Government, a chart found on every sea-going vessel. On the trackless ocean it is the mariner's guide, his trusted friend and counsellor. He may embark upon a long voyage over the trackless ocean, to be absent for years, yet through all this time, and in any part of the world he has his truthful friend to consult, who will warn him of dangers, and direct his ship in safety in every changeful clime. He left his native land years ago, yet now far out amid ocean's waves, in a different hemisphere, he consults this little chart of astronomers. He knows in any and every latitude the time of eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and of Jupiter's satellites, their sidereal positions, distances, etc. It seems charged with messages from the skies for his guidance and safety.

"When we consider the acquisition of such rare and precious knowledge—this mapping out beforehand, almost to a hair's-breadth, the exact order and track in which the heavenly bodies will run their course through space, and the precise relative position they will occupy at any given moment, when they can be seen in any part of the world—is not this convincing evidence of the correctness and truthfulness of the science of astronomy?"

But we have on record a more startling demonstration of its correctness—we say "startling" because of its magnitude and importance, and because when we come to examine suns, planets, and worlds, through the lights of this science, when we contemplate their distances, magnitudes, and numbers, we shall be startled by their immensity, and exclaim:

"How wonderful are Thy works, O Lord of Hosts!"

"The year 1846 will ever be memorable for having witnessed one of the most striking illustrations of the truth of Astronomy. Few can have forgotten the astonishment with which the discovery of the planet Neptune was then received, or the fact that it was due not to a lucky or accidental pointing of the telescope toward a particular quarter of the heavens, but to positive calculations worked out in the closet; thus proving that before the planet was seen by the eye, it had already been grasped by the mind. The theory of its finding was a triumph of human intellect. The distant Uranus—a planet hitherto orderly and correct—begins to show unusual movements in its orbit. It is, somehow, not exactly in the spot where, according to the best calculations, it ought to have been, and the whole astronomical world is thrown into perplexity. Two mathematicians, as yet but little known to fame, living far apart in different countries, and acting independently of each other, concentrate the force of their penetrating intellects to find out the cause. The most obvious way of accounting for the event, was to have inferred that some error in previous computations had occurred; and in a matter so difficult, so abstruse, and so far off, what could have been more probable or more pardonable? But these astronomers knew that the laws of gravity were fixed and sure, and that figures truly based on them could not deceive. By profound calculations, each arrives at the conclusion that nothing can account for the "perturbation" except the disturbing influence of some hitherto unknown mass of matter, exerting its attraction in a certain quarter of the Heavens. So implicit, so undoubting is the faith of the French astronomer Leverrier, in the truth of his deductions, that he requests a brother astronomer in Berlin, Prussia, to look out for this mass at a special point in space, on a particular night; and there, sure enough, the disturber immediately discloses himself, and soon shows his title to be admitted into the steady and orderly rank of his fellow-planets. The coincidence of the two astronomers—Leverrier, of France, and Adams, of England, arriving at this discovery through scientific calculations, based upon knowledge derived from physical observation, precludes every idea of guess-work, while such was the agreement between their final deductions, that the point of the Heavens fixed upon by both as the spot where the disturber lay, was almost identical." "Such a discovery" says Arago, "is one of the most brilliant manifestations of the exactitude of the system of modern astronomy."

Child continues: "Astronomy is without question, the grandest of sciences. It deals with masses, distances, and velocities, which in their immensity belong specially to itself alone, and of which the mere conception transcends the utmost stretch of our finite faculties. In no other branch of science is the limited grasp of our intellect more forcibly brought home to us, yet, though baffled in the effort to rise to the level of its requirements, our strivings are by no means profitless. Is it not truly a precious privilege to be able to trace, imperfect though it may be, the hand of the Almighty Architect in these, His grandest works, and to obtain by this means a broader consciousness of His Omnipotence?

Could each one be privileged to look through Herschel's telescope on a clear night, and visibly behold the wonders of the Heavens, our faith in the realities of astronomy would pass with a sudden bound from theory into practice; planets and stars would become henceforth distinct and solid existences in our minds, our doubts vanish, and our belief settle into conviction. We should behold the mysterious moon of our childhood, mapped into brilliant mountain-peaks, and dark precipices, and softly lighted plains; we should see Jupiter shining like another fair Luna, with attendant satellites moving round him in their well-known paths; or turn with admiration to Saturn encircled by his famous ring, with outlines as distinct as if that glorious creation lay but a few miles distant. Perhaps we may behold the beauteous Venus shining with resplendent circular disk, or curiously passing through her many phases in mimic rivalry of the Moon. Or, leaving these near neighbors far behind, we may penetrate more deeply into space, and mark how the bright flashing stars are reduced to a small, round, unmagnifiable point. Such a privilege would give us a more realizing sense of the power of the great Creator."

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MOTION OF THE EARTH AND HEAVENLY BODIES.

The science of Astronomy is one of the oldest that has occupied the human mind. That the belief in Astrology was its forerunner, we cannot doubt. Professor Olmsted tells us, that, "At a period of very remote antiquity, Astronomy was cultivated in China, India, Chaldea, and Egypt." Three several schools were established, ranging from three to six hundred years before the Christian era. Anaximander, in the school of Miletus, taught the sublime doctrine that the planets are inhabited, and that the stars are suns of other systems. Pythagoras was the founder of the celebrated school of Crotona, upon the south-eastern coast of Italy, some five hundred years before the Christian era. He held that the Sun was the centre of the solar system, around which all the planets revolve, and that the stars are so many suns, each the centre of a system like our own. He also held that the Earth revolves daily on its axis, and yearly around the sun. Although many of his opinions were founded in mere conjecture, and were erroneous, yet we see that some important ones were founded on truth.

He also held that the planets were inhabited, that the earth and planets were ever revolving in regular order, "keeping up a loud and grand celestial concert, inaudible to man, but, as the 'music of the spheres,' audible to the Gods."

But the mind of man was not then prepared to grasp the feeble rays of light, and add thereto, by the power of expanding intellect. Although many