[Page 42]
"Man, having one kind of an eye given him by his Maker, proceeds
to construct two other kinds. He makes one that magnifies invisible
objects thousands of times, so that a dull razor-edge appears as
thick as three fingers, until the amazing beauty of color and form
in infinitesimal objects is entrancingly apparent, and he knows that
God's care of least things is infinite. Then he makes the other kind
four or six feet in diameter, and penetrates the immensities of space
thousands of times beyond where his natural eye can pierce, until he
sees that God's immensities of worlds are infinite also."--BISHOP
FOSTER.




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III.

_THE TELESCOPE._

Frequent allusion has been made in the previous chapter to discovered
results. It is necessary to understand more clearly the process by
which such results have been obtained. Some astronomical instruments
are of the simplest character, some most delicate and complex.
When a man smokes a piece of glass, in order to see an eclipse
of the sun, he makes a simple instrument. Ferguson, lying on his
back and slipping beads on a string at a certain distance above
his eye, measured the relative distances of the stars. The use
of more complex instruments commenced when Galileo applied the