When the geocentric theory prevailed, men had only a very narrow conception of the amount of matter that really existed, just as they had but a meagre conception of the extent of space. But when through the successive speculation and discoveries of Cusa, Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo, the conception that the earth is the immovable centre of the universe to attend upon which the sun and all the stars were created, was displaced by the truth that the earth is but one of the smaller of a number of planets that revolve around the sun; that the sun with its retinue of planets is but one of the stars that make up the galaxy that spans the heavens—each of which is a sun and doubtless the centre of a planetary system;[[4]] when the telescope increased to man's vision the number of such suns from five thousand visible to the naked eye, to thirty or fifty millions, he began to be aware of the vast amount of matter distributed in space which makes up the visible universe.

But beyond the faintest stars that can be discerned, the telescope reveals the existence of masses of soft, diffused light of greater or less extent, to which astronomers have given the name of nebulae. Many nebulae which once were set down as masses of unorganized matter, when more powerful telescopes were turned upon them, were resolved into star clusters, and for a time it was thought that all that was needed to discover that all nebulae were star clusters was still more powerful telescopes. This opinion is now, however, abandoned, since another means of determining the character of these hazy patches of light exists, viz., the spectroscope. In 1846 it was discovered by Dr. John William Draper, that the spectrum of an ignited solid is continuous, and as it was already known through the careful experiments of Fraunhofer that the spectrum of ignited gases is discontinuous, a means was furnished by the discovery of Dr. Draper for "determining whether light emitted by a given nebulae comes from an incandescent gas, or from a congeries of ignited solids, stars, or suns. If the spectrum be discontinuous, it is a true nebulae or gas; if continuous a congeries of stars."[[5]]

Observations of nebulae by means of the spectroscope since this discovery have resulted in some of them giving discontinuous or gaseous spectre, others continuous ones; and accordingly the nebulae of the former class have been set down as true nebulae or gas, and the latter as star clusters, too distant to be resolved by our most powerful telescopes into separate stars to the vision. The revelations of the spectroscope in this particular are accepted by scientists as "demonstrating the existence of vast masses of matter in a gaseous condition, and at a temperature of incandescence;" and it is suggested by Draper that in some of those gleaming apparitions we see the genesis, and in others the melting away of universes. However that may be, the extended view of the amount and diversity of matter in space afforded us by means of the discoveries of scientists through the instrumentality of telescopes and spectroscopes, helps the mind to comprehend the infinitude and eternity of it; and prepares the way for the acceptance of the great truth announced in one of God's revelations to Joseph Smith—"There are many kingdoms; for there is no space where there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom."[[6]]

While on this subject of "matter" it may be as well to state that the prophet taught that "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter," said he, "but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified, we shall see that it is all matter."[[7]]

That there is no such thing as "immaterial matter" is a self-evident truth; and either we must affirm the materiality of spirit, or deny its existence; for what would an immaterial spirit be? the same as immaterial fire or water or atmosphere. To say that any one of the substances named is immaterial is to deny its existence. If it shall be said that intelligence or love is immaterial, the answer would be that neither intelligence nor love is matter, but a property of matter—an attribute of spirits, just as motion or weight is a property of matter.

Running parallel with boundless space and limitless and eternal matter is eternal duration, according to the teaching of the prophet. Eternal duration of time is of that class of truths called "necessary truths," because it is impossible to conceive the contrary; that is, we cannot conceive of duration having a beginning. Starting with today for a unit, I ask, what preceded it? Yesterday, I am answered. And what will follow it? Tomorrow. What preceded this present year? Last year. And what will follow it? Next year. What preceded this present century? Last century. What preceded the present millennium? Last millennium. And what will follow it? Another millennium. So I might continue to go on questioning and answering, constantly enlarging the periods, yet getting no nearer to the beginning of the past, nor to the end of future time. As in starting from any given point in space, and going with the velocity of light or thought in opposite directions, would never take us to the point where space is not extended, so starting from any given point in duration, and going in opposite directions, though our mental strides be a million years each we should never arrive at the beginning nor the end of time. It has neither, it is eternal.

Of course there is relative duration, which has a beginning and an end, such as the period between that moment, when the chaotic mass of matter out of which a solar system was made began to break up into rings and condense into a sun and its planets and their satellites, and that moment when it may be resolved again into such a mass. Such a period may have a beginning and an end. There is also relative space which may have a point where it begins and another where it ends, such as space between our earth and the sun. But I have been speaking of absolute space and duration, not of relative, and the one is as limitless as the other is eternal.

I shall be told that in all this there is nothing new; that the philosophers, at least of the materialistic school, believe and teach all this. Be it so, they thus far teach the truth, at which they have arrived by the slow and painful pathway of experiment and discovery. Wholly separated from them and independent of them, the youthful prophet Joseph Smith learned the same truths by the inspiration of God, and taught them to his followers fifty and sixty years ago in the wilderness of New York and Ohio. But he went beyond the philosophers as I am now to prove.

First, Lambert and Madler, as we have seen, conjectured that the so-called fixed stars of our galaxy were each the centre of groups of planets and with their retinue revolved about some greater centre, somewhere in the universe. Lambert's conjectures provided opaque centres, while Madler selected Alcyone of the constellation Pleiades as the centre of the steller universe. Astronomers regard these conjectures as baseless speculation, but cannot deny the possibility of them. They say that such may be the plan on which the universe is constructed, but they have no proof of it. They admit that their discoveries prove a movement of the stars, but they are unable to determine its character. But what the speculative philosophers advanced as conjecture and the working astronomers of today admit only as possible, more than half a century ago Joseph Smith taught as revelation from God. That is, he taught that among the stars commonly called fixed stars there are certain great ones which govern the smaller ones in their times and revolutions, or are the centres about which they revolve; that there is pre-eminently one great central body around which even these great ones with their attendant systems revolve, and that this governs all the planetary systems of the order to which our earth belongs.

To put the statement in another form, for the sake of clearness, as the eight planets with their attendant satellites which form our solar system revolve around the sun, so the sun with all his attendant planets is one of a number of such systems which revolve around a still greater centre; and that centre with its attendant systems is but one of a number of such systems which revolve around the pre-eminently great central body—to which reference has been made—that God has set to govern all those planetary systems that belong to the same order as our own.