Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1860-07-18
An Astro omer's View of the Uuiverse

In waiting ourselves in imagination to our
own satellite, the mOon-the nearest of our
celestial bOdies-we have passed over a dis
tance equal to thirty times the diameter of our
globe. In advancing to the sun we travel over
distance equal to thirty times that of the
moon; and before we reach Uranus the re-
motest of the planets, we have trayersed a
space equal to twenty times the earth distance
from the sun. Thus placed at the limits of a sys
tenn enclosed in circle of eighteen hundred
millions of miles in radius our appreciation of
distance would appear to be exhausted, and
we seem to be on the margin Of an unfathom-
able abyss. The telescope, however. and the
mural circle enable us to span the void, and
the genius of man, proud of the achievement
and justly, if humbly proud-has crossed the
guif twelve thousand times the radius of his
own system, that We may study the nearest
world in the armament of heaven. Beyond
this frontier lies the whole universe of stars
their binary systems, their clusters, and their
nebulOus combinations The observed paralIax
of one fourth Of a second in q Lyra carries MS
four times as far into the bosom of space; though
beyond this, as we have no positive measure of
distance, II would be as unphilOsophical to AS
sign limits to creation as to give il an infinite
r rnge. In this rapid fight into space we have
trayersed 1T but in one dimension, and the line
which we have traced is but a unit in the scale
OF celestial distance. Creation in its wide pan
Drama is still above US, beneath US and around
u.s. The over-arching heavens still enclose US,
and innumerable worlds sparkle in its canopy
1t from this bourne, from which the astro-
nomical traveller alone returns we look upon
our course our own planetary system ceases to
be perceived. Its sun is dim, itself but an in
visible point in the nebulous light that inter
Vsnes. Where, then, is our terrestrial ball; its
ocean, its continents its mountains its en-
pires, its dynastics, its thrOnes2 Where is our
fatherland, its factions its christians. disu-
mons, its crimes, and its unholy wars2 Where
is our home, its peace, its endearments, its
hopes, and Its fears? Where is man, int llect
ual mOnad, the only atom of organic life that
can pierce the deaths and interpret the enigma
of the universe? and yet the only spark of
spiritual nature which disclaims the authority
and ressts the will of the universal King They
have all disappeared in the far-off perspective,
the long vista Of space, whose apex, were it q
sun, the hugest telescope would fail to descry.
No living thing here meets the eye, and no
sentiment associated with life presses on the
affections. The tiny organisms of earth and
ocean, every thing that moves and breathes,
that lives and dies, all are engulphed in the
great conception Of the universe The strain
ing mind cannot unite the immeasurable ex-
tremes. The infinite in space the eternal in
duration, the OmDipOtent in power, the perfect
in wisdom, alone fill the expanded soul, and
portray in their awful combination the Crea-
tor of the universe.-NOrth British ReUieU.