866 WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN MISSED!

fraction beyond the limits assigned to them by the Creator, but our Sun and entire "System,"-together with Myriads of other Suns with their "Systems," are all revolving on amazing, speechless, inconceivable, orbits round some other "Centre," in the Infinite Depths of Space!

The Human Mind being,-(in spite of its irrepressible conceit,)-finite, positively gives way before the Stupendous Power, and Amazing Schemes of God's visible Universe.

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My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For, as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, -and My thoughts than your thoughts."-Isaiah lv., 8-9.

They are indeed! Instead of the Myriad Systems in Space, all revolving round our speck of dust,-the Earth,— if God had thought proper,-as He might well have done, -instead of sending His Son to redeem those of our Race who are willing humbly to accept His Salvation,-to have allowed our corrupt, and fallen World, to have disappeared from amongst His Myriads of other Worlds altogether, the rest of the Universe would never have known that we had ever existed! We could never have been missed, because they have never yet seen us! They have only seen our huge Sun, as a small twinkling Star! Well, indeed may we say, "When I consider Thy Heavens, What is Man that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that Thou visitest him?”—Psalm viii., 3-4.

In the picture we have a feeble representation of the Chief Planets of our "System," with an attempt to show their relative proportions. The Reader must kindly note that our Earth is, however, proportionably too large, and the Sun must be imagined more than four times the size represented. Let the Sun,-(diameter 865,000 miles,)—be taken as an "Association" Football, then our Earth,— (diameter 7,918 miles),—will be the size of a small shot, used for bird guns, the proportion given by Professor Ball, Astronomer-Royal, Dublin Observatory.

The distant constellations resolve themselves into distinct Stars, whenever instruments of sufficient power can be constructed. Thus the "Milky Way," which, to the naked eye, presents merely the appearance of streaks of light clouds, drawn across the sky, is resolved by very powerful Telescopes, into a mass of "Suns," or "Fixed Stars," at distances from us inconceivably remote! And what shall we say to those "Galaxies," of immense Suns clustered together in the astounding Nebula of Orion, and Andromeda? Stupendous "Constellations," to the glories of which,

A German Astronomer,-from observations of 49 Stars,-concludes that our entire System is passing through space at 20 miles per second!

ONE "SYSTEM" OUT OF MILLIONS AROUND US.

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AN HOUR'S EXPOSURE.

our sparsely filled portion of the sky offers no comparison ! There are, indeed, literally millions of clusters of Stars,— ("Suns," Fixed Stars," else we could never see them,)— scattered through space. Of these,—says Sir R. S. Ball,A homely illustration" may be given by "taking a Pepper castor, and shaking out the pepper on to a sheet of white paper," until the centre is a mass, with grains scattered loosely around it!

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Taking a certain portion of the sky where you can count, say ten stars with the naked eye, apply an opera glass to the same spot, you will find 200! A small hand Telescope of three-inch object glass has given 320,000 Stars in the Northern half of the Sky alone. A more powerful fixed Instrument will give 4,000,000, and our modern observatory telescopes give some 50,000,000!

But this is not all. Photography can, if long exposure is given (one to two hours,) on a plate so sensitive that a fraction of one second would be sufficient for an ordinary negative, penetrate into depths of Space, into which no Telescope can follow it! In one ten-thousandth part of the Sky,-alone, Mr. Roberts by one hour's exposure, took 16,000 Stars! We have every reason to believe,says Professor Ball,-that, with prolonged exposure,―more sensitive plates,-and, perhaps, some day, more powerful Instruments,-fresh Myriads of Suns will be brought to view! Dear Reader! What a Universe! And,-remember, this is merely God's outward, visible, material Creation, - totally apart from that infinitely higher Spiritual World, to which we are all,-Believers and Unbelievers alike,-fast hastening!

GOD'S THOUGHTS ARE NOT OUR THOUGHTS.

To illustrate this, let us attempt to grasp, or realise the speechless distances it has pleased the Supreme to place these "fixed Stars," or Suns,-asunder. To endeavour to grasp intellectually, the distance, say, of our own System and Sun, to the very next nearest Sun and System to our own. The next nearest Fixed Star, Sun, or System, to ours is "Alpha Centauri." Its distance from our Sun, is 20 Billions of Miles! A distance stated in a moment, but impossible, at once, to grasp! One Billion is a Million times Million. Let us follow Professor Ball's excellent 5/- Book called "Star Land,"—(Cassell & Co.) especially written for the Young Student,-well worth your perusal,and attempt thus to grapple, intellectually, with 20 Billions of Miles!

AN AWFUL JOURNEY!

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Force yourself to imagine a Railway mysteriously constructed to the very nearest Fixed Star to our Sun, also a Train mysteriously enabled to proceed along it for Ages, ceaselessly day, and night, at a uniform Fifty Miles an hour. Imagine the fare to be one penny every hundred miles; that is, one penny between Birmingham and London, instead of the present nine shillings (Third-class fare). How many sovereigns, think you, dear Reader, would you have to pay for a Single Journey ticket to "Alpha Centauri," the next "System" to our own? You need not ask for a "Return," you would only live long enough just to start upon this awful journey! For if you travelled thus for ninety-six years, that is, if you got into the train, at four years of age, and lived to be 103, like good Sir Moses Montefiore, or the late Monsieur Chevreul, of Paris,—you would only have gone 56 Millions out of the 20 Millions of Millions of Miles! In 192,000 years, you would only have gone a Tenth of one of the "Billion Miles," with the 20 Billions hardly yet broken into! At length, after about 34 Million years (!) at 50 Miles an hour, you would reach the nearest Sun to ours,-" Alpha Centauri !" And now the Fare! One Penny per Hundred Miles.

Taking our "National Debt" at 700 Million Pounds,(we pay some £60,000 per day, Interest upon it,) all would be required! Converting it into gold,-you would take it down in 5,000 carts, laden with sovereigns, to the Ticket Office. But after the Clerk had counted it, he would say, "Very sorry, Sir! But I need 107 Million Pounds more, for a ticket to 'Alpha Centauri;' its an awful journey!" If this is the nearest "Fixed Star," System," "Sun," to ours,-conceive the speechless distances of those Stars which no known Telescope can ever reach, and which it takes an hour's exposure for Photography to indicate. THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE BELONGS MERELY TO SENSE AND TIME.

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or

And let us ever remember that these Myriads of Suns, with their Billions of Planets revolving round them, belong, after all, merely to the outward things of Sense and Time. They are, after all, merely the material Universe of our God. They are perishable objects, like our own Earth,they are quite apart from, and infinitely inferior to, God's Spiritual World to which our souls are all hastening!

These visible material Worlds, and "Heavenly Bodies," all had a beginning, and they will, after nameless Epochs,

870 WE ARE ALL MOVING ONWARD TO ETERNITY!

speechless Time, undoubtedly have an End! distinctly told so!

We are

"And the Stars of Heaven shall fall, even as a Fig Tree doth cast her untimely Figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind!"-Rev. vi., 13.

"They shall perish, but thou remainest! They shall all wax old as doth a Garment, and as a Vesture Thou shall fold them up, and they shall be changed. But Thou, God, art the same! Thy years fail not."-Heb. i., 10-12.

WHAT THEN WILL BE THE COMING SPIRITUAL WORLD?

If then, dear Reader, this amazing,-glorious,—apparently infinite, but in reality,- Tangible, - Visible, — Lower,-Perishing,-Creation of our God, which we see around us every starlight night, is after all a mere passing show, a thing,-after all,-merely of Sense and Time, what must be that Spiritual Life,-that Heaven,-that World to come, which our Blessed Lord assures us that He has "gone to prepare" for the Redeemed,-for us Believers, for His Followers and People?

"I go to prepare a Place for you. that where I am, there ye may be also." -John xiv. 2-3.

"For the Father Himself loveth you because you have loved Me and believed that I came from God."-John xvi. 27.

What must be the untold Glories of that "Heaven where God and Christ are,-infinitely,-speechlessly,higher, and above the passing Things of mere Sense and Time, that Future Spiritual Existence,-and Eternal Life, -to which for Weal or for Woe,—we are all,-" Believers and "Infidels" alike,-fast hastening?

"

What miserably feeble ideas of the Infinite Resources of Almighty God do our small minds form of the "World to come." Desperately attached to, too often entirely fixed upon, this little speck of dust we call our Earth,-too often deeply set upon a mere Material existence,-the very notions and conceptions of that Life to come, are poor, unworthy, worldly, and feeble! Is it conceivable to the enlightened conscience of any "Child of God,"-that the Billions of happy Redeemed Souls who have been gathered in God's mercy, through Christ's death,-Atonement,-and Reconciling Sacrifice,-for Ages, from this fallen World, are all to come back to a Material existence upon this little speck of decaying dust in God's lower, visible, creation? Can our highest ideas of that "Heaven" where God and Christ dwell go no further than this poor, miserable, little earth? What! The countless Myriads of the Blessed come back here? No, indeed, dear Reader! Our little World has served the Divine Purpose as a Nursery for the