“And your feelings are quite changed now?” asked his mother.
“Oh, yes! quite, mamma, it only seems more soothing, because I feel as if I were alone with God. Does it not seem to you, mamma, as if we see something of heaven in these lovely nights? I often wonder whether the bright stars are the many mansions our Saviour speaks of. Oh! mamma, what an immense thought it is to think of all these bright worlds constantly moving—either suns themselves with their planets revolving in ceaseless circles, or else themselves going round some bright sun!”
“And, perhaps,” added his mother, “that bright sun carrying all its attendant worlds round some larger and brighter sun, whose distance is too great to be calculated. By the aid of powerful telescopes may be seen in the extremity of our firmament, appearances which those who have devoted themselves to this glorious science have decided are other firmaments, each one containing its countless systems. Oh! Louis, God is infinite—what if these wondrous creations have no limit, but circle beyond circle spread out to all eternity! We may see the infinity of our Maker in the smallest leaf. There is nothing lost. What we destroy does but change its form.”
“Mamma, I once remember cutting a bit of paper into halves—that is to say, I first cut it into halves, and then cut one half into halves and so on, till my scissors would not divide the little bit. I was very idle that day, but I remember thinking that if I could get a pair of scissors small enough I could cut that speck up forever—and even if there only happened to be a grain left, I could not make that nothing.”
Louis paused; he was lost in thoughts of wonders that human imagination cannot grasp: the immensity and mystery of the Almighty's works. Presently he added, “I cannot imagine it, mamma, my mind seems lost when I try to think of forever. But there is a little hymn you used to teach me that I cannot help thinking of—I often think of it—it was the first I ever learned:
‘'Twas God, my child, that made them all
By His almighty skill;
He keeps them that they do not fall,
And rules them by His will.
How very great that God must be!’ ”