These figures and the facts they represent are given that some little idea may be conceived as to the extent of our own solar system, that after contemplating its immensity and discovering that, inconceivably great as it is, it is still no very considerable part of the universe, we may arise to a brief contemplation of still greater spaces—depths of the universe, and their contents. You see, I am using our solar system, as the teacher referred to a moment ago used the simple problem in arithmetic, to help solve the more intricate problem of comprehending a little more clearly the immensity of the universe. Let us resume our work. Professor Newcomb in his "Popular Astronomy" makes use of the following illustration to help the popular mind grasp the immensity of the sidereal system:
"Turning our attention from this system to the thousands of fixed stars which stud the heavens, the first thing to be considered is their enormous distance asunder, compared with the dimensions of the solar system, though the latter are themselves inconceivably great. To give an idea of the relative distances, suppose a voyager through the celestial spaces could travel from the sun to the outermost planet of our system in 24 hours. So enormous would be his velocity, that it would carry him across the Atlantic ocean, from New York to Liverpool, in less than a tenth of a second of the clock. Starting from the sun with this velocity, he would cross the orbits of the inner planets in rapid succession, and the outer ones more slowly, until, at the end of a single day, he would reach the confines of our system, crossing the orbit of Neptune. But, though he passed eight planets the first day, he would pass none the next, for he would have to journey 18 or 20 years, without diminution of speed, before he would reach the nearest star, and would then have to continue his journey as far again before he could reach another. All the planets of our system would have vanished in the distance, in the course of the first three days, and the sun would be but an insignificant star in the firmament. The conclusion is, that our sun is one of an enormous number of self-luminous bodies scattered at such distances that years would be required to traverse the space between them, even when the voyager went at the rate we have supposed." (Newcomb's Astronomy, p. 104.)
Just now the great winter constellations are leaving our skies; still, in the evening, you may yet see Orion, in the western sky; and following, and shining most brightly of all the stars in the firmament, the Dog star. It is estimated by our astronomers that light travels through space at the enormous speed of 198,000 miles per second; that in about eight minutes a ray of light reaches our earth from the sun.
Yet, this Dog star, to which I call your attention, is so distant from us that it requires something like 16 years for a ray of light to reach us from that distant and splendid sun; and from the familiar Pole star, it requires 40 years for a ray of light to reach our earth. Mr. Samuel Kinns, well known in England, as one of the foremost thinkers in that land, tells us that this Dog star, judging from the amount of light emitted from him, is 3,000 times larger than our own sun; and he argues, that if this great primary, is so many times larger than our sun, may it not be possible that the retinue of planets of which he is doubtless the center, is correspondingly greater than our planetary system.
Nobody knows, of course, how many fixed stars there are. Our astronomers tell us they number all the way from 30 to 50, 60, or even hundreds of millions; and that it is not unreasonable to suppose, they argue, that since we find this little planet of ours inhabited by sentient beings, by intelligences, by men and women capable of establishing national governments, and high grades of civilization, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in some of these more magnificent world-systems there may be beings more intelligent, more powerful than we are, and further advanced in arts and Sciences and all that goes to make up superior methods of life and civilization. And if our astronomers are anywhere nearly right in relation to the scores of millions of suns, they report, and it is true, that they are the centers of planetary systems, then of course of worlds such as ours, and more magnificent than ours; there are hundreds of millions. Upon this head Professor John W. Draper says:
"Man when he looks upon the countless multitudes of stars—when he reflects that all he sees is only a small portion of those which exist, yet that each is a light and life-giving sun to multitudes of opaque, and therefore invisible worlds—when he considers the enormous size of these various bodies and their immeasurable distance from one another, may form an estimate of the scale on which the world (universe) is constructed."
These reflections I trust will help to impress upon our minds the immensity of the universe, until we can in some measure understand the greatness of that truth announced by the Prophet Joseph, when he said: "There are many kingdoms; and there is no space in which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser space;" and the deductions of Ernest Haeckel, when he said: "The extent of the universe is infinite and unbounded. It is empty in no part, but every where filled with substance. The duration of the world is equally infinite and unbounded. It has no end; it is eternity."
Mormonism recognizes certain eternal truths, necessary truths, because the opposite of them cannot be conceived of—as, for example, that space or extension is boundless, as one of our hymns puts it:
"If you could hie to Kolob,
In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward,
With that same speed to fly—"Do you think that you could ever,
Through all eternity,
Find out the generation
Where Gods began to be?"Or see the grand beginning,
Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation,
Where Gods and matter end?"
You cannot limit space in any conception of it you may form—try how you will; for as soon as you fix the limitation, your mind conceives extension beyond the point you fix upon, and you may fix it as distant as you please. So, also, in relation to duration. Mormonism recognizes no limit to duration. Time is endless; there is no absolute beginning or end of time. All beginnings and endings spoken of are but relative, and concern not duration absolutely, but "time" within eternity, when a certain order of things begins or when it reaches an end. We measure duration so, and call it time. So in relation to matter. Mormonism recognizes the eternity of matter and also eternity of spirit; that matter is uncreated; spirit is also uncreated. These, spirit and matter, are eternal existences, constituting what our Book of Mormon speaks of as "things to act and things to be acted upon." (II Nephi ii:14.)