I have told you about the sun and the stars. Can you think of any thing else in the sky that you would like to know a little about? Of course, I do not mean the dark clouds, but something bright and pretty, that all children love to look at.

I think you must have guessed that I mean the moon,—the beautiful moon. Now, I want you to make another guess: Is the moon bright because it is made of fire, like the sun; or because the sun shines on it, as it does on Venus and Jupiter?

If any of you think it is made of fire, you must try to warm your little toes and fingers in the moonlight, as you do in the sunshine, and you will find out for yourselves that it is not a great fire, like the sun, and that you cannot get warm in the light of it.

And now you will guess at once, that, if it is not fire itself, it must shine from the sun's fire; and that is right. The moon itself is cold and dark. It is the light of the sun that makes it look bright to us. We might call it the sun's looking-glass, in which we see his image or reflection.

But we cannot at all times see the whole of it. When we do, we call it a full moon, and, when we see only the edge of it, we say it is a new moon. The moon itself does not change its shape. It is always round, like an orange—a dark round ball, which we should never see at all, if the sun did not light it up for us; and it is only a part of the time we can see the side which is lighted up.

Which do you suppose is the larger,—the moon, or the stars? Now I know you will say the moon, because it looks so much larger; but you must remember that the stars are so far away, we can hardly see them at all, and the moon is our own moon, and much nearer to us than our own sun.

We can see more of it than we can see of the stars; but it is a very small thing indeed, compared with one of them. It would take about fifty moons to make one such earth as we live on, and it would take more earths than you can count to make one star or sun.