I want to suggest two or three things to you. I hope I
will not confuse you too much. But we in this
galaxy—and the heavens which we see are the galaxy
to which we belong—we from this point where we
stand or float, can see one billion light-years* all
around us. A light-year is the distance which light,
traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, will
travel in one year. The astronomers tell us that we now
can peer out into space one billion light-years, we in
the center.
Where we are moving, how we are moving, how
rapidly we go, we do not know. As you look into the
heavens you do not see the heavens as they are today.
You see them as they were the number of light-years
ago when the light therefrom began to come from
them to us. If it is a hundred million light-years away,
it was a hundred million years ago.
It is said that there are one hundred million galaxies*
within this radius that are the same as ours. (*Note:
Since President Clark wrote this article, astronomy has
greatly expanded its knowledge. The radius of the
known universe is now believed to be sixteen billion
light years across, and astronomers believe there are at
least ten billion galaxies. See, for example, Herbert
Friedman, The Amazing Universe [Washington, D.C.:
National Geographic Society, 1975], p. 32.) They say
that this galaxy in which we live, in which we float
and have our existence, is one hundred thousand lightyears in diameter.
They say that it is shaped lenticular,
as if two glass watch crystals were put together, ten
thousand light-years through the thickest part, and I
repeat, a hundred thousand light-years through.
Astronomers now yield what they did not formerly
yield, that there may have been many, and probably
were, many worlds like ours. Some say there were in
this galaxy perhaps from its beginning, one million
worlds like unto this one.
“Worlds without number have I created,” through
“mine Only Begotten Son.” I repeat, our Lord is not a
novice, he is not an amateur; he has been over this
course time and time and time again.
And if you think of this galaxy of ours having within it
from the beginning perhaps until now, one million
worlds, and multiply that by the number of millions of
galaxies, one hundred million galaxies, that surround
us, you will then get some view of who this Man we
worship is.
He was a member of the Godhead—the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. He participated in the Great
Council of Heaven which decided that they should
build a world, a world to which we might come as
mortal beings and work out our salvation.
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