The sun, though apparently smaller
than the dial it illuminates, is immensely larger than this whole earth,
on which so many lofty mountains rise, and such vast oceans roll. A line
extending from side to side through the centre of that resplendent orb,
would measure more than 800,000 miles: a girdle formed to go round its
circumference, would require a length of millions. Are we startled at
these reports of philosophers? Are we ready to cry out in a transport of
surprise, "How mighty is the Being who kindled such a prodigious fire,
and keeps alive from age to age such an enormous mass of flame!" Let us
attend our philosophic guides, and we shall be brought acquainted with
speculations more enlarged and more inflaming. The sun, with all its
attendant planets, is but a very little part of the grand machine of the
universe; every star, though in appearance no bigger than the diamond
that glitters upon a lady's ring, is really a vast globe like the sun in
size and in glory; no less spacious, no less luminous, than the radiant
source of the day: so that every star is not barely a world, but the
centre of a magnificent system; has a retinue of worlds irradiated by
its beams, and revolving round its attractive influence--all which are
lost to our sight.
Pages:
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221