passed through it. The Galaxy appeared in its most beautiful white. To
complete the scene, the full moon rose at length in that clouded majesty
which Milton takes notice of, and opened to the eye a new picture of
nature, which was more finely shaded, and disposed among softer lights,
than that which the sun had before discovered to us.

As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her
progress among the constellations, a thought arose in me, which I
believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of serious and
contemplative natures. David himself fell into it in that reflection,
"When I consider the heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and the
stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that though art mindful of
him, and the son of man that thou regardest him!" In the same manner,
when I consider that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more
philosophically, of suns, which were then shining upon me, with those
innumerable sets of planets or worlds, which were moving round their
respective suns; when I still enlarged the idea, and supposed another
heaven of suns and worlds rising still above this which we discovered,
and these still enlightened by a superior firmament of luminaries, which
are planted at so great a distance, that they may appear to the
inhabitants of the former as the stars do to us; in short, while I
pursued this thought, I could not but reflect on that little
insignificant figure which I myself bore amidst the immensity of God's
works.

Were the sun, which enlightens this part of the creation, with all the
host of planetary worlds that move about him, utterly extinguished and
annihilated, they would not be missed more than a grain of sand upon the
sea-shore. The space they possess is so exceedingly little in comparison
of the whole, it would scarce make a blank in creation. The chasm would