Blessed, thrice blessed is the man with whom The generous prodigality of nature, The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom, The bounteous providence in every feature, Recall the good Creator to His creature, Making all earth a fane, all heaven its dome!... The sod's a cushion for _his_ pious want, And consecrated by the heaven within it, The sky-blue pool, a font; Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar; An organ breathes in every grove, And the full heart's a psalter, Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love. --THOMAS HOOD. * * * * * The poetry of Earth is never dead.... A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. --KEATS. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. _WHAT MAY BE SEEN IN THE HEAVENS._ "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." --GENESIS. "A sound of song Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown." --GOETHE. [Illustration] The unequal duration of Day and Night, the succession and regular return of the seasons, all the phenomena observable upon the earth, are but the effects of a cause which we must seek in the heavens. It is impossible to explain _them_ unless we contemplate _it_ on high, relegating our planet into the great chorus of the worlds, where it holds but a modest rank. Only, to perform this miracle, we must for a moment repress in ourselves the senses which deceive us by their exaggeration or appearances, and give free course to enlightened thought. It is by this means alone that we can succeed in fully demonstrating the close and perpetual relationship which exists between our planet and the other spheres composing what we call the Solar System. * * * * * Permit us here a parenthesis, or, shall we say, a digression? The whole secret of science, the whole secret of human knowledge--in truth, the whole future of humanity--lies in these two words--_Enlightened Thought_. And here, gentle reader, I solicit your assistance in endeavouring to elucidate a question which has a for a long time puzzled me. Why do we apply the word "light" to that which sets in motion the eye of the body, and to that which induces the operation of the eye of the mind,--to the singularly mysterious physical agent without whose intervention all the external world would be to man a dream or a void, as well as to the still more mysterious moral agent which illuminates the world within? I anticipate your answer. "The light," you say, "which opens up to me the material world is a reality; the other is only an image." And it is true that this is the solution which first presents itself to the mind. But the longer you reflect upon it, the more you will be inclined to agree with me that it is unsatisfactory. What, then, means this agreement among all peoples, past and present, to designate by the same words--as