Cosmos

“ All things obey and serve the Cosmos, [1] both earth, and sea, and sun, and the other stars, and the plants and animals of earth; obedient to it also is our body, both in sickness and in health, when the Cosmos wishes, both in youth and in old age, and when passing through all the other changes. ”

“ The sisters all made instinctively the reverential genuflexion. "The Cosmos is infinite," they said together, in the fixed formula of their cherished religion. "The Cosmos is infinite, and man is but a parasite upon the face of the least among its satellite members. ”

“ And these three partial approaches to the reality of the cosmos must eventually become harmonized by the revelatory presentation of religion, philosophy, and cosmology which portrays the triune existence of spirit, mind, and energy proceeding from the Trinity of Paradise and attaining time-space unification within the Deity of the Supreme. ”

“ The whole cosmos is a materialized thought of the Creator. This heavy, earthly clod, floating in space, is a dream of God. He made all things out of His consciousness, even as man in his dream consciousness reproduces and vivifies a creation with its creatures.
“‘God first created the earth as an idea. Then He quickened it; energy atoms came into being. He coordinated the atoms into this solid sphere. All its molecules are held together by the will of God. When He withdraws His will, the earth again will disintegrate into energy. Energy will dissolve into consciousness; ”

“ The starry heavens do not exist merely for us or for our earth. Among the splendid orbs which roll in space, earth is but one, and it shines with pale and borrowed light. [Pg 2] Unnumbered systems moved upon their courses before our globe was lighted by the sun. But, for us who live upon the earth the history of the Universe opens with this small planet, a part of which we see and know. ”

“ Pictures of the most extravagant beauty cover the earth; clouds dipped in the hues of heaven fill the atmosphere; the sun, the moon, the planets, come up from out of the depths of space, and far more amazing still, the distant orbs of heaven, in their relative magnitudes, distances and motions, are revealed to the bewildered mind. ”

“ Hence men imagined gods, and attributed those mighty phenomena of nature—earthquakes, tempests, lightning and thunder, and dire eclipses of sun and moon, to the vaguely visible powers which they imagined they saw. There was indeed a soul or spirit of the universe, as there was a soul or spirit of every individual thing that constituted it. But this was only a finer system of atoms after all. All else is convention or dream; the only realities are Atoms and Emptiness, Matter and Space. ”

“ The relations of parts and the end of the whole remaining the same, what is the difference, whether land and sea interact, and worlds revolve and intermingle without number or end,—deep yawning under deep, and galaxy balancing galaxy, throughout absolute space, or, whether, without relations of time and space, the same appearances are inscribed in the constant faith of man. Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is alike useful and alike venerable to me. ”

“ But God has computed the mutual perturbations of millions of suns, and planets, and comets, and worlds, without number, through the ages that are passed, and throughout the ages which are yet to come, not approximately, but with perfect and absolute precision.
8. The universe is in motion,—system rising above system, cluster above cluster, nebula above nebula,—all majestically sweeping around under the providence of God, who alone knows the end from the beginning, and before whose glory and power all intelligent beings, whether in heaven or on earth, should bow with humility and awe. ”

“ I have to present to you first of all the idea that the universe is composed of suns and that the planets which may be in it are less than nothing. But as I foresee your wish to make an objection, I’ll reply to it beforehand. The suns, you want to say, put themselves out in the course of centuries and by that also change into mud. No! is my reply; they keep themselves alive by means of comets which they attract and which fall on them. It is the dwelling of true life. The planets and this our earth are but the abode of ghosts. Such are the verities of which I have to convince you. ”

“ The cosmic world is that highly refined, spiritualized world all about us, permeating everything, encompassing everything; the great divine sea in which we live and move and have our being; a world of pure light, gorgeous splendor and celestial brilliancy. ”

“ Without looking into boundless space, where shine many thousand globes of light, or fixed stars, supposed to be suns like our own, and to have planets revolving round them, we may discover luminous displays of Divine wisdom in our own system, in the constant succession of the seasons, that may justly excite our wonder and adoration. How wise must he be who has so exactly proportioned the different magnitudes of the earth and the sun, and placed them at a proper distance from each other! ”

“ With powers commensurate with the photographic powers of light, a human soul could stand upon a distant star and follow this wonderful vision and gaze on a succession of events from the beginning of time to the present moment, and read the history of every sun and planet in the rays of light from its own atmosphere. And with poised wing in limitless space or on some far-off sun, read the mighty events transpiring on this little earth in the distant rays of light from its own atmosphere. ”

“ The several parts of the universe having always existed with it, we may say the same of the parts of these parts; thus the sun, the moon, the fixed stars, and the planets have always existed with the heavens; animals, vegetables, gold, and silver with the earth; the currents of air, winds, and changes from hot to cold, from cold to hot, with the air. Therefore the heaven, with all that it now contains; the earth, with all that it produces and supports; and lastly, the whole aërial region, with all its phenomena, have always existed. ”

“ Yes, it is difficult to realize that on our Earth world myriads of creatures, humans and animals each in accordance with their inherent qualities are reaching out toward the light which lighteth, not only every man that cometh into the world, but which shines for the Earth worm as well as for the angel. You think that a very comprehensive statement? So it is; but is not the Infinite, Omni-present Spirit in the atom as well as in the universe? Aye, and spirit is the one light, and there is no other. ”

“ And this duality is repeated in the Universe, which consists of a corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual world. The former consists of the earth, as its principal and central constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the earth is the air, and below it the watery abyss. Whether the heaven, which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell in, or below, the subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or incorporeal is not clear. ”

“ From the remotest nebulae and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws; ”

“ Looking beyond the moon, into the length and breadth of the universe, we find countless celestial globes with every conceivable variety of temperature and of constitution. Amid this vast number of worlds with which space is tenanted, are there any inhabited by living [Pg 106] beings? To this great question science can make no response: we cannot tell. Yet it is impossible to resist a conjecture. We find our earth teeming with life in every part. We find life under the most varied conditions that can be conceived. ”

“ We look again at the works of God, and see nothing exhibited there but perfection, harmony, symmetry, and order. If we look at the planetary system, we see this principle beautifully and most perfectly maintained. Immense planets revolve round our sun, and this system; and other suns, with their systems, round another; and that, and innumerable other suns and systems, with our own, around another yet greater and more magnificent; and so, millions of systems more in their order, until it is past our comprehension, and yet every thing is beautiful, perfect, and harmonious. ”

“ It may be that numerous globes rival the sun in real splendour, in bulk, and in mass. We shall, in fact, show later on in this volume that this is the case; and we shall then be in a position to indicate the true rank of the sun amid the countless hosts of heaven. But whatever may be the importance of the sun, viewed merely as one of the bodies which teem through space, there can be no hesitation in asserting how immeasurably his influence on the earth surpasses that of all other bodies in the universe together. ”

“ Fix your gaze upon the splendors of the universe. Behold the countless multitude of the heavenly bodies, as they revolve in their orbits; behold the wondrous creations which are upon this earth, as comprised in the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms. Does not the most marvelous beauty and order, the most consummate imaginable skill, everywhere meet the eye?
But now listen to what certain unbelieving scientists, naturalists, and astronomers say to all this. ”

“ If we stop to think what words mean, we shall know that external non-realities are nothing, and that adjustments to external non-realities are adjustments to nothing.
The cosmic process regards two things, external realities and internal realities. There is the external reality of the natural world, to which material creation must conform. The eye is adjusted to the ether, the ear to the sound, the lungs to the atmosphere, the fin to the water, the wing to the air. We have no difficulty in acknowledging the reality of the natural world, because it is cognized by the senses set in the body. ”

“ In the formation of light, and the beneficent effects it produces, the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty are conspicuously displayed. Without the beams of the sun and the influence of light, what were all the realms of this world, but an undistinguished chaos and so many dungeons of darkness? ”

“ When you come to those sublime truths that underlie and uphold all this material world of ours,—the knowledge of those laws that govern the planets in their spheres, which sound the depths of the ocean, and measure the distances of the fixed stars, you club yourselves together as if God had been as narrow-minded as yourselves, and only created light enough to illuminate one-half of the world, leaving the other half in total darkness. ”

“ From the great central mass, heat may again be summoned to exhale nebulous matter; chemical forces may again produce motion, and motion may again generate systems; but, as in the recurring catastrophes which have desolated our earth, the great First Cause must preside at the dawn of each cosmical cycle; and, as in the animal races which were successively reproduced, new celestial creations of a nobler form of beauty and of a higher form of permanence may yet appear in the sidereal universe. “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered.” ”

“ With the second, on the contrary, we may detach ourselves from the earth, may mount afar into space, may plant ourselves on some aërial height, whence we may embrace, at a single glance, all the illuminated hemisphere of our globe: we shall have but a single shadow on the prospect,—that which our brightened planet casts behind it, and which, in four-and-twenty hours, traverses the entire surface of the globe, producing light wherever it passes. ”

“ In this distant system of our universe I saw that the same plan of creation obtained. Around a majority of the stars a group of various sized worlds revolves. On many of these worlds human life abounds in endless degrees of development and in a countless variety of manifestations. I marveled anew as I saw the endlessness of the Infinite Mind, supporting not only the conscious life of this whole constellation, but also of all the constellations of our universe, and of all the universes scattered at large throughout the unending depths of space. ”

“ And now, at length and in the last place, it is time to turn our contemplations from this single globe on which we dwell, to the great universe around us—from objects indefinitely minute to those indefinitely vast,—from the wonders of the microscopic, to those of the telescopic, creation. ”

“ The magic power which this emanation from the heavens exerts on our organs 38 of vision, in exhibiting to our view the sublime spectacle of the universe, cannot be sufficiently admired. Nor is its power confined to the organs of sight; all our senses are, in a greater or less degree, subjected to the action of light, and all the objects in this lower creation—whether in the animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdoms—are, to a certain extent, susceptible of its influence. ”

“ That they are connected I have no doubt, for truly "the sun, the moon, the stars, and endless space as well, are parts, are things, like me, that cometh from and runneth by one grand power of which I am in truth a part, an atom though I be." ”

“ What a celestial body has it drawn out from its celestial sphere! Not a star, not the whole visible heavens, not the heaven of heavens itself, but Him Who fills heaven and earth, by Whom all things were created. ”

“ Order is God. No spirit world can exist without form, neither can it exist without motion. Motion produces the spheroid, and the rotation of the spheroid produces atmosphere and diversity of surface; all these variations characterize the spirit globe.
When these facts are carefully reflected upon and understood, the majesty of the Creator assumes a magnitude most stupendous.
The astronomer searching through space for undiscovered planets and suns, has failed to fix his telescope upon these spiritual worlds, but the day will come when science will discover their existence. ”