Isaiah xiii., 10—“For the Stars of Heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light.”
Ezekiel xxxii., 7—“I will cover the Heaven, and make the Stars thereof dark.”
Joel ii., 10—“The Sun and the Moon shall be dark, and the Stars shall withdraw their shining.”
Psalm cxlviii., 3—“Praise him Sun and Moon: promise him all ye Stars of Light.”
Jeremiah xxxi., 35—“Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the Sun for a light by day; and the ordinances of the Moon and of the Stars for a light by night.”
Daniel xii., 3—“They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the Stars for ever and ever.”
These quotations place it beyond doubt that the Stars were made expressly to shine in the firmament, and “to give light upon the Earth.” In addition to this language of scripture, we have the evidence of our own eyes that the Stars give abundant light. “What beautiful star-light!” is a common expression: and we all remember the difference between a dark and starless night, and one when the firmament is as it were studded with brilliant luminaries. Travellers inform us that in many parts of the world, where the sky is clear and free from clouds and vapours for weeks together, the Stars appear both larger and brighter than they do in England; and that their light is sufficiently intense to enable them to read and write, and to travel with safety through the most dangerous places.
If it be true that the Stars and the Planets are not simply lights, as the scriptures affirm them to be, but magnificent worlds, for the most part much larger than this earth, then it is a very proper question to ask—“are they inhabited?” If the answer be in the affirmative, it is equally proper to inquire “have the first parents in each world been tempted?” If so, “have they fallen?” if so, “Have they required redemption?” And “have they been redeemed?” “Has each world had a separate Redeemer? or has Christ been the Redeemer for every world in the universe?” And if so, “did His suffering and crucifixion on this Earth suffice for the redemption of the fallen inhabitants of all other worlds? Or had He to suffer and die in each world successively? Did the fall of Adam in this world involve in his guilt the inhabitants of all other worlds? Or was the baneful influence of Satan confined to the first parents of this Earth? If so, why so? and if not, why not? But, and if, and why, and again—but it is useless thus to ponder! The Christian philosopher must be confounded! If his religion be to him a living reality, he will turn with loathing or spurn with indignation and disgust, as he would a poisonous reptile, a system of astronomy which creates in his mind so much confusion and uncertainty! But as the system which necessitates such doubts and difficulties has been shown to be purely theoretical; and to have not the slightest foundation in fact, the religious mind has really no cause for apprehension. Not a shadow of doubt remains that this World is the only one created; that the sacred Scriptures contain, in addition to religious and moral doctrines, a true and consistent philosophy; that they were written for the good of mankind, at the direct instigation of God himself; and that all their teachings and promises are truthful, consistent, and reliable. Whoever holds the contrary conclusion is the victim of an arrogant false astronomy, of an equally false and presumptuous geology, or a suicidal method of reasoning—a logic which never demands a proof of its premises, and which therefore leads to conclusions which are contrary to nature, to human experience, and to the direct teaching of God’s word, and therefore contrary to the deepest and most lasting interests of humanity. “God has spoken to man in two voices, the voice of inspiration and the voice of nature. By man’s ignorance they have been made to disagree; but the time will come, and cannot be far distant, when these two languages will strictly accord; when the science of nature will no longer contradict the science of scripture.”[46]
[46] Professor Hunt.
Cui Bono.—“Of all terrors to the generous soul, that Cui bono is the one to be the most zealously avoided. Whether it be proposed to find the magnetic point, or a passage impossible to be utilised if discovered, or a race of men of no good to any human institution extant, and of no good to themselves; or to seek the Unicorn in Madagascar, and when we had found him not to be able to make use of him; or the great central plateau of Australia, where no one could live for centuries to come; or the great African lake, which, for all the good it would do us English folk might as well be in the Moon; or the source of the Nile, the triumphant discovery of which would neither lower the rents nor take off the taxes anywhere—whatever it is, the Cui bono is always a weak and cowardly argument: essentially short-sighted too, seeing that, according to the law of the past, by which we may always safely predicate the future, so much falls into the hands of the seeker, for which he was not looking, and of which he never even knew the existence. The area of the possible is very wide still, and very insignificant and minute, the angle we have staked out and marked impossible. What do we know of the powers which nature has yet in reserve, of the secrets she has still untold, the wealth still concealed? Every day sees new discoveries in the sciences we can investigate at home. What, then, may not lie waiting for the explorers abroad? Weak and short-sighted commercially, the cui bono is worse than both, morally. When we remember the powerful manhood, the patience, unselfishness, courage, devotion, and nobleness of aim which must accompany a perilous enterprise, and which form so great an example, and so heart-stirring to the young and to the wavering, it is no return to barbaric indifference to life to say, better indeed a few deaths for even a commercially useless enterprise—better a few hearths made desolate, and a few wives and mothers left to bear their stately sorrow to the end of time, that the future may rejoice and be strong: better a thousand failures, and a thousand useless undertakings, than the loss of national manhood or the weakening of the national fibre. Quixotism is a folly when the energy which might have achieved conquests over misery and wrong, if rightfully applied, is wasted in fighting windmills; but to forego any great enterprise for fear of the dangers attending, or to check a grand endeavour by the cui bono of ignorance and moral scepticism, is worse than a folly—it is baseness, and a cowardice.[47]”