If, still treading the loftiest paths of analogy, we adopt the supposition,--to me I own the grateful supposition,--that the countless planetary worlds which attend these countless suns, are the abodes of rational beings like man, instead of bringing back from this exalted conception a feeling of insignificance, as if the individuals of our race were but poor atoms in the infinity of being, I regard it, on the contrary, as a glory of our human nature, that it belongs to a family which no man can number of rational natures like itself. In the order of being they may stand beneath us, or they may stand above us; _he_ may well be content with his place, who is made "a little lower than the angels." CONTEMPLATION OF THE HEAVENS. Finally, my Friends, I believe there is no contemplation better adapted to awaken devout ideas than that of the heavenly bodies,--no branch of natural science which bears clearer testimony to the power and wisdom of God than that to which you this day consecrate a temple. The heart of the ancient world, with all the prevailing ignorance of the true nature and motions of the heavenly orbs, was religiously impressed by their survey. There is a passage in one of those admirable philosophical treatises of Cicero composed in the decline of life, as a solace under domestic bereavement and patriotic concern at the impending convulsions of the state, in which, quoting from some lost work of Aristotle, he treats the topic in a manner which almost puts to shame the teachings of Christian wisdom. "Præclare ergo Aristoteles, 'Si essent,' inquit, 'qui sub terra semper habitavissent, bonis et illustribus domiciliis quæ essent ornata signis atque picturis, instructaque rebus iis omnibus quibus abundant ii qui beati putantur, nec tamen exissent unquam supra terram; accepissent autem fama et auditione, esse quoddam numen et vim Deorum,--deinde aliquo tempore patefactis terræ faucibus ex illis abditis sedibus evadere in hæc loca quæ nos incolimus, atque exire potuissent; cum repente terram et maria coelumque, vidissent; nubium magnitudinem ventorumque vim, cognovissent; aspexissentque solem, ejusque tum magnitudinem, pulchritudinemque; tum etiam efficientiam cognovissent, quod is diem efficeret, toto coelo luce diffusa; cum autem terras nox opacasset, tum coelum totum cernerent astris distinctum et ornatum, lunæque luminum varietatem tum crescentis tum senescentis, corumque omnium ortus et occasus atque in æternitate ratos immutabilesque cursus;--hæc cum viderent, profecto et esse Deos, et hæc tanta opera Deorum esse, arbitrarentur."[A]