Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/47

less and less, and then, by the same gradual change, it increased again and returned to its first glory. I was led from these observations to meditate upon the structure of the heavens. I had heard my father read from the Scriptures, that God inhabited a light which no man could approach unto, and also that St. Paul had been caught up to the third heaven. I was satisfied that the dwelling-place of God was above the sun, the moon, and the stars, and all resplendent with the light that his glory diffused around him. I thought that the floor of the third heaven must be of a solid substance, in order to sustain the weight of the celestial court, which I understood consisted of an infinite number of angels and glorified saints. Brilliant as was the sun, I concluded that the light, he shed abroad, only came through a hole in the ceiling of the second or floor of the third heaven, giving us a faint gleam, of the glorious effulgence, which illuminated the abode of saints and angels. The stars were, according to my system, only so many small gimlet-holes in that part of the floor which was most distant from the throne of God. The moon, I supposed, was a large hole, nearly as large as the sun, but, like the stars, away from the immediate presence of God. I had no difficulty in accounting for her changes, because I could produce the same gradually varying shape, by sliding a lid over the top of a pot, and it was easy to imagine it the employment of some of the angels of God, to slide the round cover over the round hole of the moon, according as they were bidden. I thought thunder and lightning were produced by the discharge of guns and pistols in the heavens; the rain was poured through small holes by the angels, whom I concluded were very numerous, and always busily employed in obeying the commands of God. I had