dimensions and duration, and the human heart sank again and called
ont: 'End is there none of the universe of God?' And all the stars
echoed the question with amazement: 'End is there none of the universe
of God?' And this echo found no answer. They moved on again past
immensities of immensities, and eternities of eternities, until
in the dizziness of uncounted galaxies the human heart sank for
the last time, and called out: 'End is there none of the universe
of God?' And again all the stars repeated the question, and the
angel answered: 'End is there none of the universe of God. Lo,
also, there is no beginning.'"

[Page 195]
X.

_THE OPEN PAGE OF THE HEAVENS._

The Greeks set their mythological deities in the skies, and read
the revolving pictures as a starry poem. Not that they were the
first to set the blazonry of the stars as monuments of their thought;
we read certain allusions to stars and asterisms as far back as
the time of Job. And the Pleiades, Arcturus, and Orion are some of
the names used by Him who "calleth all the stars by their names,
in the greatness of his power." Homer and Hesiod, 750 B.C., allude
to a few stars and groups. The Arabians very early speak of the
Great Bear; but the Greeks completely nationalized the heavens.
They colonized the earth widely, but the heavens completely; and
nightly over them marched the grand procession of their apotheosized
divinities. There Hercules perpetually wrought his mighty labors
for the good of man; there flashed and faded the changeful star
Algol, as an eye in the head of the snaky-haired Medusa; over them
flew Pegasus, the winged horse of the poet, careering among the
stars; there the ship Argo, which had explored all strange seas
of earth, nightly sailed in the infinite realms of heaven; there
Perseus perpetually killed the sea-monster by celestial aid, and
perpetually won the chained Andromeda for his bride. Very evident
was their recognition of divine help: equally evident was [Page 196]
their assertion of human ability and dominion. They gathered the
illimitable stars, and put uncountable suns into the shape of the
Great Bear--the most colossal form of animal ferocity and
strength--across whose broad forehead imagination grows weary in
flying; but they did not fail to put behind him a representative of
themselves, who forever drives him around a sky that never sets--a
perpetual type that man's ambition and expectation correspond to
that which h