mentioned by Ptolemy and all other astronomers of antiquity as a red star. Lyra, Cygnus, Cor Leonis, Virgo, are white stars. Canis Minor, Aquila, the Polar Star, and the star Beta, in Ursa Minor, shed a yellow light. In certain nebulae all the suns are of the same colour, blue for instance; whilst in the nebulæ of Lacaille, near the Southern Cross, powerful telescopes reveal to the delighted eye more than a hundred differently coloured stars—red, green, blue, and of a greenish blue.
Thus far have we winged our daring flight to the utmost confines of the visible heavens, to the Ultima Thule of the starry world. But beyond, into the endless realms of space, we may not soar. Here Almighty wisdom has fixed a barrier, sealed to the finite intellect of man. The superior intelligences of higher spheres may perchance pass beyond into the immensity of God’s creation, to stand in their turn on the confines of another immensity, into which even they may not enter—and so on in endless succession.
Verily, verily, inconceivable and ineffable is the magnitude of the works of the Almighty. A flight through space? No, no, not through space; ay, not even yet towards the threshold of space!
