any population.

More than that, we do not know if one of them--or our own earth--has
passed through cycles of population during the uncounted centuries of
the past. As little do we know if any or all of them will be theatres of
life and intelligence in the future. Now if we know so little as to the
history of our own and neighboring worlds in the past, and have no
revelation as to their future, is it likely that we would be informed as
to details of some world of purification located probably away in the
realms of space?

Then this sun of ours is fourteen hundred thousand times larger than the
earth. But we know almost nothing of his constitution or history. He is
really a universe in himself. Of the functions he performs in reference
to the worlds that surround him we know a little; but how his heat is
sustained--what is attraction--what is his destiny--is all unknown. If
we are so ignorant of this primal source of life in all these planetary
worlds, are we likely to be informed of the methods of moral discipline,
probably in some distant world?

But our sun, large and important as he is, is but a speck in creation.
These myriads of stars that shine nightly in the heavens are all suns.
It is calculated that the union of the telescope with the photographic
plate brings five hundred millions of these stars into view. Some of
them are demonstrated to be hundreds of times larger than our sun. But
that is nearly all we know about them. Whether any of them has a retinue
of worlds revolving around him like our sun, will never be known on this
side of time. Then beyond all we can see, we recognize a probability of
the existence of uncounted millions of worlds; but we know nothing of
them. Therefore we would hardly expect to have details revealed of some