I have no wife—in heaven, they say,
Such things as weddings are not known—
Unyoked the blissful spirits stray
O'er fields where care no shade has thrown.
Then why not have a heaven below,
And let fair Hymen hence be sent?
It would be fine—but as things go,
Unwedded, folks won't be content!
[ORMSBY M. MITCHEL]
Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, the celebrated American astronomer and author, was born near Morganfield, Kentucky, August 28, 1809. He graduated from West Point in the famous class of 1829 which included Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, Mitchel was professor of mathematics at West Point for two years; but he later studied law and practiced at Cincinnati for a year. In 1834 he was elected professor of mathematics and astronomy in Cincinnati College. By his own efforts he raised sufficient funds with which to establish an astronomical observatory in Cincinnati, in 1845—now the Mitchel Observatory—the first of the larger observatories in this country. In 1860 Professor Mitchel was chosen as director of the Dudley observatory at Albany, New York, and there he remained for two years. The Civil War coming on, he entered the Union army, and rose to the rank of general. General Mitchel was placed in command of the "Department of the South," but before the war was well under way, almost, he contracted yellow fever and died at Beaufort, South Carolina, October 30, 1862. General Mitchel was the most distinguished astronomer ever born on Kentucky soil; and in the army the men knew him as "Old Stars." He was a popular lecturer, but it is as an author that his great reputation rests. His books are: The Planetary and Stellar Worlds (New York, 1848); The Orbs of Heaven (1851); A Concise Elementary Treatise of the Sun, Planets, Satellites, and Comets (1860); and The Astronomy of the Bible (New York, 1863). From 1846 to 1848 General Mitchel published an astronomical journal, called The Sidereal Messenger. Harvard and Hamilton Colleges conferred honorary degrees upon him; and he was a member of many scientific societies in the United States and Europe.
Bibliography. Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, Astronomer and General, by his son, F. A. Mitchel; biographical sketch in The Astronomy of the Bible (New York, 1863); Old Stars, by P. C. Headley (Boston, 1864).
ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCES OF GOD
[From The Astronomy of the Bible (New York, 1863)]
If we extend our researches beyond the limits of the solar system, and, passing across the mighty gulf which separates us from the starry heavens, inspect minutely the organizations which are there displayed, we find the dominion of these same laws extending to these remote regions, and holding an imperious sway over revolving suns. Thus we perceive, that in one most important particular, the objects which compose the mighty universe are obviously alike, and seem to have sprung from a common origin. We are, moreover, compelled to admit a sun in every visible star; and if a sun, then attendant planets; and if revolving planets, then, likewise, some scheme of sentient existence, possibly remotely analogous to that which is displayed with such wonderful minuteness in our globe. Thus if the being of a God can be argued from the admirable adaptations which surround man in this nether world, every star that glitters in the vast concave of heaven proclaims, with equal power, this mighty truth. If we rise still higher, and from the contemplation of individual stars, examine their distribution, their clusterings, their aggregations into immense systems, the fact of their mutual influences, their restless and eternal activity, their amazing periods of revolution, their countless millions, and their ever-during organizations, the mind, whelmed with the display of grandeur, exclaims involuntarily, "This is the empire of a God!"
And now, how is the knowledge of this vast surrounding universe revealed to the mind of man? Here is, perhaps, the crowning wonder. Through the agency of light, a subtle, intangible, imponderable something, originating, apparently, in the stars and suns, darting with incredible velocity from one quarter of the universe to the other, whether in absolute particles of matter shot off from luminous bodies, or by traces of an ethereal fluid, who shall tell? This incomprehensible fluid falls upon an instrument of most insignificant dimensions, yet of most wonderful construction, the human eye, and, lo! to the mind what wonders start into being. Pictures of the most extravagant beauty cover the earth; clouds dipped in the hues of heaven fill the atmosphere; the sun, the moon, the planets, come up from out of the depths of space, and far more amazing still, the distant orbs of heaven, in their relative magnitudes, distances and motions, are revealed to the bewildered mind. We have only to proceed one step further, and bringing to the aid of the human eye, the auxiliary power of the optic glass, the mind is brought into physical association with objects which inhabit the confines of penetrable space. We take cognizance of objects so remote, that even the flashing element of light itself, by which they are revealed, flies on its errand ten times ten thousand years to accomplish its stupendous journey.
Strike the human eye from existence, and at a single blow, the sun is blotted out, the planets fade, the heavens are covered with the blackness of darkness, the vast universe shrinks to a narrow compass bounded by the sense of touch alone.