We need go no further for the immensity of space is seen by comparison of the earths in the above spheres with the number of drops of water in all those cubic miles. We find the sphere that has but one day’s flight of light as a radius will contain more earths of 260,000 millions of cubic miles each, than there are water-drops in 1,000 cubic miles; or, in other words, as many drops as there would be in 100 Sounds like Long Island from Bridgeport to New York, allowing those sounds to average 100 feet in depth and each contain ten cubic miles of water.
The thought so astounding and well nigh inconceivable is that a sphere of such vast dimensions has only a radius of a single day’s flight of light, light that starting from its centre would pass the circumference of the sphere in one day; while a sphere with a radius of ten year’s flight of light—a distance only a little way beyond the nearest known star in the northern heavens, 61 Cygni—could contain as many earths as there are drops in 60 millions of millions of cubic miles. Yet a sphere with that radius of ten year’s flight would cover such an enormous quantity of space as to be beyond our comprehension and still be of no consequence in comparison with the spheres of one hundred, one thousand, one million, or one thousand millions of years radii.
Why I thus compute 1,000 millions of years of light’s radius is because it is possible with powerful telescopes to detect light coming that distance; and when we contemplate that our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is twenty trillions of miles distant, and 61 Cygni more than twice as far,—or seven year’s flight of light,—and that the Polar star is some fifty years of light’s flight removed from us; then, if all suns are no nearer to each other than these are to our sun, we are led to believe we may see light with our unaided vision that has been on its journey for a million years. Some detect with the naked eye the light that comes from the nebula in the Sword’s-Handle of Orion, which is thought to contain two trillions, two hundred billions of stars; and if all these stars are no nearer to each other than Alpha Centauri is to our sun, it cannot be otherwise than that some of them are so distant their light may have been travelling for a million years before it comes to our sight. If this be true, with telescopes that penetrate a thousand times farther into the heavens, we may possibly see light that has been on its voyage to earth one thousand millions of years. But the number of earths a sphere of 1,000 millions of years of light’s flight would contain makes the number of drops of water in sixty millions of millions of cubic miles (equalling but the earths in a sphere of ten years radius) sink into utter insignificance. And yet a sphere of this dimension, even, may be small beside the whole universe of ether whose every atom in all the millions of years past, as far as known, has not in the least diminished its wonderful energy; and, with lightning-like transmission, still brings to our sight light from distant stars, all of which are so distant that they do not materially increase the present flow of light. For if but a single one were to come between us and the sun the increase of that light and heat would be unendurable.
Finally, as space thus surpasses everything in its greatness excepting its Creator, let us contemplate it once again in the following manner. Suppose we could create 40,000 millions of cubic miles of ether daily; we would at the end of the week have an amount equalling the volume of our earth. If we continued that creation daily,—not for hundreds, thousands, or millions of years even,—but for 1,000 millions of millions of years, we should then have as many such volumes of ether the size of earth as there are drops of water in one cubic mile. But what of all this? Admitting that we could create bodies as fast as our earth was made, and continue to do so for 1,000 millions of millions of years, it would still be of little account; for its insignificance is seen when we remember it is but one-fifty-eight thousand millionth part of what a sphere would contain with a radius of one year’s flight of light. To think of 40,000 millions of cubic miles being created daily, with the process continued for 1,000 millions of millions of years, and that vast quantity still further expanded 58,000 millions of times, would seem the extent of greatness itself and beyond all human realization. Yet we can still say all this would be of slight consequence, for it represents a sphere whose radius is but one year of light’s flight, and that sphere compared to one of 1,000 millions of years radius is no more than a boy’s marble,—with a radius of but one-fourth of an inch,—to earth whose radius is 4,000 miles, and a thousand million times larger than the radius of the marble.
We have endeavored by the above comparisons to show the vastness of space; and although our efforts must be in vain because of our inability to comprehend such great figures, still it is pleasant to contemplate this ether, upon which time has so little effect, because man is mortal and the 1500 millions of people that pass from earth every 33 years makes it seem to him that death reigns everywhere. But when we consider that the only things essentially effected by time are the animal and vegetable kingdom, and that all men now living could occupy about one-fifteenth of one cubic mile of earth; we see that death, even in the animal kingdom, is confined to a few cubic miles, and to but a few more in the vegetable kingdom. The inconceivable millions of millions of cubic miles in a sphere with a radius of one million years of light’s flight is in no manner affected, as we perceive, by the dread power that we recognize in the dissolution of mortal bodies.
Even these bodies, as we understand, are changed only in the combination of molecules, and by that change the immortal spirit, that is as imperceptible as the wind, of which we are told we cannot tell “whence it cometh nor whither it goeth,” is set free; the Bible teaching us its eternal destiny. The greatest and best things that men here possess are love and goodness, and should not the Almighty possess these virtues beyond any of His creatures? Possessing these how could He otherwise than send to Earth His Son for their salvation from sin; for we find men here, even, who are willing to peril their lives for the salvation of their fellows, and would undoubtedly be kind to an inferior animal, though an ant or worm, had they created it and knew it loved and worshiped them. Akin to this, we believe, is man’s relation to his Creator and the Creator of this mighty and seemingly everlasting Space.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] For example: Take two rooms and heat one as hot as the sun now is what must the cold in the next room be to equalize the heat to 300° below zero?
[11] We do not inquire how the original nebula came into being; our history must commence with the actual existence of this nebula. There is, let it be confessed, a great deal of obscurity still clinging to the subject. Though we may be sure, that the great nebula once existed we cannot with much confidence trace out the method by which the planets were actually formed.