It is a very popular idea among modern astronomers that the stellar universe is an endless congeries of systems, of Suns and attendant worlds peopled with sentient beings analogous in the purpose and destiny of their existence to the inhabitants of this earth. This doctrine of a plurality of worlds, although it conveys the most magnificent ideas of the universe, is purely fanciful, and may be compared to the “dreams of the alchemists” who laboured with unheard of enthusiasm to discover the “philosopher’s stone,” the _elixir vitæ_, and the “universal solvent.” However grand the first two projects might have been in their realisation, it is known that they were never developed in a practical sense, and the latter idea of a solvent which would dissolve everything was suddenly and unexpectedly destroyed by the few remarks of a simple but critical observer, who demanded to know what service a substance would be to them which would dissolve all things? What could they keep it in? for it would dissolve every vessel wherein they sought to preserve it! This idea of a plurality of worlds is but a natural and reasonable conclusion drawn from the doctrine of the Earth’s rotundity. But this doctrine being false its off shoot is equally so. The supposition that the heavenly bodies are Suns and inhabited worlds is demonstrably impossible in nature, and has no foundation whatever in Scripture. “In the beginning God created the Heaven and _the Earth_.” One Earth _only_ is created; and the fact is more especially described in Genesis, ch. i., v. 10. Where, instead of the word “Earth” meaning both land and water as together forming a globe, as it does in the Newtonian astronomy, only the _dry land_ was called _earth_,” and “the gathering together of the waters called He seas.” The Sun, Moon, and Stars are described as lights only and not worlds. A great number of passages might be quoted which prove that no other material world is ever in the slightest manner referred to by the sacred writers. The creation of the world; the origin of evil, and the fall of man; the plan of redemption by the death of Christ; the day of judgement, and the final consummation of all things are invariably associated with _this Earth alone_. The expression in Hebrews, ch. i., v. 2, “by whom also he made the _worlds_,” and in Heb., ch. ii., v. 3, “through faith we understand that the _worlds_ were framed,” are known to be a comparatively recent rendering from the original Greek documents. The word which has been translated _worlds_ is fully as capable of being rendered in the singular number as the plural; and previous to the introduction of the Copernican Astronomy was always translated “_the world_.” The Roman Catholic and the French Protestant Bibles still contain the singular number; and in a copy of an English Protestant Bible printed in the year 1608, the following translation is given:--“Through faith we understand that _the world_ was ordained.”