Kepler was not one of those cold-hearted men who, though continually occupied in the study of the material world, and ambitious of the distinction which a successful examination of it confers, are yet insensible to the goodness and greatness of the Being who made and sustains it. His mind was cast in a better mould. The magnificence and harmony of the divine works excited in him not only admiration but love. He felt his own humility the farther he was allowed to penetrate into the mysteries of the universe; and sensible of the incompetency of his unaided powers for such transcendent researches, and recognising himself as but the instrument which the Almighty employed to make known his wonders, he never entered upon his inquiries without praying for assistance from above. This frame of mind was by no means inconsistent with that high spirit of delight and triumph with which Kepler surveyed his discoveries. His was the unpretending ovation of success, not the ostentatious triumph of ambition; and if a noble pride did occasionally mingle itself with his feelings, it was the pride of being the chosen messenger of physical truth, not that of being the favoured possessor of superior genius. With such a frame of mind, Kepler was necessarily a Christian. The afflictions with which he was beset confirmed his faith and brightened his hopes: he bore them in all their variety and severity with Christian patience; and though he knew that this world was to be the theatre of his intellectual glory, yet he felt that his rest and his reward could be found only in another.