Of all the discoveries that have ever been made in science there are two which especially baffle our powers of comprehension. They lie at the opposite extremes of nature. One relates to objects which are infinitely small, the other relates to objects which are almost infinitely great. The microscope teaches us that there are animals so minute that if a thousand of them were ranged abreast they would easily swim without being thrown out of line through the eye of the finest cambric needle. Each of those minute creatures is a highly organized number of particles, capable of moving about, of finding and devouring its food, and of behaving in all other respects as becomes an animal as distinguished from an unorganized piece of matter. The mind is capable of realizing the structure of these little creatures, and of fully appreciating their marvelous adaptation to the life they are destined to lead. If these animals excite our astonishment by reason of their extreme minuteness, there is an appeal made to conceptions of an entirely different character when we learn the lessons which the telescope teaches. As the microscope reveals the excessively minute, so does the telescope disclose the sublimely great. In each case myriads of objects are submitted to our astonished view, but while the microscope brings before us creatures of which countless millions could swim about freely in a thimbleful of water, the telescope conducts our vision to uncounted legions of stars, many of them millions of times larger than the earth. The grandest truth in the whole of nature is conveyed in that first lesson in astronomy which answers the question: What are the stars? This is a question that a child will ask, and I have heard of a child’s pretty idea that the stars were little holes in the sky to let the glory of heaven shine through. The philosopher will replace this explanation by another hardly less poetical, which will enable us to form some more adequate notion of the real magnificence of the universe. Each star that we see is, it is true, only a glittering little point of light, but that is merely because we are a long way from it. An electric light which will dazzle your eye when quite close will be reduced to an agreeable illumination if it is at a little distance, will become a faint light a mile away, and at no great distance will become altogether invisible. We must remember that out in space there is plenty of room—there are no bounds; and therefore when we see light glistening in the far distant depths we can not at once conclude that the light is a faint one because it appears to us to be faint. It may be that the light is only faint because it comes from such a tremendous distance. In fact, the brightest light conceivable could be reduced to the insignificance of a small star if only it were removed sufficiently far.