During all the ages there has been one bright and glittering page
of loftiest wisdom unrolled before the eye of man. That this page
may be read in every part, man's whole world turns him before it.
This motion apparently changes the eternally stable stars into a
moving panorama, but it is only so in appearance. The sky is a
vast, immovable dial-plate of "that clock whose pendulum ticks
ages instead of seconds," and whose time is eternity. The moon
moves among the illuminated figures, traversing the dial quickly,
like a second-hand, once a month. The sun, like a minute-hand, goes
over the dial once a year. Various planets stand for hour-hands,
moving over the dial in various periods reaching up to one hundred
and sixty-four years; while the earth, like a ship of exploration,
sails the infinite azure, bearing the observers to different points
where they may investigate the infinite problems of this mighty
machinery.

This dial not only shows present movements, but it keeps the history
of uncounted ages past ready to be [Page 4] read backward in proper
order; and it has glorious volumes of prophecy, revealing the
far-off future to any man who is able to look thereon, break the
seals, and read the record. Glowing stars are the alphabet of this
lofty page. They combine to form words. Meteors, rainbows, auroras,
shifting groups of stars, make pictures vast and significant as the
armies, angels, and falling stars in the Revelation of St.
John--changing and progressive pictures of infinite wisdom and
power.

Men have not yet advanced as far as those who saw the pictures John
describes, and hence the panorama is not understood. That continuous