People talk often of the stars being “set in space;” and the meaning of “space” is simply “room.” Where you are must be space, or you could not be there. But it is when we get away from earth, and travel in thought through the wide fields of space, where God has placed his stars, that we begin to feel how vast it is, and what specks we are ourselves--nay, what a speck our very earth is, in this great and boundless creation. For there is no getting to the borders of space. As one telescope after another is made, each one stronger in power and able to reach farther than the last, still more and more stars are seen, and yet more and more behind and beyond, in countless millions. It is the same all round the earth. The old notion about our world being a flat plain has been long since given up. We know her now to be a round globe, not fixed, but floating like the stars in space. When you look _up_ into the sky, you are looking exactly in the opposite direction from where you would be looking _up_ if you were in Australia. For Australia’s “up” is our “down,” and our “down” is Australia’s “up.” Or, to put it more truly, “up” is always in the direction straight away from this earth, on whatever part of it you may be standing; and “down” is always towards the center of the earth. All round the globe, in north, south, east, west, whether you are in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, though you will see different stars in certain different quarters of the earth, still overhead you will find shining countless points of light. And now, what are these stars? This is a matter on which people are often confused, and on which it is well to be quite clear before going one step farther. Some of the stars you have most likely often noticed. The seven chief stars of the Great Bear are known to a large number of people; and there are few who have not admired the splendid constellation of Orion. Perhaps you also know the W-shape of Cassiopeia, and the brilliant shining of Sirius, and the soft glimmer of the Pleiades. The different constellations or groups of principal stars have been watched by men for long ages past. They are called the fixed stars, for they do not change. How many thousands of years ago they were first arranged by men into these groups, and who first gave them their names, we can not tell. True, night by night, through century after century, they rise, and cross the sky, and set. But those are only seeming movements. Precisely as the turning round of the earth upon her axis, once in every twenty-four hours, makes the sun appear to rise and cross the sky and set, in the day-time; so also the same turning of the earth makes the stars appear to do the same in the night-time.