we can form no idea of them, for whether we view animate or inanimate matter, the corpuscles of which it is formed are so infinitely small, as not only to escape the scrutiny of the highest magnifying powers in glasses, but even imagination itself is incapable of forming an idea of an original particle of matter: One pound of gold is capable of covering a wire that will circumscribe the globe, nay, so infinite is this divisibility that Lewenhoeck discovered more living animalculæ in the milt of one single cod-fish than there are men, women, and children on the face of the earth and those so small that many thousands may stand upon the point of a needle. And if we suppose that these animalculæ are furnished with blood, like other animals, and if the globules of their blood bear the same proportion to their bulk as those of a man bear to his body, it may be proved, that the smallest visible grain of sand would contain more of these globules than 10,256 of the largest mountains in the world would contain grains of sand.

When we consider these things we seem to look down into infinity; and as,

in the contemplation of the starry heavens, we can conceive no term to the extension of space; so, in regarding the minute parts of creation we see no end to the divisibility of matter. We are lost in wonder when we attempt to comprehend either the vastness or the minuteness of creation, and are necessarily made to feel that it belongs only to the one great and incomprehensible Power, who worketh in ways past finding out.

CHAP. II.

Of the Universe.

TO any one, who looks about him in the world, there are obvious several distinct masses of matter, separate from one another; some whereof have discernable motions. These are the sun, the fixed stars,the comets, and the planets, amongst which this earth, which we inhabit, is one. All these are visible to our naked eyes.

Besides these, telescopes have discovered several fixed stars, invisible to the naked eye; and several other bodies moving about some of the planets; all which were invisible and unknown, before the use of prospective glasses was found.

The vast distances between these great bodies, are called intermundane spaces; in which though there may be some fluid matter, yet it is so thin and subtile; and there is so little of that in respect of the

great masses that move in those spaces, that it is as much as nothing.

These masses of matter are, either luminous, or opaque or dark.

Luminous bodies, are such as give light of themselves; and such are the sun, and the fixed stars.

Dark or opaque bodies, are such as emit no light of themselves, though they are capable of reflecting it, when it is cast upon them from other bodies: and such are the planets.

There are some opaque bodies, as for instance the comets, which besides the light, that they may have from the sun, seem to shine with a light that is nothing else but an accension, which they receive from the sun, in their near approaches to it, in their respective revolutions.

The fixed stars are so called, because they always keep the same distance one from another.

On a view of the visible system of nature, by us called the universe, the grandest and most admired object is the great luminary of day. Its splendour, its heat, and its beneficial influence have always

excited the particular attention of the human species, and have obtained the aderation of all those nations which have not been blessed with revelation.

Those who are not accustomed to astronomical calculation, will be surprized at the real magnitude of this luminary; which, on account of its distance from us, appears to the eye not much larger than the moon, which is only an attendant on our earth. When looking at the sun, we are viewing a globe, whose diameter is 890,000 English miles; whereas the earth is no more in diameter than 7,970 miles so that the sun is about 1,392,500 times bigger than the earth. Thus as it is the fountain of light and heat to all the planets, so it also far surpasses them in its bulk.

The sun has several spots, which are visible on its surface. These spots were entirely unknown before the invention of telescopes, though they are sometimes of sufficient magnitude to be discerned by the naked eye. There is a great variety in their magnitudes; some have been so large, as by computation to be capable of covering the continents of Asia and Af