=_Ormsby M. Mitchell,[63] 1810-1862._=

=_252._= THE GREAT UNFINISHED PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSE.

I do not pretend to indorse the theory of Maedler with reference to his central sun.  If I did indorse it, it would amount simply to nothing at all, for he needs no indorsement of mine.  But it is one of the great unfinished problems of the universe, which remains yet to be solved.  Future generations yet are to take it up.  Materials for its solution are to accumulate from generation to generation, and possibly from century to century.  Nay, I know not but thousands of years will roll away before the slow movements of these far distant orbs shall so accumulate as to give us the data whereby the resolution may be absolutely accomplished.  But shall we fail to work because the end is far off?  Had the old astronomer that once stood upon the watch-tower in Babylon, and there marked the coming of the dreaded eclipse, said.  “I care not for this; this is the business of posterity; let posterity take care of itself; I will make no record”—­and had, in succeeding ages, the sentinel in the watch-tower of the skies said, “I will retire from my post; I have no concern with these matters, which can do me no good; it is nothing that I can do for the age in which I live,”—­where should we have been to-night?  Shall we not do, for those who are to follow us, what has been done for us by our predecessors?  Let us not shrink from the responsibility which comes down upon the age in which we live.  The great and mighty problem of the universe has been given to the whole human family for its solution.  Not by any clime, not by any age, not by any nation, not by any individual man or mind, however great or grand, has this wondrous solution been accomplished; but it is the problem of humanity, and it will last as long as humanity shall inhabit the globe on which we live and move.

* * * * *

No, here is the temple of our Divinity.  Around us and above us rise sun and system, cluster and universe.  And I doubt not that in every region of this vast empire of God, hymns of praise and anthems of glory are rising and reverberating from sun to sun, and from, system to system, heard by Omnipotence alone, across immensity, and through eternity.

[Footnote 63:  An astronomer, and a favorite lecturer on the science; a native of Kentucky.]

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WRITERS ON NATURAL HISTORY, SCENERY, &c.

=_William Bartram, 1739-1813._= (Manual, p. 490.)

From the “Travels through the Carolinas,” &c.

=_253._= SCENES ON THE UPPER OCONEE.