Year: 1859

Pref Mitchell delivered the first of series of
four lectures on the above subject before the Gil
lite Association Of New York. on Tuesday
evening. After describing the boundless extent
of space, and the distance which separates even
| the nearest stars, he said:


Whence are those objects? There were three
| hypotheses on which an attempt had been made
to answer the question, The first was that the
world was eternal, having neither beginning nor
end. The second was matter was eternal and
cannot be destroyed. The third was, that they
were the work of an omniptent divine Being
The first, was the Universe eternal? Had the
stars existed, the planets rolled the sun shone,
and hau cur earth itself heen circulating round
the sun from eternity? They seemed to be or
ganized for eternity But when We examine our
earth, the only one can examine internally :,
we must. if the first hypothesis be correct, find
animal and vegetable life eternal. This was de-
monstraby not the case. The second hypoth-
esis that the matter is eternal, out Of which the
! world was formed, and that from its creative
condition it had been brought by certain i'm
mutable laws. Let them but consider particle
of matter; would it either rise or fall without
power to move it? No. Chaos existed, but
out of it no order could arise until controlling
power willed it, then insensate matter was organ
lied and world was formed. That brought
them to the third hypothesis--that the whole





Omnipotent God.


In proof of the correctness of the third hypoth-
esis, the speaker told of the revolutions OF the
various planets and of the wonderful delicacy
and complexity OF the arrangement by which
they were made dependent upon each other and
showed how the slightest deviation from the
great laws that govern them would destroy the
whole. We were living upon globe, he said,
which was allied to all other globes destroy
the equilibrium and all was destroyed. There
was not planet that had not its SIZE weight
and velocity assigned to It. Change either, and
obstruction must inevitably follow, Could they
think of that, he asked-all that, so beautiful, s.
delicate, SO sublime, and believe that it came
TO DO so by chance? There were, in oil that
was known of the heavenly bodies,every evidence
that each and every one of them was ne mat
ter, governed by the same great laws, and by the
same great controlling power. In conclusion,
| Prof M said he could, if he had the power.
have built universe so that there would have
been none of the changes which ours is subject
to. He would have made the planets OF one
matter, and placed them SO that they should not
have affected each other, nor should they have
been affected by the sun. He could have launched
them out, aud they " ould have gone on perfect
ly in their sphere. Now why was not the
world so built if there were no differences of
matter? II had not been because there was but
one matter, and matter could not be willed to
attract, and not attract Hence, the wondrous
scheme by which the earth was dragged by the
moon, then by the planets and by the sun, here
and there, SO that dissolution seemed inevitable,
but still the most project harmony prevailed and
the earth rolled on to eternity. Let the mind
C ntemplate these orbs and their government,
and the conclusion was unavoidab ble-This is
the empire of Almighty God.