ry blaze of stars. But that stellar
creation, now that we are freed from all dubiety concerning the
significance of those hazes that float numberless in space, how
glorious, how endless! Behold, amid that limitless ocean, every speck,
however remote or dim, a noble galaxy. Lustrous they are, too; in
manifold instances beyond all neighboring reality--beyond the loftiest
dream which ever exercised the imagination. The great cluster in
Hercules has long dazzled the heart with its splendors, but we have
learned now that among circular and compact galaxies, a class to which
the nebulous stars belong, there are multitudes which infinitely surpass
it--nay, that schemes of being rise above it, sun becoming nearer to
sun, until their skies must be one blaze of light--a throng of burning
activities! But, far aloft stands Orion, the pre-eminent glory and
wonder of the starry universe! Judged by the only criticism yet
applicable, it is perhaps so remote that its light does not reach us in
less than fifty or sixty thousand years; and as at the same time it
occupies so large an apparent portion of the heavens, how stupendous
must be the extent of the nebula. It would seem almost as if all the
other clusters hitherto gauged were collected and compressed into one,
they would not surpass this mighty group, _in which every wisp--every
wrinkle--is a sand-heap of stars_. There are cases in which, though
imagination has quailed, reason may still adventure inquiry, and prolong
its speculations; but at times we are brought to a limit across which no
human faculty has the strength to penetrate, and where, as now, at the
very footstool of the secret THRONE, we can only bend our heads, and
silently _adore_. And from the inner Adyta--the invisible shrine of what
alone is and endures--a voice is heard:

"Hast thou an arm like God?
Canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades,
Or loosen the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his seasons?
Canst thou guide Arcturus and his sons?[316]
He telleth the number of the stars:
He calleth them all by their names.
Great is our Lord, and of great power;
His understanding is infinite."[317]

Thus, nobly does science vindicate Scripture, and display the wisdom and
power of the Lord of Hosts, whose kingdom extends through all space, and
endures through all duration. He who called these countless