"For what purpose," says Sir John Herschel, "are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the abyss of space? Surely not to illume our nights, which an additional moon of the thousandth part of the size of our own would do much better; not to sparkle as a pageant, void of meaning and reality, and to bewilder us among vain conjectures. He must have studied astronomy to little purpose, who can suppose man to be the only object of his Creator's care, or who does not see, in the vast and wonderful apparatus around us, provisions for other races of animated beings."
The Psalmist says:
"Whoso is wise will ponder these things, and they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord."
Let us here suggest the reasonable hypothesis, that those distant suns, standing far out in the sidereal regions of illimitable space—created, and placed there by the "Word" of the Almighty architect—may have been shining thus for untold billions of years; and so, also, the sun which shines upon and lights up and warms this earth, and the other planets within its domain; and will thus remain forever, as God's own lamps of eternal light, to all created intelligences.
Hear the Psalmist break forth again,
"Thy testimonies are wonderful. Who alone doeth great wonders.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handy works.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me."
Job tells us,
"He alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea, and doeth wonders without number."
Fixed stars—held by astronomers to be suns—are known from the planetary stars by their perpetual "twinkling," and by their being, apparently, always in the same position relative to each other. Now, while the number of stars to be seen in the heavens by the naked eye on a clear night does not exceed about 3,000 in each,—the northern and southern hemispheres,—yet Herschel, Olmsted, and other examiners tell us that by the aid of the telescope, many millions stand out in brilliant array—so vast their number that they cannot be correctly computed, but are supposed to be at least one hundred millions.
Prof. Olmsted declares it fully demonstrated that "the fixed stars are suns," and, with other astronomers, argues the fair probability of many of them being of far greater magnitude than our own sun. Dr. Wollaston, a distinguished English philosopher, attempted to estimate the magnitude of certain of the fixed stars from the light which they afforded. "By means of an accurate photometer (an instrument for measuring the relative intensities of light), he compares the light of Sirius with that of the sun. He next computed how far the sun must be removed from us in order to appear no brighter than Sirius. He found it would require to be one hundred and forty-one thousand times its present distance, and even at that great distance Sirius must give out twice as much light as the sun, or that, in point of splendor, Sirius must be at least equal to two suns." "But," adds Prof. Olmsted, "as Sirius is more than two hundred thousand times as far off as the sun, he has rendered it probable that its light is equal to that of fourteen suns." (We wish you to bear these facts in mind, they will serve you when we come to speak of the magnitude of our own sun.)