THE CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE. THE ANNUAL JOURNEY. THE great globe on which we dwell has entered upon another of those stupendous marches by which the span of human life is measured. In obedience to the laws of its almighty Creator, it holds on its wondrous way, without pause or remission, at the rate of 68,000 miles an hour-a rapidity which utterly baffles human comprehension. Thus we spend our whole lives in travelling through boundless realms of inconceivable glory. Our earth is a carriage capable of accommodating hundreds, yea, thousands of millions of men, with inferior creatures innumerable. When, as the late Dr. Dick well observed, we take but a cursory view of the nocturnal heavens in a clear and serene evening, we are almost irresistibly overpowered with emotions of wonder and awe, at the amazing grandeur of the vast canopy around us, and the number of the brilliant orbs which shed their radiance upon us from afar. But, when with the eye of the intellect, assisted by the telescope and the discoveries of science, we endeavour to traverse the immense spaces above us, and to survey the number, the magnitude, the distances, and the rapid motions of the globes dispersed throughout the regions of immensity, we are completely overpowered, and lost in astonishment at the extent and grandeur of the scene; their numbers cannot be told; their magnitude cannot be conceived; their distances are beyond human calculation and comprehension, and the amazing velocity with which they fly through the regions of space is confounding and almost terrifying to the imagination. Millions upon millions of those magnificent globes have been running their ample rounds for thousands of years, and will, doubtless, continue their courses, though amidst numerous changes, throughout all the revolutions of eternity. The immense forces with which they are impelled in their career -the magnificent circles they describe-the beautiful order in which they are arranged the regularity and harmony of their movements and the noble and important ends to which they are destined-proclaim, in language not to be mistaken, that “The Hand that made them is Divine;" and, therefore, that they ought to be studied and contemplated with pious emotion, by every rational and religious mind : "Come forth, O Man! yon azure round survey, And view those lamps which yield eternal day. Look further;-millions more blaze from yonder skies." Who can look up to the midnight sky, and behold its rolling wonders, without being struck with astonishment at the idea of that great Being who formed such vast and magnificent works? "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" There is a length and a breadth, a height and a depth in the perfections of the Divinity, which finite intelligences will never be able fully to comprehend. Vast and magnificent as the structure of the starry heavensis, it was produced without materials-it emerged out of nothing. The voice of the Eternal" spake, and it was done.” He commanded," and the orbs of the firmament started into being. "Let there be light; and there was light." "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." Our admiration of such wonderful works should lead us to humble ourselves in His august presence, and to reverence and adore Him as the uncreated source of all felicity. "Let all the earth fear the Lord let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him." 66 When we contemplate the grand machinery of the solar system, we are presented with a striking display of the almighty power of Him who formed it. It presents to our view objects of overpowering magnitude and grandeur-planetary globes, a thousand times larger than the earth-and magnificent rings which would reach nearly from the earth to the moon, and which would enclose within their vast circumference four hundred worlds as large as that on which we dwell. It exhibits a sun more than twelve hundred thousand times larger than our earthly ball, and five hundred times larger than all the planets, their satellites and rings taken together, even although hundreds of comets were also included; and this sun extending his influence to bodies a thousand millions of miles distant, enlightening them by his beams, and retaining them in their orbits by his attractive influence. It presents before us motions so astonishing as to overpower all our faculties-bodies a thousand times larger than our globe, flying with a velocity of thirty thousand miles every hour, carrying along with them a retinue of revolving worlds, and continuing their rapid career, without a moment's intermission, for thousands of years-nay, motions at the rate of eight hundred thousand miles an hour have been perceived among some of the bodies connected with the solar system. Such is the globe on which man was formed in the image of God, where he fell from his first estate of holiness and happiness, and where he was redeemed by the Creator of it and of all worlds. The subject supplies materials for the most devout contemplation. As we ride triumphant through the Universe, looking up at the sun as he shines in his strength, at the moon as she walks in her brightness, and the stars as they bespangle the sky, it behoves us to remember that these are the works, and only a small part of the works, of Him who redeemed us by the blood of the body which He took upon Himself in compassion to a lost race. Dr. Dick has ventured on the following figures, which, however wide they may be of the exact truth, yet supply footsteps for our contemplation. The number of inhabitants which people the earth at one time is estimated at eight hundred millions-of these, five hundred millions are reckoned to Asia; fifty-eight millions to Africa; fortytwo millions to America; and two hundred millions to Europe. Of these assemblages of human beings, twenty-five millions die every year, sixty-eight thousand every day, two thousand eight hundred and fifty every hour, and forty-seven every minute; so that at almost every pulse that beats within us, an immortal being is passing from time into eternity, from this visible and material world to another scene of existence-a solemn and important consideration to every one of us who must shortly follow, in our turn, the generations that have gone before us. If we reckon thirty-two years as the average period for a generation, as has been generally done-at the end of which period the whole |
