But when we launch in idea into infinite space, and contemplate the systems without number that fill it; here indeed we have a subject truly worthy of the DEITY! Whoever supposes the fixed stars placed in a concave sphere, as they appear to us, must have a narrow and contracted idea of the SUPREME BEING; for one star appears large and another small, because one is immensely distant from us in comparison of another. Through Dr. Herschell’s large telescope many fixed stars appear double: the Polar star is double; (but they are only stars at different distances from us appearing nearly in the same line) some appear like a topaz, others azure, others red; all are round, and many as perfectly defined as a shilling is on black cloth. By telescopes we formerly could see three times the number we can by the naked eye; and now, telescopes having received further improvement, in the most crouded part of the milky way, 116,000 have passed before the instrument in a quarter of an hour. The Nebula of Andromeda must be composed of the united lustre of many millions of stars. Agreeably to this, Dr. Herschell has noticed single nebulous stars surrounded with a faint equable whiteness; such as a system of Planets viewed at that distance from us might be supposed to give: others he has seen, which have the appearance of yet unformed systems. And there are, we may presume, points of view, in the immensity of the Universe, in which all the fixed stars, accessible to the eye or telescope from this station of ours, and all the inconceivable space, through which they extend, vanish into a _nebula_, and almost an indiscernible point. Such is the order and greatness of that Empire, which these Discoveries, the farther they are pursued, must for ever more and more present to our increasing admiration. Such the relation of parts so astonishingly remote! Such the unity of intelligence, power, and preserving goodness which pervades the whole! And why may not stars be so remote, that their light may not have reached the Earth even since the creation! We know that light takes more time in travelling from the nearest stars to us, than we in making a West India voyage, (which is usually performed in six weeks) a sound would not arrive to us from thence in 50,000 years, nor a cannon-ball in a much longer time. The Sun’s light could not therefore reach the fixed stars, and be reflected back again with their lustre; of course they shine by their own light—if so, they shine as our Sun, and consequently are Suns themselves.—Now, as a principal of uniformity runs through the variety of nature, it is reasonable to conclude these Suns to be centres of systems like ours; and destined for the same noble purposes, viz. that of giving light, heat, and vegetation, to various worlds that revolve round them, but which are too remote for discovery, even with our best telescopes! This idea is infinitely too great for the human mind; or indeed for