Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/49

Rh of God's power? but, What has likely been the exercise of His power in the moon, from our knowledge of His power in our globe? And, to have any ground of probability to stand upon, the astronomical argument must prove, that the conditions essential to life here are also found in the moon; or, at least, that the existence of such conditions is probable.

Every possible test has been applied, but no trace whatever of air has been found in the moon. Eclipses and occultations have been watched with the utmost care, but all in vain; some of the tests are so delicate, that if there was an atmosphere capable of raising the mercury one-sixtieth of an inch in the barometer, it would have been detected. If there is an atmosphere after all, how evanescent it must be compared with ours, which raises the mercury to about thirty inches. Could we conceive living creatures to exist in the moon without air, how strange must be the conditions of life! Let us only imagine that life moves on very much as it does here, with the only difference, that there is no air, and we shall at once see how wondrously our nature is adapted to the physical conditions in which we are placed. Most people probably think little of the functions of the atmosphere, except when it is pressed on their attention by the danger of suffocation, or by witnessing the terrible mechanical effects of the storm. But think how strange life must be in the moon without an atmospheric medium. Eternal silence must reign there. A huge rock may