because the Hebrews knew nothing

of modern discoveries in astronomy, geology, and the other sciences, and

the Bible does not contain lectures on these subjects, the God of the

Hebrews must have been equally ignorant, and the Bible consequently

beneath the notice of a philosopher.

You will hear such persons most pertinaciously assert, that Moses

believed all the absurdities of the Ptolemaic astronomy; that the earth

is the immovable center, around which revolve the crystal sphere of the

firmament, and the sun, and moon, and stars, which are attached to it,

after the manner of lamps to a ceiling; and that he, and the world

generally in his day, had not emerged from the grossest barbarism and

ignorance of all matters of natural science. Yet these very people will

probably tell you, in the same conversation, of the wonderful

astronomical observations made by the Egyptians, ten thousand years

before the days of Adam! So beautiful is the consistency of Infidel

science. But when you inquire into the source of their knowledge of the

philosophy of the ancients, you discover that they did not draw it from

the writings of Moses, of which they betray the grossest ignorance, nor

of any one who lived within a thousand years of Moses' time. Voltaire is

their authority for all such matters. He transferred to the early

Asiatics all the absurdities of the later Greek philosophers, and would

have us believe that Moses, who wrote before these Greeks had learned to

read, was indebted to them for his philosophy. Of the learning of the

ancient patriarchs Voltaire does not tell them much, for a satisfactory

reason.

Yet it might not have required much learning to infer, that the eyes,

and ears, and nerves of men who lived ten times as long as we can, must

have been more perfect than ours; that a man who could observe nature

with such eyes, under a sky where Stoddart now sees the ring of Saturn,

the crescent of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter, with the naked

eye,[298] and continue his observations for eight hundred years, would

certainly acquire a better knowledge of the appearance of things than

any number of generations of short-lived men, called away by death

before they have well learned how to observe, and able only to leave the

shell of their discoveries to their successors; that unless we have some

good reason for believing that the mind of man was greatly inferior,

before the flood, to what it is now, the antediluvians must have made a

progress in the knowledge of the physical sciences, during the three

thousand years which elapsed from the creation to the deluge, much

greater than the nations of Europe have effected since they began to

learn their A, B, C, about the same number of years ago; and that though

Noah and his sons might not have preserved all the learning of their

drowned contemporaries, they would still have enough to preserve them

from the reproach of ignorance and barbarism; at least until their sons

have succeeded in building a larger ship than the ark, or a monument

equal to the Great Pyramid. The Astronomer Royal of Scotland[299] has

demonstrated, that in this imperishable monument, erected four thousand

years ago, the builders, who took care to keep it alone, of all the

buildings of Egypt, free from idolatrous images or inscriptions,

recorded with most laborious care, in multiples of the earth's polar

diameter, a metric system, including linear and liquid measures, and a

system of weights based on a cubical measure of water of uniform

temperature; which uniform temperature they took the utmost care to

preserve. He shows further, that they were acquainted with the

precession of the equinoxes, with the density of the earth, and with the

earth's distance from the sun; or at least calculated it at what proves

to be nearly a mean of our discordant calculations; and that they were

acquainted with problems just beginning to attract the attention of the

science of Europe.

When we know that the Chaldeans taught the Egyptians the expansive power

of steam, and the induction of electricity by pointed conductors; that

from the most remote antiquity the Chinese were acquainted with decimal

fractions, electro-magnetism, the mariner's compass, and the art of

making glass; that lenses have been found in the ruins of Nineveh, and

that an artificial currency was in circulation in the first cities built

after the flood;[300] that astronomical observations were made in China,

with so much accuracy, from the deluge till the days of Yau, B. C. 2357,

that the necessary intercalations were made for harmonizing the solar

with the lunar year, and fixing the true period of 365-1/4 days; and

that similar observations were conducted to a like result within a few

years of the same remote period, in Babylon;--if the reader does not

conclude that the world may have forgotten as much ancient lore during

eighteen hundred years of idolatrous barbarism before the coming of

Christ, as it has learned in the same number since, he will, at least,

satisfy himself that the ancient patriarchs were not ignorant

savages.[301] "Whole nations," says La Place, "have been swept from the

earth, with their languages, arts, and sciences, leaving but confused

masses of ruins to mark the place where mighty cities stood. Their

history, with a few doubtful traditions, has perished; _but the

perfection of their astronomical observations marks their high

antiquity, fixes the periods of their existence, and proves that even at

that early time they must have made considerable progress in

science_."[302] The Infidel theory, that the first men were savages, is

a pure fiction, refuted by every known fact of their history.

That, however, is not the matter under discussion. We are not inquiring

now, what Moses and the prophets _thought_, but what the Author of the

Bible _told them to say_. The scribe writes as his employer dictates. "I

will put my words in thy mouth," said God to Jeremiah. "My tongue is as

the pen of a ready writer," said David. The prophets began, not with

"Thus saith Isaiah," but "Thus saith the Lord." Unless the Word of God

was utterly different from all his other works, it must transcend the

comprehension of man in some respects. The profoundest philosopher is as

ignorant of the cause of the vegetation of wheat as the mower who cuts

it down; but their ignorance of the mysteries of organic force is no

reason why the one may not harvest, and the other eat and live. Just so

God's prophets conveyed previous mysteries to the Church, of the full

import of which they themselves were ignorant; even as Daniel heard but

understood not. The prophets, to whom it was revealed, that they did not

minister to themselves, but to us, inquired and searched diligently into

the meaning of their own prophecies; which meaning, nevertheless,

continued hid for ages and generations.[303] If the prophets of the old

economy might be ignorant of the privileges of the gospel day, of which

they prophesied, at God's dictation, they might very well be ignorant,

also, of the philosophy of creation, and yet write a true account of the

facts, from his mouth.

Let us suppose, then, that the ancient Hebrews and their prophets were,

if not quite as ignorant of natural science as modern Infidels are

pleased to represent them, yet unacquainted with the discoveries of

Herschel and Newton; and, as a necessary consequence, that their

language was the adequate medium of conveying their imperfect ideas,

containing none of the technicalities invented by philosophers to mark

modern scientific discoveries; and that God desired to convey to them

some religious instruction, through the medium of language; must we

suppose it indispensable for this purpose that he should use strange

words, and scientific phrases, the meaning of which would not be

discovered for thirty-three hundred years? Could not Dr. Alexander write

a Sabbath-school book, without filling it full of such phrases as "right

ascension," "declination," "precession of the equinoxes," "radius

vector," and the like? Or, if some wiseacre did prepare such a book,

would it be very useful to children? Perhaps even we, learned

philosophers of the nineteenth century, are not out of school yet. How

many discoveries are yet to be made in all the sciences; discoveries

which will doubtless render our fancied perfection as utterly childish

to the philosophers of a thousand years hence as the astronomy of the

Greeks seems to us; and demand the use of technical language, which

would be as unintelligible to us as our scientific nomenclature would

have been to Aristotle. If God may not use popular speech in speaking to

the people of any given period, but must needs speak the technical

language of perfect science, and if science is now, and always will be,

of necessity, imperfect, we are led to the sage conclusion, that every

revelation from God to man must always be unintelligible!

Does it necessarily follow, that because the Author of the Bible uses

the common phrases, "sun rising," and "sun setting," in a popular

treatise upon religion, that therefore he was ignorant of the rotation

of the earth, and intended to teach that the sun revolved around it? He

is certainly under no more obligation to depart from the common language

of mankind, and introduce the technicalities of science into such a

discourse, than mankind in general, and our objectors in particular, are

to do the like in their common conversation. Now, I demand to know

whether they are aware that the earth's rotation on its axis is the

cause of day and night? But do you ever hear any of them use such

phrases as "earth rising," and "earth setting?" But if an Infidel's

daily use of the phrases, "_sun rising_," "_sun setting_," and the like,

does not prove, either that he is ignorant of the earth's rotation as

the cause of that appearance, or that he intends to deceive the world by

those phrases, why may not Almighty God be as well informed and as

honest as the Infidel, though he also condescends to use the common

language of mankind?

Do you ever hear astronomers, in common discourse, use any other

language? I suppose Lieut. Maury, and Herschel, and Le Verrier, and

Mitchell, know a little of the earth's rotation; but they, too, use the

English tongue very much like other people, and speak of sunrise and

sunset; yet nobody accuses them of believing in the Ptolemaic astronomy.

Hear the immortal Kepler, the discoverer of the laws of planetary

revolution: "We astronomers do not pursue this science with the view of

altering common language; but we wish to open the gates of truth,

without affecting the vulgar modes of speech. We say with the common

people, 'The planets stand still, or go down;' 'the sun rises, or sets;'

meaning only that so the thing appears to us, although it is not truly

so, as all astronomers are agreed. How much less should we require that

the Scriptures of divine inspiration, setting aside the common modes of

speech, should shape their words according to the model of the natural

sciences, and by employing a dark and inappropriate phraseology about

things which surpass the comprehension of those whom it designs to

instruct, perplex the simple people of God, and thus obstruct its own

way toward the attainment of the far more exalted end to which it aims."

It is evident, then, that God not only may, _but must_, use popular

language in addressing the people, in a work not professedly scientific;

and that if this popular language be scientifically incorrect, such use

of it neither implies his ignorance nor approval of the error.

But it may be worthy of inquiry whether this popular language of

mankind, used in the Bible, be scientifically erroneous. If the language

be intended to express an absolute reality, no doubt it is erroneous to

say the sun rises and sets; but if it be only intended to describe an

appearance, and the words themselves declare that intention, it can not

be shown to be false to the fact. Now, when the matter is critically

investigated, these phrases are found to be far more accurate than those

of "earth rising," and "earth setting," which Infidels say the Author of

the Bible should have used. For, as up and down have no existence in

nature, save with reference to a spectator, and as the earth is always

down with respect to a spectator on its surface, neither rising toward

him, nor sinking from him, in reality, nor appearing to do so, unless in

an earthquake, the improved phrases are false, both to the appearance of

things, and to the cause of it. Whereas, our common speech, making no

pretensions to describe the causes of appearances, can not contradict

any scientific discovery of these causes, and therefore can not be false

to the fact; while it truly describes all that it pretends to

describe--the appearance of things to our senses. And so, after all the

outcry raised against it by sciolists, the vulgar speech of mankind,

used by the Author of the Bible, must be allowed to be philosophical

enough for his purpose, and theirs; at least till somebody favors both

with a better.

Though we are in no way concerned, then, to prove that every poetical

figure in Scripture, and every popular illustration taken from nature,

corresponds to the accuracy of scientific investigation, before we

believe the Bible to be a revelation of our duty to God and man, yet it

may be worth while to inquire, further, whether we really find upon its

sacred pages such crude and egregious scientific errors as Infidels

allege. We have seen in the last chapter, that they are not able to read

even its first chapter without blundering. Indeed, they generally boast

of their ignorance of its contents. It is a very good rule to take them

at their word, and when they quote Scripture, to take it for granted

_that they quote it wrong_, unless you know the contrary. The first

thing for you to do when an Infidel tells you the Bible says so and so,

is to get the Book, and see whether it does or not. You will generally

find that he has either misquoted the words, or mistaken their meaning,

from a neglect of the context; or perhaps has both misquoted and

mistaken. Then, when you are satisfied of the correct meaning of the

text, and he tells you that it is contrary to the discoveries of

science, the next point is to ask him, _How do you know?_ You will find

his knowledge of science and Scripture about equal. Both these tests

should be applied to scientific objections to the Bible, as they are all

composed of equal parts of biblical blunders, and philosophical

fallacies.

In the objection under consideration, for instance, both statements are

wrong. The Bible does not represent the earth as the immovable center of

the universe, or as immovable in space at all. It does not represent the

sun and stars as revolving around it. Nor are the facts of astronomy

more correctly stated. It is not the Bible, but our objector, that is a

little behind the age in his knowledge of science.

If we inquire for those texts of Scripture which represent the earth as

the immovable center of the universe, we shall be referred to the

figurative language of the Psalms, the book of Job, and other poetical

parts of Scripture, which speak of the "foundations of the earth," "the

earth being established," "abiding for ever," and the like, when the

slightest attention to the language would show _that it is intended to

be figurative_. The accumulation of metaphors and poetical images in

some of these passages is beautiful and grand in the highest degree; but

none, save the most stupid reader, would ever dream of interpreting them

literally. Take, for instance, Psalm civ. 1-6, where, in one line, the

world is described as God's house, with beams, and chambers, and

foundations; but in the very next line the figure is changed, and it is

viewed as an infant, covered with the deep, as with a garment.

"Bless, the Lord, O my soul.

O Lord my God, thou art very great;

Thou art clothed with honor and majesty:

Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment;

Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain;

_Who layeth the beams of his chambers upon the waters_:

Who walketh upon the wings of the wind:

Who maketh his angels spirits:

His ministers a flaming fire:

_Who laid the foundations of the earth,

That it should not be removed for ever_.

Thou coveredst it with the deep, as with a garment:

The waters stood above the mountains."

But if any one is so gross as to insist on the literality of such a

passage, and to allege that it teaches the absolute immobility of the

earth, let him tell us what sort of immobility the third verse teaches,

and how a building could be stable, the beams of whose chambers are

_laid upon the waters_--the chosen emblems of instability. "He hath

founded it upon the seas: he hath established it upon the floods," says

the same poet, in another Psalm--xxiv 1. This, and all other expressions

quoted as declaring the immobility of the earth _in space_, are clearly

proved, both by the words used, and the sense of the context, to refer

to an entirely different idea: namely, _its duration in time_. Thus,

Ecclesiastes i. 4, "One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but

the earth abideth forever," is manifestly contrasting the duration of

earth with the generations of short-lived men, and has no reference to

motion in space at all.

Again, in Psalm cxix. 89-91, our objectors find another Bible

declaration of the immobility of the earth in space:

"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven;

Thy faithfulness is unto all generations;

Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.

_They continue to this day_, according to thine ordinances."

The same permanence is here ascribed to the heavens (to which, as our

objectors argue, the Bible ascribes a perpetual revolution) as to the

earth. The next verse explains this permanence to be _continuance to

this day_; durability, not immobility. That the word _establish_ does

not necessarily imply fixture, is evident from its application, in

Proverbs viii. 28: "He _established_ the clouds," the most fleeting of

all things. Nor is the Hebrew word _kun_ (whence our English word,

cunning), inconsistent with motion; else, the Psalmist had not said that

"a good man's footsteps are _established_ by the Lord."[304] "He

_established_ my goings." Wise arrangement is the idea, not permanent

fixture.

The same remarks apply to Psalm xciii. 1; xcvi. 10; 1 Chronicles xvi.

30, and many other similar passages.

"The world is established, that it can not be moved;

Thy throne is established of old:

Thou art from everlasting."

Where the establishment, which is contrasted with the impossible

removal, and which explains its import, is evidently not a local fixing

of some material seat, in one place, but the everlasting duration of

God's authority. The idea is not that of position in space, at all, but

of continued duration.

Space does not allow us to quote all the passages which refer to this

subject; but after an examination of every passage in the Bible usually

referred to in this connection, and of a multitude of others bearing

upon it, I have no hesitation in saying, that it does not contain a

single text which asserts or implies the immobility of the earth in

space. The notion was drawn from the absurdities of the Greek

philosophy, and the superstitions of popery, but was never gathered from

the Word of God.

But it is alleged that other passages of Scripture do plainly and

unequivocally express the motion of the sun, and his course in a

circuit; as, for instance, the Nineteenth Psalm:

"In them he hath set a tabernacle for the sun,

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,

And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of heaven,

And his circuit unto the ends of it."

And again, in the account of Joshua's miracle, in the tenth chapter of

his book, it is quite evident that the writer supposed the sun to be in

motion, in the same way as the moon, for he commanded them both to stand

still: "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley

of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the

people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." Now, it is said, if

the writer had known what he was about, he would have known that the sun

was already standing still, and would have told the earth to stop its

rotation. And if the earth had obeyed the command, we should never have

heard of the miracle; for, as the earth rotates at the rate of a

thousand miles an hour, the concussion produced by such a stoppage would

have projected Joshua, and Israelites, and Amorites, beyond the moon, to

pursue their quarrel among the fixed stars.

When we hear men of some respectability bring forward such stuff, we are

constrained to wonder, not merely were they ever at school, but if they

ever traveled in a railroad car, or whether they suppose their hearers

to be so ignorant of the most common facts as to believe that there is

no way of bringing a carriage to a stand but by a sudden jerk, or that

God is more stupid than the brakeman of an express train. We will do

them the justice, however, to say, that they did not invent it, but

merely shut their eyes, and opened their mouths, and swallowed it for

philosophy, because they found it in the writings of an Infidel scoffer,

and of a Neological professor of theology[305]--an edifying example of

Infidel credulity!

Let it be noticed, that in neither of these texts, nor in any other

portion of Scripture, does the Bible say a single word about the

revolution of the sun _round the earth_, as the common center of the

universe; on which, however, the whole stress of the objection is laid.

The passages do not prove what they are adduced to prove. They speak of

the sun's motion, and of the sun's orbit, _but they do not say that the

earth is the center of that orbit_. These texts, then, do not prove the

Author of the Bible ignorant of the system of the universe.

The objection is based upon utter ignorance of one of the most important

and best attested discoveries of modern astronomy; the grand motion of

the sun and solar system through the regions of space, and the

dependence of the rotation of all the orbs composing it, upon that

motion. It is not the Author of the Bible who is ignorant of the

discoveries of modern astronomy--when he speaks of the orbit of the sun,

and his race from one end of the heavens to the other, and of the need

of a miraculous interposition to stop his course for a single day--but

his correctors, who have ventured to decry the statements of a Book

which commands the respect of such astronomers as Herschel and Rosse,

while ignorant of those elements of astronomy which they might have

learned from a perusal of the books used by their children in our common

schools. For the benefit of such, however, I will present a brief

explanation of the grounds upon which astronomers are as universally

agreed upon the belief of the sun's motion around a center of the

firmament, as they are upon the belief of the revolution of the earth

round the sun.

When you are passing in a carriage, at night, through the street of a

city lighted up by gas-lamps in the streets, and lights irregularly

dispersed in the windows, or passing in a ferry-boat, from one such city

to another, at a short distance from it, you observe that the lights

which you are leaving appear to draw closer and closer together, while

those toward which you are approaching widen out, and seem to separate

from each other. If the night were perfectly dark, so that you could see

nothing but the lights, you could certainly know not only that you were

in motion, but also to what point you were moving, by carefully watching

their appearances. So, if all the fixed stars were absolutely fixed, and

the sun and planets, including our earth, were moving in any

direction--say to the north--then the stars toward which we were moving

would seem to widen out from each other, and those which we were

leaving would seem to close up; so that the space which appeared between

any two stars in the south, in a correct map of the heavens, a hundred

years ago, would be smaller, and that between any two stars in the north

would be larger, than the space between the same stars upon a correct

map now. Now, such changes in the apparent positions of stars are

actually observed. The stars do not appear in the same places now as

they did a hundred years ago.

The fixed stars, then, are either drifting past our solar system, which

alone remains fixed; or, the fixed stars are all actually at rest, and

our sun is drifting through them; or, our solar system and the so-called

fixed stars are both in motion. One or other of these suppositions must

be the fact. The first is simply the old Ptolemaic absurdity, only

transferring the center of the universe to the sun. The second is

contrary to the observed fact, that multitudes of the stars, which were

supposed to be fixed, are actually revolving around each other, in

systems of double, triple and multiple suns. And both are contrary to

the first principles of gravitation; for, as every particle of matter

attracts every other, directly as the mass, and inversely as the square

of the distance, if any one particle of matter in the universe is in

motion, the square of its distance from every other particle varies, and

its attraction is increased in one direction, and diminished in another;

and so every particle of matter in free space, as far as the force of

gravitation extends, will be put in motion too. But our earth, and the

planets, and the double and triple stars, are in motion, and the law of

gravitation extends to every known part of the universe; therefore every

known particle of matter in the universe is in motion too, our sun

included.

The third supposition, then, is most indisputably true; our solar

system, and all the heavenly bodies, are in motion. To this conclusion

all the observed facts conform. The Bible does say that the sun moves,

and moves in a curve. All mathematicians prove that it must of necessity

do so. All astronomers assert that it does so. The unanimous verdict of

the scientific world is thus rendered by Nichol: "_As to the subject

itself, the grand motion of the sun, as well as its present direction,

must be received now as an established doctrine of astronomy._"[306] But

the discovery was anticipated, three thousand years ago, by the Author

of the Bible.

But, as will readily be perceived, the difficulty of determining either

the direction or the rate of this motion is immensely increased in this

case; for we are now not like persons riding in a carriage, watching the

fixed lights in the street to determine our direction and rate of

progress; but we are watching the lamps of a multitude of carriages,

moving at various distances, and with various velocities, and, for

anything we can tell at first sight, in various directions. We are on

board a steamer, and are watching the lights of a multitude of other

steamers, also in motion; and it is not easy to find out, in the

darkness, how either they or we are going. If each were pursuing its own

independent course, without any common object or destination, the

confusion would be so great that we could learn nothing of the rate or

direction either of our own motion or theirs.

But astronomers are not content to believe that the universe is governed

by accident. The whole science is based upon the assumption, that a

presiding mind has impressed the stamp of order and regularity upon the

whole cosmos. They are deeply convinced that God's law extends to all

God's creation; that all his works display his intelligence, as well as

his power, and proceed according to a wise plan. Having seen that all

the stellar motions previously known are orderly motions, in circular or

elliptical orbits, and that the most of the solid bodies belonging to

our own system revolve in one direction, they reasoned from analogy,

that this might be the case with the sun and the fixed stars, and went

to work with great diligence, to see whether it was or not; and, by

comparing a great multitude of observations, ancient and modern, made

both in the northern and southern hemispheres, and on all sorts of

stars, they have come to the conclusion, that our sun, and all the

bodies of the solar system, are flying northward, at the rate of three

millions three hundred and thirty-six thousand geographical miles a

day--five thousand times faster than a railway express train--toward the

constellation Hercules, in R. A. 259° Dec. 35°.

Further, as the direction of this motion is slowly and regularly

changing, just as the direction of the head of a steamer in wearing, or

of a railway train running a curve, it is certain that the sun is

moving, not in a straight line, but in a curve. The revolution of the

sun in such an orbit was known to the Author of the Bible when he wrote,

"_his circuit_ is to the end of heaven." The direction of the

circumference of a circle being known, that of its center can be found;

for the radius is always a tangent to the circumference, and the

intersection of two of these radii will be the center; so that, if we

certainly knew the sun's orbit to be circular, or nearly so, we could

calculate the center. But as we do not certainly know its form, we can

not certainly calculate the center; we can only come near it. And as we

know that the line which connects the circumference with the center of

the sun's orbit, runs through the group of stars known as the Pleiades,

or the Cluster; and as all the stars along that line seem to move in the

same direction--a different direction from that of the stars in other

regions, just as they must do if they and we were revolving around that

group--Argelander and others have concluded, with a high degree of

probability, that the grand center around which the sun and our

firmament revolve, is that constellation which the Author of the Bible,

more than three thousand years ago, called _kyme_--_the pivot_.

It would require a greater knowledge of electro-magnetism than most of

my readers possess, to explain the connection of the earth's rotation

with the sun's grand movement. I will merely state the facts.

Electro-magnetism is induced by friction. The regions of space are not

empty, but filled with an ether, whose undulations produce light; and

this ether is sufficiently dense to retard the motions of comets. The

friction, produced by the rapid passage of the sun and solar system

through this ether, must be immense, and is one source of electricity,

and the principal source of electro-magnetism. This kind of electricity

differs from the other kinds, in that _its action is always at right

angles to the current, and tends to produce rotation in any wheel,

cylinder, or sphere, along whose axis it flows_.[307] The sun, and all

the planets, traveling in the direction of their poles, the current is

of course in the direction of the axis; and the result is, that while

the sun moves along his grand course, he and all the bodies of the

system will rotate, by the influence of the electro-magnetism generated

by that motion; and if he stops, his and their rotation stops too. Day

and night on earth are produced by the sun's motion causing the earth's

rotation. You can see the principle illustrated by the child who runs

along the street with his windmill, to create a current, which will make

it revolve. The Author of the Bible made no mistake when, desiring to

lengthen the day, he commanded the sun to stand still. It is not the

Creator, but his correctors, who are ignorant of the mechanism of the

universe.

Thus, these long-misunderstood and much-assailed Scriptures are not

only vindicated, but far more than vindicated, by the progress of

astronomical discovery. It not only proves the language of the Bible to

be correct; it assures us that it is divine. The same Hand which formed

the stars to guide the simple peasant to his dwelling, at the close of

day, and to lead the mighty intellects of Newton and of Herschel among

the mysteries of the universe, formed those expressions which, to the

peasant's eye, describe the apparent reality, and, to the astronomer's

reason, demonstrate the reality of the appearance of the heavens, and

are thus, alike to peasant and philosopher, the _oracles of God_.

Nor is this the only instance of such Bible oracles. Thousands of years

before philosophers knew anything of the formation of dew, Moses

described it exactly, and noticed how it differed from the rain which

drops down, while the dew evaporates. "My doctrine shall drop as the

rain, my speech shall _distill_ as the dew."--Deuteronomy xxxii. 2.

Solomon described the cycloidal course of the wind, and recorded it in

Ecclesiastes long before Admiral Fitzroy's discovery; as he also

anticipated the doctrine of aqueous circulation in his pregnant proverb:

"Unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return

again."--Ecclesiastes i. 7. Job declared the law of pneumatics when he

declared that "God maketh _weight_ for the winds." Long before Madler,

the celebrated Russian astronomer, published his remarkable opinion: "I

regard the Pleiades as the central group to the whole astral system, and

the fixed stars, even to its outer limits, marked by the Milky Way; and

I regard Alcyone as that star of all others, composing the group which

is favored by most of the probabilities as being the true central sun of

the universe," Moses tells us they were known as "the hinge, or pivot,"

of the heavens; and God asks, "Canst thou bind the secret influences of

the Pleiades?" Though Peter was no geologist, and probably incapable of

calculating the ratio of the central heat, he tells us that the heavens

and the earth are "reserved unto fire," literally, "stored with fire."

Equally in advance of modern medical science, thousands of years before

our modern discoveries, the Author of the Bible declared that "the life

is in the blood," and spoke of the slow combustion of starvation exactly

in the language of the most recent physiology, "they shall be _burnt_

with hunger, and devoured with burning heat."--Deuteronomy xxxii. 24.

Here we have scientific truth not discovered for centuries by our men of

science, but revealed by prophets--scientific discovery, in advance of

science--predictions of the future progress of the human intellect, no

less than revelations of the existing motions of the stars. He who wrote

these oracles knew that the creatures to whom he gave them would one day

unfold their hidden meaning (else he had not so written them), and in

the light of scientific discovery, see them to be as truly divine

predictions of the advance of science, as the prophecies of Jeremiah and

Ezekiel, read among the ruins of Thebes or Babylon, are seen to be

predictions of the ruin of empires. Man's discoveries fade into

insignificance in the presence of such unfolding mysteries; and we are

led to our Bibles, with the prayer, "Open mine eyes, that I may behold

wondrous things out of thy law."

4. The ancient charter of the Church was written in the language of one

of the most recent astronomical discoveries, thirty-six hundred years

before Herschel and Rosse enabled us to understand its full

significance: "He brought him forth abroad, and said unto him, _Look now

toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and

he said unto him, So shall thy seed be._"[308]

The scenery was well calculated to impress Abraham's mind with a sense

of the ability of Christ to fulfill a very glorious promise, by a very

improbable event; but the illustration was as well calculated as the

promise to test the character of that faith which takes God's Word as

sufficient evidence of things not seen; for, if the promise was a trying

test of faith, so was the illustration. Before this, God had promised

that his seed should be as the dust of the earth; and afterward he

declared it should be as the sand of the seashore; the well-known symbol

of a multitude beyond all power of calculation. To couple the stars of

heaven with the sand upon the seashore in any such connection as to

imply that the stars too were innumerable, or that their number came

within any degree of comparison with the ocean sands, must have seemed

to Abraham in the highest degree mysterious, even as it has appeared to

scoffers, in modern times, utterly ridiculous; for, though the first

glance at the sky conveys the impression that the stars are really

innumerable, the investigations of our imperfect astronomy seem to

assure us that this is by no means the case. And, as the patriarch sat,

night after night, at his tent door, and, in obedience to the command of

Christ, counted the stars, and made such a catalogue of them as his

Chaldean preceptors had used, he would very speedily come to the

conclusion, that so far as he could see, they were by no means

innumerable; for the catalogue of Hipparchus reckons only one thousand

and twenty-two as visible to one observer, and the whole number visible

in both hemispheres by the naked eye does not exceed eight

thousand.[309] And even if we suppose, that these old patriarchs had

better eyes, as we know they had a clearer sky, than modern western

observers, and that Abraham saw the moons of Jupiter, and stars as

small, still the number would not seem in the least degree comparable

with the number of the sands upon the seashore--whereof a million are

contained in a cubic inch,[310] a number greater than the population of

the globe in a square foot,[311] while the sum total of the human race,

from Adam to this hour, would not approach to the aggregate of the sands

of a single mile. Though the stars of a size too small to be visible to

our eyes, are much more numerous than the larger stars, yet even up to

the range of view possessed by ordinary telescopes, they are by no means

innumerable. In fact, they are counted and registered, and the number of

the stars of the ninth magnitude, which are four times as distant as the

most distant visible to our eyes--so distant that their light is five

hundred and eighty-six years in traveling toward us--is declared to be

exactly thirty-seven thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine. Abraham's

sense and Abraham's faith must have had many a conflict on this promise,

as the faith and the sense of many of his children, especially the

scientific portion of them, have since, when reading such portions as

this; and those other Scriptures which represent it as an achievement of

Omniscience, that "he telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them

all by their names."[312] It is indeed remarkable how God delights to

test the faith of his people, and to stumble the pride of fools, by

presenting this mysterious truth, of the innumerable multitude of the

stars, in every announcement of the wonderful works of Him who is

perfect in wisdom. Infant astronomy stretched out her hands to catch the

stars, and count them. Many a proud Infidel wondered that Moses could be

so silly as to suppose he could not count the stars, and the believer

often wondered what these words could mean. But faith rests in the

persuasion of two great truths: "God is very wise," and "I am very

ignorant."

The increase of knowledge, by widening the boundaries of our ignorance,

seemed for a time to render the difficulty even greater. The increased

power of Herschel's telescope, and his discovery of the constitution of

the Milky Way, mark an era in the progress of astronomy, and enlarge our

views of the extent of the universe, to an extent inconceivable by those

who have not studied the science. Where we see only a faint whitish

cloud stretching across the sky, Herschel's telescope disclosed a vast

bed of stars. At one time he counted five hundred and eighty-eight stars

in the field of his telescope. In a quarter of an hour, one hundred and

sixteen thousand passed before his eye. In another portion, he found

three hundred and thirty-one thousand stars in a single cluster.[313] He

found the whole structure of that vast luminous cloud which spans the

sky, "to consist entirely of stars, _scattered by millions, like

glittering dust_, on the background of the general heavens."

Yet still it was not supposed to be at all impossible to estimate their

numbers. Even this distinguished astronomer, a few years ago, computed

it at eight or ten millions. Schroeter allowed twenty degrees of it to

pass before him, and withdrew from the majestic spectacle, exclaiming,

"What Omnipotence!" He calculated, however, that the number of the stars

visible through one of the best telescopes in Europe, in 1840, was

twelve millions; a number equaled by a single generation of Abraham's

descendants, far below the power of computation, and utterly

insignificant, as compared with the sands of the sea.

Had our powers of observation stopped here, the great promise must still

have seemed as mysterious to the astronomer, as it once seemed to the

Patriarch. But if either the Father of the Faithful, or the Father of

Sidereal Astronomy, had deluded himself with the notion, that he fully

comprehended either the words or the works of Him who is wonderful in

counsel, and excellent in working, and argued thence that, because the

revealed words and the visible works seemed not to correspond, they were

really contradictory, he would have committed the blunder of modern

Infidels, who assume that they know everything, and that as God's

knowledge can not be any greater than theirs, every Scripture which

their science can not comprehend must be erroneous. The grandest truths,

imperfectly perceived in the twilight of incipient science, serve as

stumbling-blocks for conceited speculators, as well as landmarks on the

boundaries of knowledge to true philosophers, who will ever imbibe the

spirit of Newton's celebrated saying: "I seem to myself like a child

gathering pebbles on the shore, while the great ocean of knowledge lies

unexplored before me;" or the profound remark of Humboldt: "What is seen

does not exhaust that which is perceptible."

But the progress of science was not destined merely to coast the shore

of this ocean. In 1845, Lord Rosse, and a band of accomplished

astronomers, commenced a voyage through the immensities, with a

telescope which has enlarged our view of the visible universe to one

hundred and twenty-five million times the extent before perceived, and

displayed far more accurately the real form and nature of objects

previously seen. Herschel's researches into the Architecture of the

Heavens, which have justly rendered his name immortal as the science he

illustrated, had revealed the existence of great numbers of

_nebulæ_--clouds of light--faint, yet distinct. He supposed many of

these to consist of a luminous fluid, pretty near to us; at least,

comparatively so; for to believe that they were stars, so far away as to

be severally invisible in his forty feet telescope, while yet several

of these clouds are distinctly seen by the naked eye, involved the

belief of distances so astounding, and of multitudes so incredible, and

of a degree of closeness of the several stars so unparalleled by

anything which even he had observed, that his imagination and reason

failed to meet the requirements of such a problem. The supposition was,

however, thrown out by this gigantic intellect, that these clouds might

be firmaments; that the Bible word _heavens_ might be literally plural;

and more than that, he labored in the accumulation of facts which tended

to confirm it. He disclosed the fact, that several of these apparent

clouds, which, to very excellent telescopes, displayed only a larger

surface of cloudy matter, did, in the reflector of his largest

telescope, display themselves in their true character, as globular

clusters, consisting of innumerable multitudes of glorious stars; and,

moreover, that, stretching away far beyond star, or Milky Way, or

nebulæ, he had seen, in some parts of the heavens, "a stippling," or

uniform dotting of the field of view, by points of light too small to

admit of any one being steadily or fixedly examined, _and too numerous

for counting_, were it possible so to view them! What are these?

Millions upon millions of years must have elapsed ere that faint light

could reach our globe, from those profundities of space, though it

travels like the lightning's flash. If they are stars, the sands of the

seashore are as inferior in numbers as the surface of earth is inferior

in dimensions to the arch of heaven. But if these faint dots and

stipplings are not single stars!--if they are

star-clouds--galaxies--firmaments, like our Milky Way--our infinity is

multiplied by millions upon millions! Imagination pants, reason grows

dizzy, arithmetic fails to fathom, and human eyes fear to look into the

abyss. No wonder that this profound astronomer, when a glimpse of

infinity flashed on his eye, retired from the telescope, trembling in

every nerve, afraid to behold.

And yet this astounding supposition is a literal truth; and the light of

those suns, whose twilight thus bowed down that mighty intellect in

reverent adoration, now shines before human eyes in all its noonday

refulgence. One of the most remarkable of these nebulæ--one which is

visible to a good eye in the belt of Orion--has been disclosed to the

observers at Parsontown as a firmament; and minute points, scarce

perceptible to common telescopes, blaze forth as magnificent clusters of

glorious stars, so close and crowded, that no figure can adequately

describe them, save the twin symbol of the promise, "the sand by the

seashore," or "the dust of the earth." "There is a minute point, near

Polaris," says Nichol, "so minute, that it requires a good telescope to

discern its being. I have seen it as represented by a good mirror,

blazing like a star of the first magnitude; and though examined by a

potent microscope, clear and definite as the distinctest of these our

nearest orbs, when beheld through an atmosphere not disturbed. Nay,

through distances of an order I shall scarcely name, I have seen a mass

of orbs compressed and brilliant, so that each touched on each other,

_like the separate grains of a handful of sand_, and yet there seemed no

melting or fusion of any one of the points into the surrounding mass.

Each sparkled individually its light pure and apart, like that of any

constituent of the cluster of the Pleiades."[314]

"The larger and nearer masses are seen with sufficient distinctness to

reveal the grand fact decisive of their character, viz: that they

consist of multitudes of closely related orbs, forming an independent

system. In other cases we find the individual stars by no means so

clearly defined. Through effect, in all probability, of distance, the

intervals between them appear much less, the shining points themselves

being also fainter; while the masses still further off _may be best

likened to a handful of golden sand, or, as it is aptly termed, star

dust_; beyond which no stars, or any vestige of them, are seen, but only

a patch or streak of milky light, similar to the unresolved portions of

our surrounding zone."[315]

To say, then, that the stars of the sky are actually innumerable is only

a cold statement of the plainest fact. Hear it in the language of one

privileged to behold the glories of one out of the thousands of similar

firmaments: "The mottled region forming the lighter part of the mass

(the nebula in Orion) is a very blaze of stars. But that stellar

creation, now that we are freed from all dubiety concerning the

significance of those hazes that float numberless in space, how

glorious, how endless! Behold, amid that limitless ocean, every speck,

however remote or dim, a noble galaxy. Lustrous they are, too; in

manifold instances beyond all neighboring reality--beyond the loftiest

dream which ever exercised the imagination. The great cluster in

Hercules has long dazzled the heart with its splendors, but we have

learned now that among circular and compact galaxies, a class to which

the nebulous stars belong, there are multitudes which infinitely surpass

it--nay, that schemes of being rise above it, sun becoming nearer to

sun, until their skies must be one blaze of light--a throng of burning

activities! But, far aloft stands Orion, the pre-eminent glory and

wonder of the starry universe! Judged by the only criticism yet

applicable, it is perhaps so remote that its light does not reach us in

less than fifty or sixty thousand years; and as at the same time it

occupies so large an apparent portion of the heavens, how stupendous

must be the extent of the nebula. It would seem almost as if all the

other clusters hitherto gauged were collected and compressed into one,

they would not surpass this mighty group, _in which every wisp--every

wrinkle--is a sand-heap of stars_. There are cases in which, though

imagination has quailed, reason may still adventure inquiry, and prolong

its speculations; but at times we are brought to a limit across which no

human faculty has the strength to penetrate, and where, as now, at the

very footstool of the secret THRONE, we can only bend our heads, and

silently _adore_. And from the inner Adyta--the invisible shrine of what

alone is and endures--a voice is heard:

"Hast thou an arm like God?

Canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades,

Or loosen the bands of Orion?

Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his seasons?

Canst thou guide Arcturus and his sons?[316]

He telleth the number of the stars:

He calleth them all by their names.

Great is our Lord, and of great power;

His understanding is infinite."[317]

Thus, nobly does science vindicate Scripture, and display the wisdom and

power of the Lord of Hosts, whose kingdom extends through all space, and

endures through all duration. He who called these countless hosts of

glorious orbs into being is abundantly able to multiply, to an equally

incalculable number, the humble sands which line the oceans of

terrestrial grace, the brilliant stars which shall yet adorn the heavens

of celestial glory. All, of every nation, who shall partake of Abraham's

faith, are Abraham's children. They are Christ's, and so Abraham's seed,

and heirs, according to this promise.[318] When the great multitude,

which no man can number, out of every nation, and tongue, and people,

stand before the throne of God, and cause the many mansions of our

Father's house to re-echo the shout, "Salvation to our God which sitteth

on the throne, and to the Lamb," the answering hallelujahs of the most

distant orbs shall expound the purport of that solemn oath to Abraham

and Abraham's seed: "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because

thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only

son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and _in multiplying I will

multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon

the seashore_."[319]

5. It is not probable that the mysteries of the distant heavens, _or of

those future glories of the redeemed which the Bible employs them to

symbolize_, will ever be fully explored by man, or adequately

apprehended in the present state of being. But it is most certain that

God would not have employed the mysteries of astronomy so frequently as

the symbols of the mysteries of the glory to be revealed, had there not

been some correspondence between the things which eye hath not seen, and

these patterns shown in the mount. So habitual, indeed, is the Scripture

use of these visible heavens as the types of all that is exalted, pure,

cheering, and glorious, that, to most Christians, the word has lost its

primary meaning, and the idea first suggested to their minds by the word

_heaven_ is that of future glory; yet their views of the locality and

physical adornments of the many mansions of their Father's house are dim

and shadowy, just because they do not acquaint themselves sufficiently

with the divine descriptions in the Bible, and the divine illustrations

in the sky. The Bible would be better understood were the heavens

better explored. "I go," said Jesus, "to prepare a _place_ for you." The

bodies of the saints, raised on the resurrection morn, will need a

_place_ on which to stand. The body of the Lord, which his disciples

handled, and "saw that a spirit had 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 Hercules--thus

constituted; its unnumbered thousands of suns, wheeling round central

worlds, and exhibiting their glories to their inhabitants; "skies

blazing, with grand orbs scattered regularly around, and with a

profusion to which our darker heavens are strangers;" the overhead sky,

seen from the interior regions of the cluster, _must appear gorgeous

beyond description_. In the strictest literality it might be said to the

dwellers in such a cluster, "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither

shall thy moon withdraw herself." The surrounding walls of such a

celestial palace must seem indeed "garnished with all manner of precious

stones." Sapphire, emerald, sardius, chrysolite, and pearl, must seem

but dim mirrors of its glorious refulgence. Under its ever rising suns

the gates need not be shut at all by day, "for there shall be no night

there." That glorious place now exists, though far away.

But the Lord of these hosts has said, "Behold, I come quickly." He will

not tarry. A thousand times faster than the swiftest chariot, our solar

system and the surrounding firmament wing their flight toward that same

glorious cluster in Hercules. As our firmament approaches, under the

guidance of Omnipotent wisdom, it too must fly to meet our sun, with a

velocity increasing with an incalculable ratio. The celestial city will

then be seen to descend from heaven. Once within the sphere of its

attractions, our sun and surrounding planets will feel their power.

Their ancient orbits and accustomed revolutions must give way to the

higher power. Old things must pass away, and all things become new. A

new heaven, no less than a new earth, will form the dwelling of

righteousness.

These are no longer the visions of prophecy merely, but the sober

calculations of mathematical science, based upon a foundation as solid

as the attraction of gravitation, and as wide as the existence of that

ether whose undulations convey the light of the most distant stars; for,

so surely as that attraction is efficient, must all the firmaments of

the heavens be drawn more closely together; and as certainly as they

revolve not in empty space, but in a medium capable of retarding Encke's

comet three days in every revolution, must that retarding medium bring

their revolutions to a close. "And so," said Herschel, casting his eye

fearlessly toward future infinities, "we may be certain that the stars

in the Milky Way will be gradually compressed, through successive stages

of accumulation, until they come up to what may be called the ripening

period of the globular cluster." Unnumbered ages may be occupied with

such a grand evolution of celestial progress, beyond our power of

calculation; but will the changes of created things, even then, have

come to an end? Hear again the voice, not of the prophet, but of the

astronomer: "Around us lie stabilities of every order; but it is

_stability_ only that we see, not _permanence_." As the course of our

inquiry has already amply illustrated, even majestic systems, that at

first appear final and complete, are found to resolve themselves into

mere steps or phases of still loftier progress. Verily, it is an

astonishing world! Change rising above change--cycle growing out of

cycle, in majestic progression--each new one ever widening, like the

circles that wreathe from a spark of flame, enlarging as they ascend,

finally to become lost in the empyrean! And if all that we see, from

earth to sun, and from sun to universal star-work--that wherein we best

behold images of eternity, immortality and God--if that is only a state

or space of a course of being rolling onward evermore, what must be the

Creator, the Preserver, the Guide of all!--He at whose bidding these

phantasms came from nothingness, and shall again disappear;--whose name,

amid all things, alone is _Existence_--I AM THAT I AM?

"Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth,

And the heavens are the works of thy hands;

They shall perish,

But thou shalt endure;

Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment:

As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed;

But thou art the same,

And thy years shall have no end.

The children of thy servants shall continue,

And their seed shall be established before thee."

Psalm cii. 25

"And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth;

For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away,

And there was no more sea.

And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,

Coming down from God out of heaven,

Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying,

Behold the tabernacle of God is with men,

And he will dwell with them,

And they shall be his people,

And God himself shall be with them, and be their God."

Revelation xxi.

* * * * *

Reader, is this glorious heaven your inheritance? Is this unchangeable

Jehovah your God? Are you looking for and hasting unto the coming of the

day of God? Is it your daily prayer, Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly?

FOOTNOTES:

[283] Kendall's Uranography, 268.

[284] Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1856, p. 380.

[285] Ibid. 1852, p. 376.

[286] Ibid. 1856, p. 377.

[287] Cosmos, Vol. I. pp. 198-215.

[288] Judges, chap. v.

[289] Jeremiah, chap. x.

[290] Some of my readers may deem any notice of such a subject, in the

nineteenth century, entirely unnecessary; but having lived for some

years within sight of the dwelling of a woman who publicly advertised

herself in the newspapers as a professor of astrology, and seen the

continual flow of troubled minds to the promised light--the humble

serving-girl stealing up the side entrance, and the princely chariot

discharging its willing dupes at the door, and rolling hastily away, to

await them at the corner--I know of a certainty that folly is not yet

dead. There are women, aye, and men too, who are above the folly of

reading the Bible, but just wise enough to pay five dollars for, and

spend hours in the study of an uncouth astrological picture,

representing a collocation of the stars, which was never witnessed by

any astronomer. There are men who would not give way to the superstition

of supposing that their destiny was regulated by the will of Almighty

God, yet who believe that every living creature's fate is regulated by

the aspect of the stars at the hour of his nativity; the same stars

always causing the same period of life and mode of death; though every

day's experience testifies the contrary. The same stars presided over

the birth of the poor soldier, who perished in an instant at Austerlitz;

of his imperial master, who pined for years in St. Helena; of the old

gentleman who died in his own bed, of gout; and of the batch of puppies,

whereof old Towser was the only surviving representative, the other nine

having found their fate in the horse-pond, in defiance of the

controlling stars. They were all born at the same hour, and under the

same auspices, and destined to the same fate, by the laws of astrology.

Yet half a dozen professors of astrology find patrons enough in each of

our great cities to enable them to live and to pay for advertising in

the daily papers.

[291] Judges, chap. v.

[292] Dick's Celestial Scenery, p. 57, Applegate's edition, where many

such instances are related.

[293] Vaughn's Report to the American Association for the Advancement of

Science, in Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1855, p. 364.

[294] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, 382.

[295] Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 122; Vol. IV. p. 569.

[296] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, 383.

[297] Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1854, p. 361.

[298] Letter to Herschel, from Oroomiah, in Persia--Annual of Scientific

Discovery, 1854, p. 367.

[299] _Life and Work in the Great Pyramid_, by Piazzi Smyth, F. R. S.,

LL. D.

[300] "These tablets (of unbaked clay, with inscriptions, found in the

tombs of Erech, the city of Nimrod--Genesis, chap. x. 10--and deciphered

by Rawlinson) were, in point of fact, the equivalent of our bank notes,

and prove that a system of artificial currency prevailed in Babylon and

Persia at an unprecedentedly early age; centuries before the

introduction of paper and writing."

_Rawlinson, in News of the Churches, February, 1858, p. 50._

[301] Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, Vol. III. p.

106; Cosmos, Vol. I. pp. 173, 182; Chinese Repository, Vol. IX. p. 573;

Williams' Middle Kingdom, Vol. II. p. 147.

[302] Somerville's Connection of Physical Sciences, 82.

[303] Daniel, chap. xii. 8. 1 Peter, chap. i. 10. Ephesians, chap. i. 3.

[304] Psalm xl. 1, and xxxvii. 23, margin.

[305] M. Voltaire; M. Cheneviere; Theol. Essays, Vol. I. p. 456.

[306] Humboldt's Cosmos, Vol. I. p. 139; Herschel's Outlines, 380;

Kendall's Uranography, 205.

[307] Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, 171, 337, 315;

Architecture of the Heavens, 286.

[308] Genesis, chap. xv. 5.

[309] Cosmos I. 140.

[310] Ehrenberg computes that there are forty-one millions of the shells

of animalculæ in a cubic inch of Bilier Slate.

[311] Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1860, p. 341.

[312] Psalm cxlvii. 4.

[313] Dick's Sidereal Heavens, 59; Herschel's Outlines.

[314] Architecture of the Heavens, 62.

[315] Architecture of the Heavens, 64. These unresolved milky streaks

and patches have since been discovered to be true nebulæ, or phosphoric

clouds, in some way connected with their adjacent stars.

[316] Architecture of the Heavens, 144.

[317] Job, chap. xxxviii. 31. Psalm cxlvii. 4.

[318] Genesis, chap. xxii. 16.

[319] Galatians, chap. iii. 14, 29. Gen. xxii. 16, 17.

[320] Architecture of the Heavens, 217.

[321] Architecture of the Heavens, 77, 130.