identity is not complete in all.  An element is found in one part that may not be found in another.  Hydrogen shows its line in the spectrum derived from every heavenly body that has been investigated; but not so aluminium or cobalt.  Sodium, that is, the salt-producing base, is discovered everywhere, but not nickel or arsenium.  The result, in a word, shows a certain variability in the distribution of solar and planetary matter, but a general identity of most.

The question next presented itself as to the character of the luminous bodies beyond the solar system.  Of what kind of matter are the comets?  Of what kind are the fixed stars?  Of what kind are the nebulae?  Could the spectroscope be used in determining also the character of the materials in those orbs that we see shining in the depths of space?  The instrument was turned in answer to these questions to the sidereal heavens.  No other branch of science has been prosecuted in the after half of this century with more zeal and success than has the spectroscopic analysis of the fixed stars.  These are known by the telescope to have the character of suns.  The most general fact of the visible heavens is the plentiful distribution of suns.  They sparkle everywhere as the so-called fixed stars.  To them the telescope has been virtually turned in vain.  We say in vain because no single fixed star has, we believe, ever been made by aid of the telescope to show a disc.

On turning the telescope to a fixed star, its brightness, its brilliancy, increases according to the power of the instrument.  Coming into the field of one of these great suns of space, the telescope shows a miraculous dawn spreading and blazing into a glorious sunrise, and a sun itself flaming like infinite majesty on the sight; but there is no disc—­nothing but a blaze of glory.  Thus in a sense the telescope has worked in vain on the visible heavens.  But not so the spectroscope.  The latter has done its glorious work.  Turning to a given fixed star, it shows that the tremendous combustion going on therein is virtually the same as that in our own sun.  There, too, is flaming hydrogen, and there is carbon and oxygen and iron and sodium and potassium and many other of the leading elements of what we thus know to be universal nature.  The suns are all akin; they are cousins-german.  They are of the same family—­they and their progeny.  They were born of the same universal fact.  They are of the same Father!  They are builded on the same plan, and they have a common destiny.  Aye, more, the nebulae that float far off, swanlike, in the infinitudes, are of the same family.  The nebulae may be regarded as the mothers of universes.  It is out of their bosoms that the life and substance of all suns and worlds are drawn!  And these, too, are composed of the common matter of universal nature.  It is the same matter that we eat and drink.  It is the same that we breathe.  It is the same that we see aflame in our lamps and grates.  It is the