The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1882-08-10
The Glorfes of the Starlit Heavens.


If the eye could gain gradually in
light-gathering power, until it attained
something like the range of the great
gauging telescopes OF the Hersohels,
how utterly would what we sec now seem
lost in the inconceivable glories thus
gradually unfolded. Even tho revela-
tons of the telescope, save as they ap-
peal to the minds eye, would be Us
nothing to the splendid scene revealed,
when within the spaces which now show
black between the familiar stars of our
consultations, thousands of brilliant
orbs would DO revealed. The milky
luminosity of the Galaxy would be seen
aglow with millions of suns, its richer
portions blazing 80 resplondcntly that
no eye could bear to gaze long upon the
wondrous display. But with every in
crease of power moro and moro myr-
lads OF stars would break into view,
until ut last the scene would be unbear-
able in its splendor. The ego would scok
for darkness rs for rest. The mind
would ask for scene less oppressive in
the magniticonce of its inner meaning:
for even as seen, wonderful though the
display would be, the glorious scene
would scarce express the millionth part
of Its real nature, as recognized by o
mind conscious that each point of light
was sun like ours, each sun the CEN
ter of scheme of worlds such as that
globe Oh which wo ''liye and move and
have our being.''
Who shall pretend to picture q sceno
go gloriousP II the electric light could
be applied to illumine fifty million lamps
over the surface Of black domed vault,
and those lamps were here gathered in
rich clustering groups, there strewn
more sparseIy, after tho way in which
the stars are spread over tho vault of
heaven, something like the grandeur of
the scene which we have ina gincd would
be realized-but no human hands could
every produce such an exhibition of
celestial imagery. AS for maps, it is
obviously impossible by any maps which
could be drawn, no matter what their
scale or plan, to present anything even
approaching to Il correct picture of tho
heavenly host. There Is no way even
Of showing their numerical wealth in O
single picture.
1t is not till we have learned to look
ON oil that the telescope reveals rs in its
turn nothing, compared with the real
universe, that we h"yo rightly learned
o'iO ipSooho GiiC lchSll, 81
far, at least, as 1t lies within our feeble
powers tU sthdy the awful teaching OF
the stars. The range Hf the puny in
struments man can fashion is flo meas-
uro, we may be we'll assured, of the uni
verse as It Is! The domain OF tclescop-
ically visible space. cfiihpared with which
the whole range of the visible Universe
of stars seems but u point, can be in
ttrn hut as q point compared with those
infinite realms Uf Gtar-StreWn space
which lie on every side of our Universe,
beyond the range--millions of times
further than the EXTREMIST scope of the
Instruments by which man has extended
the powers Of visions given to him by
the Almighty. The flnite--for after all,
Infinite though it seems to us, tho region
of space through which we can extend
our survey is but finite-can never bear
any proportion to the infinite save that
of infinite disproportiOn. All that we
can see is as nothing compared with that
which Is; oil we can know is rs moth
ifigi though our knowledge "grow from
more to tiiotoI" seemingly without limit
In fine, we may say (as our gradually
widening vision shows us tho nothing
ness of what we have seen, Of what we
see, Of what we can ever scc), not, as
LarlaCc said; "Ihe K1l0,Op is Iihic,"
but "fHE KNOWN IS Nothing" :" not
"7hc U1ehnoUae is Msmcnse," but "TIIE
UNKNOWN Is INFINITE."