discovered the law that holds the revolving worlds together, is a nobler
work of God than a universe of universes of unthinking matter.

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.