great banner, or gonfalon, held aloft by Heaven before the Spanish
heralds of the true faith in 1492. To that superstitious and ignorant
race it costs not an effort to suppose, that by some synchronizing
miracle, the constellation had been then specially called into
existence at the very moment when the first Christian procession,
bearing a cross in their arms, solemnly stepped on shore from the
vessels of Christendom. We Protestants know better: we understand the
impossibility of supposing such a narrow and local reference in orbs,
so transcendently vast as those composing the constellation--orbs
removed from each other by such unvoyageable worlds of space, and
having, in fact, no real reference to each other more than to any other
heavenly bodies whatsoever. The unity of synthesis, by which they are
composed into one figure of a cross, we know to be a mere accidental
result from an arbitrary synthesis of human fancy. Take such and such
stars, compose them into letters, and they will spell such a word. But
still it was our own choice--a synthesis of our own fancy, originally
to combine them in this way. They might be divided from each other, and
otherwise combined. All this is true: and yet, as the combination does
spontaneously offer itself [Footnote: '_Does spontaneously offer
itself._'--Heber (Bishop of Calcutta) complains that this constellation
is not composed of stars answering his expectation in point of
magnitude. But he admits that the dark barren space around it
gives to this inferior magnitude a very advantageous relief.] to every
eye, as the glorious cross does really glitter for ever through the
silent hours of a vast hemisphere, even they who are not superstitious,
may willingly yield to the belief--that, as the rainbow was laid in the
very elements and necessities of nature, yet still bearing a pre-
dedication to a service which would not be called for until many ages
had passed, so also the mysterious cipher of man's imperishable hopes
may have been entwined and enwreathed with the starry heavens from