Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/163

Rh the earth for weeks together like a drawn sword; we listened, however, as to a legend of the olden time, and despaired of seeing such sights in our day. The comet of 1858 burst upon our view, and proclaimed that there were still wonders in nature, surpassing any that the eye of man had yet seen. Notwithstanding the tendency of the old to exaggerate the wonders of their youth, the privileged few who remembered the comet of 1811, confessed that Donati's comet was altogether a finer object, though it did not stretch so far across the heavens.

Though comets served no other object than to awaken fresh interest in celestial phenomena, their visits to our regions of space would not be in vain. Such startling phenomena serve to dispel the indifference with which we are prone to gaze upon the unvarying page of the "Book of God," presented to us by the ordinary aspect of the heavens. It was a bright star in the sixteenth century, suddenly bursting forth, and as suddenly dying out, that gave to the world the great astronomer Tycho Bralie. This imposing object determined his tastes and fixed his future career. Mr Bond, the distinguished American astronomer, who has just been gathered to his fathers, dates his astronomical career from the total eclipse of 1806. This sublime and awe-inspiring spectacle took possession of his mind to such a degree, that he gazed with ceaseless and inquiring wonder on the face of the heavens; this eager prying into the depths of