And beyond all those incalculable distances there is space, and more space on every side, with fresh conglomerations of worlds without limit or end." Gabriel spoke in the midst of solemn silence.

The listeners closed their eyes as if such immensity stunned them.

They followed in imagination Gabriel's description, but their narrowed minds wished to place a term to the infinite, and in their simplicity they imagined beyond these incalculable distances a vault of firm matter millions of leagues thick.

Surely all that strange and fantastic work must have a limit.

What was at the back of it?
And the barrier created by their imagination fell suddenly; and again they flew through space, always infinite, with ever new worlds.
Gabriel spoke of them and of their life with absolute certainty.
Spectral analysis showed the same composition in the stars as on the earth, consequently if life had arisen in our atom, most certainly it must exist in other celestial bodies, though probably in different forms; in many planets it had already ended, in many it was still to come; but surely all those millions of worlds had had, or would have, life.
Religions, wishing to explain the origin of the world, paled and trembled before the infinite.