by the religion she professed, when a
simple and natural explanation is afforded by the fact, that stars do
fall from the heavens to the earth, and _that they do so in their
courses_, and just by reason of their orbital motion; and that the
ancients both knew the fact, and gave the right name to those bodies.
Let no reasonable man delude himself with the notion that God has no
weapons more formidable than the dotings of astrology, till he has taken
a view of the arsenals of God's artillery, which he has treasured up
against the day of battle and of war.

Here it may be well to notice the illustration which the remarkable
showers of meteors, particularly those of November, 1833, shed upon
several much ridiculed texts of Scripture. Scientific observation has
fully confirmed and illustrated the scientific accuracy of the Bible in
such expressions as, "the stars shall fall from heaven;" "there fell a
great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp;" "and the stars of
heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely
figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." Whatever political or
ecclesiastical events these symbols may signify, there can be no
question, now, that the astronomical phenomenon used to prefigure them
is correctly described in the Bible. Most of my readers have seen some
of these remarkable exhibitions; but for the sake of those who have not,
I give a brief account of one. "By much the most splendid meteoric
shower on record, began at nine o'clock, on the evening of the twelfth
of November, 1833, and lasted till sunrise next morning. It extended
from Niagara and the northern lakes of America, to the south of Jamaica,
and from 61 deg. of longitude, in the Atlantic, to 100 deg. of longitude in
Central Mexico. Shooting stars and meteors of the apparent size of
Jupiter, Venus, and even the full moon, darted in myriads toward the
horizon, _as if every star in the heavens had darted from their
spheres_." They are described as having been as frequent as the flakes
of snow in a snow-storm, and to have been seen with equal brilliancy
over the greater part of the continent of North America.[296]

The source whence these meteors proceed is distinctly ascertained to be,
as was already remarked with regard to the aerolites, a belt of small
planetoids, revolving around the sun in a little less than a year, and
in an orbit intersecting that of the earth, at such an angle, that every
thirty-three years, or