re of the
Heavens, which have justly rendered his name immortal as the science he
illustrated, had revealed the existence of great numbers of
_nebulae_--clouds of light--faint, yet distinct. He supposed many of
these to consist of a luminous fluid, pretty near to us; at least,
comparatively so; for to believe that they were stars, so far away as to
be severally invisible in his forty feet telescope, while yet several
of these clouds are distinctly seen by the naked eye, involved the
belief of distances so astounding, and of multitudes so incredible, and
of a degree of closeness of the several stars so unparalleled by
anything which even he had observed, that his imagination and reason
failed to meet the requirements of such a problem. The supposition was,
however, thrown out by this gigantic intellect, that these clouds might
be firmaments; that the Bible word _heavens_ might be literally plural;
and more than that, he labored in the accumulation of facts which tended
to confirm it. He disclosed the fact, that several of these apparent
clouds, which, to very excellent telescopes, displayed only a larger
surface of cloudy matter, did, in the reflector of his largest
telescope, display themselves in their true character, as globular
clusters, consisting of innumerable multitudes of glorious stars; and,
moreover, that, stretching away far beyond star, or Milky Way, or
nebulae, he had seen, in some parts of the heavens, "a stippling," or
uniform dotting of the field of view, by points of light too small to
admit of any one being steadily or fixedly examined, _and too numerous
for counting_, were it possible so to view them! What are these?
Millions upon millions of years must have elapsed ere that faint light
could reach our globe, from those profundities of space, though it
travels like the lightning's flash. If they are stars, the sands of the
seashore are as inferior in numbers as the surface of earth is inferior
in dimensions to the arch of heaven. But if these faint dots and
stipplings are not single stars!--if they are
star-clouds--galaxies--firmaments, like our Milky Way--our infinity is
multiplied by millions upon millions! Imagination pants, reason grows
dizzy, arithmetic fails to fathom, and human eyes fear to look into the
abyss. No wonder that this profound astronomer, when a glimpse of
infinity flashed on his eye, retired from the telescope, trembling in
every nerve, afraid to behold.

And yet this astounding