It has been, said that "an undevout astronomer is mad;" and
if Astronomy, of all the sciences, be the one most calculated to gratify
the intellect, surely it is the one which should most vividly awaken the
religious sentiment. Is it possible to look upon all those worlds within
worlds, all those endless groups of mighty suns, all those strange and
marvellous combinations of coloured stars, all those remote nebulous
clusters,--to look upon them in their perfect order and government,--to
consider their infinite number and astonishing dimensions,--without
acknowledging the fulness of the power of an everlasting God, who
created them, set them in their appointed places, and still controls
them? Is it possible to be an astronomer and an atheist? Is it possible
not to see in their relations to one another and to our own little
planet an Almighty Wisdom as well as an Almighty Love? Could any
"fortuitous concourse of atoms" have strewed the depths of space with
those mighty and beautiful orbs, and defined for each the exact limits
of its movements? Alas! to human folly and human vanity everything is
possible; and men may watch the stars in their courses, and delight in
the beauty of Sun and Moon, and perceive all the wonders of the sunrise
and all the glories of the sunset, without any recognition in their
hearts of Him who made them--of Him in whom we and they alike live and
move and have our being! Yet it is not the less true that only the
devout and thankful heart can adequately and thoroughly sympathize with
the love and wisdom and power which are written in such legible
characters on the face of heaven.
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