These lectures will be regarded as the more valuable, because they are the voluntary contribution of a Christian layman, as well as of a man of eminent scientific attainments, to the great argument on which depends the religious faith of mankind.  Possessing a mind of extraordinary powers, trained under the promptings of an intense thirst for knowledge to patient and thorough investigation, he made for himself a reputation which secures the strongest confidence in his ability to treat the momentous and difficult questions he undertook to discuss in these lectures; whilst the remarkable clearness of his views, his brilliant imagination, and an extraordinary affluence of language and felicity of expression, both enlighten the understanding and gratify the most cultivated taste.  Professor Mitchell did more than any other man to popularize the science of Astronomy; and the use he has made of it in defence of Christianity seems a fitting termination of his noble labors.

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