[Page 193] X.

THE STELLAR SYSTEM.

“The heavens number out the glory of the strong God.”—­DAVID.

[Page 194] Richter says that “an angel once took a man and stripped him of his flesh, and lifted him up into space to show him the glory of the universe.  When the flesh was taken away the man ceased to be cowardly, and was ready to fly with the angel past galaxy after galaxy, and infinity after infinity, and so man and angel passed on, viewing the universe, until the sun was out of sight—­until our solar system appeared as a speck of light against the black empyrean, and there was only darkness.  And they looked onward, and in the infinities of light before, a speck of light appeared, and suddenly they were in the midst of rushing worlds.  But they passed beyond that system, and beyond system after system, and infinity after infinity, until the human heart sank, and the man cried out:  ‘End is there none of the universe of God?’ The angel strengthened the man by words of counsel and courage, and they flew on again until worlds left behind them were out of sight, and specks of light in advance were transformed, as they approached them, into rushing systems; they moved over architraves of eternities, over pillars of immensities, over architecture of galaxies, unspeakable in 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