bills in a balance? And yet it is. Wonderful is the Power
that framed all these spheres, and sent them on their great
errands; but more wonderful still the Power that gave to finite
mind its power, to stand on one little point, and sweep the
whole circle of the skies. Almost as marvelous is it that man,
being man, can divine the universe, as that God, being God,
could devise it. Cycles of years go by. Suns and moons and
stars tread their mysterious rounds, but steady eyes are
following them into the awful distances, steady hands are
marking their eternal courses. Their multiplied motions shall
yet be resolved into harmony, and so the music of the spheres
shall chime with the angels' song, "Glory to God in the
highest!"

Is it begun? Not yet.

No wonder that eclipses were a terror to men before Science
came queening it through the universe, compelling all these
fearful sights and great signs into her triumphal train, and
commanding us to be no longer afraid of our own shadow. The
sure and steadfast Moon, shuddering from the fullness of her
splendor into wild and ghostly darkness, might well wake
strange apprehensions. She is reeling in convulsive agony.
She is sickening and swooning in the death-struggle. The
principalities and powers of darkness, the eternal foes of
men, are working their baleful spell with success to cast the
sweet Moon from her path, and force her to work woe and disaster
upon the earth. Some fell monster, roaming through the heavens,
seeking whom he may devour,--some dragon, "monstrous, horrible,
and waste," whom no Redcrosse Knight shall pierce with his