IMMENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3055, 13 February 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

IMMENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE.

How few t-jople realise the immensity of tho uni Terse of God's creation in which we live ! We all know it is great, but few of us ever think that an almost invisible particle of dust is larger when compared with the whole earth, than the whole earth is when compared with tho whole universe. Listen to a few facts, nnil bo convinced that it is true, impos- | sible as it may soßm. Every school boy in this day and age of the world knows that the earth revolves round tho sun oiwie a yoar, but few, even of grown folkß, know that it travel* at the rate of over 1000 miles a minute in order to complete its journey at the appointed time, yet such is tho case. Conceive of the size of this orbit if you can. Tbink of the distance to the fun in the centre. Wo can say it is 92,000,000 miles, but we cannot conceive what that means, more than that is a great distance. Yet great as it is light comes to us from the sun in a little over eight minutes. That gives it a speed of over 600,000 times greater than a rifle ball. This is inconceivable, y«t it is a fact. With light travelling at such great speed, how long will it take it to come to us from the stars ? That varies, for some stars are much nearer than others, but from the nearest it takes over three years from tbe north star forty live, and from the most distant visible to tho naked eye one hundred and twenty five. From some just barely visible with tho most powerful telescope it takes up among tho thousands of years for it to reach us. Who can conceive of such vast distances ? No ouo but an infinite God. As another evidence of the great distance of tho stars we are tnid that they are all in rapid motion, ei'on more rapid than the earth itself, and yet in all tho ages of tbo pawt they have hardly shown any change. Oroturus, a bright star, somewhat west of the zenith , in tbe early part of tbe evenings of August, is said to be coming towards us at the rate of over 3,000 miles a minute, and yet we see no change. It line thu lie.tdlitrht of a locomotive s°vi*r»l miles away, we see no motion. OthiT stars are moving in different directions mid with ditl'erent, velocities.

Our Hiiu, which is only a star near enough t> lo il; larger tlinn the rest, is moving as fait ad any at' them. Many pe iple when they read such things as these, grow sceptical and say "no man kuowa such tilings, it is all trues-" work." It is not all guess work. There is no guess worlc at all about it. when wo know a man can foretell an ellipse correetly to a second, years ahead, we must believe what lie tells us about other things. Those arc but a few of (lie wondrous facts of astrouomy.yet are enough to prove to us the umrerse is almost without, end. It is without end a3 far as wo are concerned, for we have never been able to discover an end. Yet we nay it must havo an end somewhere, for we cannot conceive of an endless creation of worlds.—A. C. Amos, M.D.