shown in the minutest as in the vastest works;—the same Divine Hand now polishing the scales on the feathers of a moth's wing, and now holding in its hollow the waters of the ocean, or guiding the mazes of innumerable worlds!
And now, at length and in the last place, it is time to turn our contemplations from this single globe on which we dwell, to the great universe around us—from objects indefinitely minute to those indefinitely vast,—from the wonders of the microscopic, to those of the telescopic, creation. And if, before, we found difficulty in contracting our thoughts to the inconceivable minuteness of the one class of objects, we shall find it, perhaps, yet more difficult to expand our conceptions so as to grasp the immensities of the other. But though a difficult, it cannot but prove an agreeable task, if we have any love for the beautiful and the sublime.
And, first, let us contemplate our own solar system. Look at its exquisite machinery, if such it may be termed. Let us suppose ourselves able to stand off from it, and survey it at a distance. What a beautiful sight would it be! Behold that vast ball, glittering and flaming in the centre,—the sun. And how vast is that globe of fire! To form a conception of its immensity, let us consider it in this manner. The distance from the earth to the Moon is 240,000 miles; now suppose the centre of the sun were placed where our earth is,—this vast globe of fire would reach as far as the moon, and nearly as far again beyond it, and this, too, on all sides from the centre; so that you would have here a burning mass measuring across from edge
