pledge of saving assistance? In a word, the application of the token of the covenant to the seed of the pious, levies contribution upon every power of every parent and child of God's Church, and calls out the combined strength of all, through every moment of life, to build up God's kingdom in the world. Assuredly there will be a vast short-coming of universal, adequate response to this appeal, but it is just as certain that this very appeal will secure a vast increase of holy power to the cause of Christ in the world. And now we expect our brethren, in Christian integrity, to stand by us and say, If there is any one thing in the Abrahamic covenant which is matter of substance, and should stand and be enforced in our day, it is the obligation to do now what God commanded to be done of old, even the infixing of the blessed token of divine adoption upon the child, as well as upon the parent. Under the administration of early times, such a spectacle was scarcely ever seen in the Church of God, as a parent whose child did not carry the sign of God's covenant of adoption. Whenever such an unhappy object was found, that child was instantly cut off from God's family. But the Abrahamic covenant is the Christian Church. The Abrahamic covenant is in full force. We leave it a question for the consciences of our brethren, How is it that your children are wandering abroad upon the earth without the mark of God's covenant of mercy? How is it that you, as Christian men, have never recorded your vow in the temple of the Lord, to do a parent's part by them? ARTICLE II. 1. A Hand-book of Astronomy. By DIONYSIUS LARDNER, D. C. L., formerly Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in University College, London. Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea. 1854. 2. The Plurality of Worlds. With an introduction by EDWARD HITCHCOCK, D. D., President of Amherst College. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1854.* 3. More Worlds than One, the Creed of the Philosopher and the Hope of the Christian. By SIR DAVID BREWSTER, K. H., D. C. L., F. R. S. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1854. [The following Article is filled with valuable facts, but the Editors are obliged to acknowledge themselves unconvinced by the argument. They are quite satisfied that, whatever may be the truth in regard to suns and moons, the planets and those bodies occupying analogous positions in other solar systems, are inhabited by rational creatures. We take this opportunity to say a word or two concerning the relation between religion and science. Truth is always consistent with itself, and Christianity being the highest and purest truth can only be rendered more illustrious by any light that may beam upon it from the far dimmer orb of science. We have never been, in the least, afraid of truth in any sphere. It is our opinion, also, that every department of thought should be carried out in its own appropriate way, and to its legitimate conclusions, there being no danger that truth will clash with truth. Infidelity has had in our times its crude levities and unscientific rejoicings over Christianity demolished, as has been imagined, by natural philosophy and physiology. We, however, while we allow discussion on these subjects, are not responsible for an unsettled geology, an astronomy of mere speculation, or a crude physiology. We regret that the tendency of these studies * The author has recently published, “A Dialogue on the Plurality of Worlds: being a Supplement to the Essay on that Subject." This work, however, in which the writer replies to the various objections that have been urged against his views, we have not yet received. is so often to materialism, and that a too exclusive devotion to them, leads often, unhappily, to a positive incapacity to comprehend moral reasoning. It is unwholesome for an immortal spirit to grub too much among mere matter. It is curious that the Christian phase in this special controversy of the inhabitability of the heavenly bodies, should have been so completely changed by the sanctified genius of Chalmers. Infidels objected in his day, that it was unreasonable to believe that our Saviour should have died for the inhabitants of one little world among myriads innumerable. One series of discourses annihilated the objection, and it began to be considered almost a matter of faith, that the Almighty has peopled space with an innumerable multitude of worlds filled with rational creatures. But now it is the fashion to talk of "the uniformity of natural laws," as if there were any meaning in law without a lawgiver. A special Providence is denied as opposed to this "uniformity;" world-building, as in the nebular hypothesis, is perverted to exclude the need of a Creator; men take a kind of perverse pleasure in showing that the universe is filled, not with worlds teeming with life and beauty, but with unsightly monsters of dreary desert spheres, careering endlessly and uselessly through space; and finally the mind that discovers all this is not mind, but some secretion of the brain, as physiology proves." Nothing is so absurd but it calls itself science, so only it be sufficiently opposed to God and his revealed Word. Our readers will not understand us as applying these remarks to the Author of this Article, himself an officer of the Church, but only as expressing our disgust at the stupid shallowness of men, who no sooner learn the Latin name of a bug or an ankle-bone, than they set themselves up to be wiser than prophets and apostles. EDITORS.] THE solar system-that assemblage of celestial bodies of which the sun is the central and controlling orb, and with which our earth is intimately connected-is, as a group, comparatively isolated in space; the distance of the nearest fixed stars being at least seven thousand times that of Neptune, the most remote known planet. The different members of our cluster can therefore suffer no perceptible disturbance from stellar systems. Such, however, is their mutual relationship, that the motion of each is sensibly affected by the action of the others. The orbits, therefore, are not perfect ellipses, as they would be if undisturbed, but vary more or less, according to the relative positions of the different members. The sun is, so far as we know, the largest body in the universe.* His attractive power governs the motions of the various bodies which revolve around him; while to cach his vivifying energy dispenses light and heat. Without his benign influence, both vegetable and animal life would disappear from our planet; evaporation on its surface would cease; the atmosphere become motionless; the ocean a mass of ice; and the earth itself a wilderness of inactivity and death. The important problem of determining the distance of the sun from the earth, has occupied the attention of some of the most eminent astronomers, for the last three centuries. This distance is deduced from the solar parallax, the angle of which is so extremely small as to be difficult of accurate measurement. From observations of the parallax of Mars, Casşini estimated that of the sun to be nearly ten seconds—a value which, for a long time, was generally adopted. The most accurate method of determination, however, is that first suggested by James Gregory, in his Optica Promota, published in 1663. This is by observations of the transits of Venus over the solar disk. The same plan was subsequently recommended by Dr. Halley; nearly a century elapsed, however, after it was first pointed out, before an opportunity occurred for its application. The transits of 1761 and 1769 were carefully observed in different parts of the world, and from a thorough discussion of these observations it has been concluded that the parallax of the sun, at its mean distance from the earth, is eight seconds and fifty-seven one hundredths. The corresponding distance is rather more than ninety-five millions of miles, or about twenty-four thousand times the earth's equatorial radius. *As the fixed stars have no perceptible diameters, their magnitudes are wholly unknown. Some of them may equal or even exceed that of the sun. For an account of researches on the Solar Parallax, see Grant's History of Physical Astronomy, chap. xiv. According to the latest observations, the diameter of the sun, at his mean distance from the earth, subtends an angle of thirty-two minutes; hence the true diameter is found to be 888000 miles. The magnitude of the solar orb is, therefore, one million four hundred thousand times that of the earth, and one thousand times greater than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the system. The mass of the sun, as deduced by Laplace from the law of universal gravitation and the theory of central forces, is 354936 times the sum of the masses of the earth and moon. The calculation of Professor Encke has increased this value to 355499. This is 359551 times the mass of the earth alone, and more than 700 times that of all the planets taken together. The density corresponding to Encke's mass, and the known volume, is rather more than one-fourth of the mean density of the earth. The system of cosmical bodies revolving round the sun, consists, so far as known at present, of forty-one primary planets, twenty satellites, three planetary rings, and about eight hundred comets. The primary planets may be regarded as forming two distinct classes: (1.) The major planets, the diameter of the least of which is nearly equal to half that of the earth. They are-arranging them according to the order of distances from the sun-Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (2.) The minor planets, or asteroids, the orbits of which are included between those of Mars and Jupiter. They have all been discovered since the commencement of the present century, and are invisible without a telescope. Of the twenty satellites, moons, or secondary planets, the earth has one; Jupiter, four; Saturn, eight; Uranus, six, and Neptune, one. The three planetary rings encompass the orb of Saturn; their planes very nearly coinciding with that of his equator. The innermost one was discovered on the 11th of November, 1850, by Mr. Bond, of the Cambridge (Mass.) Observatory. The orbits of about two hundred comets, or one-fourth of the * Hind's Solar System, p. 10. This is the determination of Leverrier. That of Bessel was nearly two seconds greater. † In favorable circumstances, Vesta may sometimes be distinguished by the naked eye. |