3. This, we can have no doubt, or something resembling this, was the Psalmist's view, when he made the reflection, which we have taken as the basis of our remarks. And even in this view, (which, after all that science has done, is perhaps still the most natural and familiar,) the reflection is extremely striking; and the words cannot be uttered without finding an echo in the breast of every contemplative and religious person. But this view is, as most readers at this time are aware, very different from that presented to us by Modern Astronomy. The discoveries made by astronomers are supposed by most persons to have proved, or to have made it in the highest degree probable, that this view of the earth, as the sole habitation of intelligent subjects of God's government; and of the stars, as placed in a region of which the earth is the centre, and yet differing in their nature from this lower world; is altogether erroneous. According to astronomers, the earth is not a level space, but a globe. Some of the stars which we see in the vault of heaven, are globes, like it; some smaller than the earth, some larger. There are reasons, drawn from analogy, for believing that these globes, the other planets, are inhabited by living creatures, as the earth is. The earth is not at rest, with the celestial luminaries circulating above it, as the ancients believed, but itself moves in a circle about the sun, in the course of every year; and the other planets also move round the sun in like manner, in circles, some within and some without that which the earth describes. This collection of planets, thus circulating about the sun, is the SOLAR SYSTEM: of which the earth thus forms a very small part. Jupiter and Saturn are much larger than the earth. Mars and Venus are nearly as large. If these be inhabited, as the Earth is, which the analogy of their form, movements and conditions, seems to suggest, the population of the earth is a very small portion of the population of the solar system. And if the mere number of the subjects of God's government could produce any difficulty in the application of his providence to them, a person to whom this view of the world which we inhabit had been disclosed, might well, and with far more reason than the Psalmist, exclaim, "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? the inhabitants of this Earth, that thou regardest him?"