46 OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, AND TliE

did orbs which are every where dispersedthrough the heavens, far beyond the limits ofour planetary system.

" We, though from heav’n remote, to heav’n will moveWith strength of mind, and tread the abyss above jAnd penetrate, with an interior light,

Those upper depths, which nature hid from sight.

Pleas’d we will be to walk along the sphereOf lhining stars, and travel with the year.

To leave the heavy earth, and scale the heightOf Atlas, who supports the heav’nly weight.

To look from upper light, and thence surveyMistaken mortals wand’ring from the way.”

Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

It is in these higher regions, that the Almightyhas displayed himself in such indelible cha-racters as must rouze the most insensible specta-tor, and sill his mind with admiration and asto-nistiment. By contemplating the magnitudesand distances of the fixed stars, all partial Const*-derations of high and low, great and small, va-nifli from the mind; and we are presented withsuch an unbounded view of nature, and theimmensity of the works of creation, as over-powers all our faculties, and makes us ready toexclaim with the Psalmist, " Lord, what is man,that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man,that thou regard est him ?”

The fixed stars are distinguished from theplanets by being more bright and luminous,3 and