the Confederate flank, but after the troops were disposed, and orders issued for this purpose, the Federal commander concluded to withdraw without risking battle. At this time the Federal army numbered from 60,000 to 70,000; the Confederate army from 30,000 to 33,000.

Such is the outline of the campaign of Gettysburg. The design with which it was undertaken has not been more often misconceived, than have the results that flowed from it been over-stated. We have seen the circumstances which led to its inception; how it became necessary for General Lee, in the early summer, to make a forward movement, or permit his adversary, with strengthened forces and the knowledge derived from two failures, to throw himself once more on either flank, and imitate the campaign actually carried out in the preceding year; how the constantly increasing disparity of force between the combatants rendered inactivity dangerous; how the success of Chancellorsville was to be improved only by an aggressive campaign; with what strategy Hooker was disengaged, first from the Rappahannock, and then from the Potomac; with what purpose the Confederate army was pushed into the very heart of Pennsylvania; how, from the absence of his cavalry, the Confederate leader found himself unexpectedly in the presence of the Union army, and determined to give battle; how the repulse on the third day at Gettysburg neutralized the successes of the first two days, and rendered a withdrawal into Virginia necessary; how the Federal army suffered too severely to follow up its advantage, and was content to guard the Rappahannock while General Lee detached one-third of his force to stay the tide of misfortune in the West. The results of the campaign were indecisive. Probably no one of Mr. Swinton's 6 decisive battles' is less entitled to this appellation than Gettysburg. The exaggerated ideas in regard to its effects, are doubtless due to the consternation and alarm excited by the march of Lee into Pennsylvania. This gave rise to excessive apprehensions in the North, and excessive expectations in the South. Those who one day thought that Philadelphia, New York, and even Boston, were within the invader's grasp, easily imagined on the next, that the repulse at Gettysburg was a

crushing blow to the fortunes of the Confederacy. The fact is, that neither was true. The failure at Gettysburg inflicted severe loss on the Southern army, cut short Lee's summer campaign in Pennsylvania, and relieved the North of its fears for the safety of the great cities. On the other hand, the balance of gain rested with the Confederates. The damage inflicted on the Union army paralyzed it for the remainder of the year, enabled Lee to hold in security, with but a part of his force, the line of the Rapidan, and prevented the contemplated movement against Richmond. The march northward relieved Virginia of the presence of hostile troops while the harvest was being gathered, lifted the yoke for a time from her people, and replenished the scanty Confederate commissariat. The relative strength and condition of the two armies on the 1st of August was not widely different from what it had been on the 1st of June, but the campaign against Richmond, which Hooker was preparing to inaugurate when the movement began, was no longer possible. If Lee had remained stationary on the Rappahannock, equal advantages could not have been secured. Besides the difficulties growing out of inaction, and the meagre and precarious condition of his supplies, a forward movement of the Federals would have turned his position, and forced him to give battle in the open field, or fall back on some inner line. Even had Chancellorsville been repeated, the situation of affairs, after another repulse of Hooker, would have been much as it actually was after Lee's return to the Rappahannock, while in the meantime a large portion of the most productive part of Virginia would have remained in the enemy's hands, who would have been free to prosecute, without interruption, his plans elsewhere.

But though the results of Gettysburg were thus indecisive, it might have been far otherwise. Had General Lee succeeded in his bold dash against the Federal army, and driven it with the loss of its immense artillery from Seminary Ridge, the advantage thus gained would have been most important to the Confederacy. It would have opened Pennsylvania to him for the time, would possibly have given him Baltimore, would have caused the recall of General Grant, and the abandonment of

the successful Union campaign in the Southwest, and might possibly, though not probably, have strengthened the peace party in the North, sufficiently to have seriously embarassed the Lincoln Administration. It was the prospect of these gains that reconciled General Lee to delivering battle when he found it imminent; these were the prizes which trembled in the balance for three days, and which would have been his, had he at any time during that period been able to secure a combined and simultaneous attack on the Federal position.

On the contrary, had Gettysburg been the Waterloo of the Rev. Dr. Jacobs, General Meade, at the head of a victorious army, his losses more than repaired by the troops about Washington, and by the new lines coming in, with full command of the sea and the rivers, with an abundance of supplies and material at hand, would have crushed or pushed aside the remains of the Confederate army which the South had no power to recruit, and penetrating to the heart of Virginia, have ended the war by the capture of the Southern capital.

But the fates had not so decreed. The mighty contest which the Army of Northern Virginia had maintained for three years with insufficient men and means, against the power of the North, was to have another and a closing scene of unsurpassed grandeur. Both parties were to rest after the exhausting struggle of Gettysburg, and then to join in the final conflict. The great man whose talents and ability had so far borne up the Confederacy in the east, was to give a still loftier manifestation of his genius, and in the tremendous campaign of 1864-5, to leave to the world an example of military skill which, all things considered, is unsurpassed in the annals of

war.

ART. IX.-1. Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects. By Sir John F. W. Herschel, Bart., K. H.; M. A.; D. C. L.; F. R. S. I.; &c., &c. Lecture II. The Sun. New York: George Routledge & Sons. 1869.

2. Popular Astronomy. By François Arago, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences. In two volumes.

1858.

Of all the physical sciences-and a glorious sisterhood they are astronomy is, beyond question, the most ennobling and sublime; expanding the mind, and filling the imagination, with grand conceptions of the infinite power, and wisdom, and goodness, and glory of God. It is, then, most worthy of the consideration and study of beings made in the image of the great Architect of the universe.

We all think too much of the houses we live in. These, whether mean or magnificent, occupy our thoughts and feelings far too much. The astronomer is, indeed, the only person who never errs in this respect; for he, however poor and penniless, lives in a house which can never be sufficiently admired; in the house, namely, that God himself has built and beautified. In other words, he lives in this 'our Father's house' of the universe, in which there are truly many mansions'; mansions whose foundations underlie all worlds, and whose pinnacles glitter in all the stars of heaven. The magnificent mansions of this house the admiration of men, and of angels, and of gods -are the abodes of the blessed, from the ever-blessed God himself down to the poorest of his children.

But does not every man, as well as the astronomer, live in this house? By no means. On the contrary, most men merely exist in this great temple of the universe, pretty much as stocks, or stones, or stars, or stumps, exist therein, with little sense of its infinite magnificence or beauty, or of the infinite greatness and glory of its divine Author. They exist; they do not live. If, indeed, with mind, heart, soul, and imagination, they were

only alive to the unutterable wonders of the world around us, they would learn to walk humbly before their God, instead of strutting, as many now do, and spreading the peacock magnificence of their pride, for the astonishment of the poor earthworms at their feet. Shall we, then, like the devout astronomer, whom Josephus calls the son of God', live and worship in His house; or shall we, like the inferior animals, merely gaze, with unmeaning vacant stare, on this majestic fabric of the world'? Shall we, like the dumb creatures around us, be satisfied to browse upon the earth; or shall we, like veritable 'sons of God', enter into our Father's house', and there feast on the food of angels? The latter is, no doubt, our hope, as it is our high destiny. But if we would really enter into the august temple of the universe, or house of God; the only vestibule for us to gain admission at, is the sun of our system, or, as the poet calls it, our chief star.' For it is only from a knowledge of this fixed star, or sun, and his attendant worlds, that we can rise to a rational contemplation of the other fixed stars and systems of infinite space. Our solar system is, then, the antechamber to the universe.

Our present subject embraces, not the laws, nor the mechanism, of the material universe, but only a few of its great and astounding facts. One of these is the sun. The sun, though but a spark of the divine Omnipotence, is of a magnitude and glory far too great to be grasped by our minds, or realized by our imaginations. Two elements are necessary to determine the magnitude of the sun, namely, his apparent diameter, and his real distance from the earth. His apparent diameter is easily measured. But what is his distance from the earth? Until this question be answered, it will be impossible to determine the size of the sun. As the sun and moon appear to be of nearly the same size; so, if we omit the element of distance, we should conclude, as many of the ancients did, that they are really equal, or nearly equal, in point of magnitude. But this were an immense error. If, indeed, the sun were as near to us as the moon, his disc would be 170,000 times as great as that of the moon; which would show his magnitude to be equal to 70 millions of moons. If, on the contrary, he were removed to