Let us now suppose ourselves to be beings independent of any planet, travelling in the skies, and looking upon the earth from a point as distant from it as from other planets.
Caroline. It would not be flattering to us, its inhabitants, to see it make so insignificant an appearance.
Mrs. B. To those accustomed to contemplate it in this light, it could never appear more glorious. We are taught by science to distrust appearances; and instead of considering the fixed stars and planets as little points, we look upon them either as brilliant suns, or habitable worlds; and we consider the whole together as forming one vast and magnificent system, worthy of the Divine hand by which it was created.
Emily. I can scarcely conceive the idea of this immensity of creation; it seems too sublime for our imagination;—and to think that the goodness of Providence extends over millions of worlds throughout a boundless universe—Ah! Mrs. B., it is we only who become trifling and insignificant beings in so magnificent a creation!
Mrs. B. This idea should teach us humility, but without producing despondency. The same Almighty hand which guides these countless worlds in their undeviating course, conducts with equal perfection, the blood as it circulates through the veins of a fly, and opens the eye of the insect to behold His wonders. Notwithstanding this immense scale of creation, therefore, we need not fear that we shall be disregarded or forgotten.
But to return to our station in the skies. We were, if you recollect, viewing the earth at a great distance, in appearance a little star, one side illumined by the sun, the other in obscurity. But would you believe it, Caroline, many of the inhabitants of this little star imagine that when that part which they inhabit is turned from the sun, darkness prevails throughout the universe, merely because it is night with them; whilst, in reality, the sun never ceases to shine upon every planet. When, therefore, these little ignorant beings look around them during their night, and behold all the stars shining, they cannot imagine why the planets, which are dark bodies, should shine; concluding, that since the sun does not illumine themselves, the whole universe must be in darkness.
Caroline. I confess that I was one of these ignorant people; but I am now very sensible of the absurdity of such an idea. To the inhabitants of the other planets, then, we must appear as a little star?
Mrs. B. Yes, to those which revolve round our sun; for since those which may belong to other systems, (and whose existence is only hypothetical) are invisible to us, it is probable that we also are invisible to them.
Emily. But they may see our sun as we do theirs, in appearance a fixed star?
Mrs. B. No doubt; if the beings who inhabit those planets are endowed with senses similar to ours. By the same rule we must appear as a moon to the inhabitants of our moon; but on a larger scale, as the surface of the earth is about thirteen times as large as that of the moon.