1 4 FERNS. 



We found our new collection a very congenial friend. 

 We loved God for making the beautiful plants. We 

 wondered at His adaptation of them to the service and 

 delight of man. Marvellous that the vegetation of a past 

 age, when man was yet the dust of the earth, should be 

 stored up for his use in the deep bowels of the rocks! 

 Surely each little Fern, reminding us of this bountiful 

 care, teaches us a lesson of reliance upon God, and puts 

 to shame the unbelief of anxious alarmists, as Martin 

 Tupper so plainly points out : — 



" Yet man, heedless of a God, counteth up vain reckonings, 

 Fearing to be jostled and starved out by the too prolific increase of 



his kind ; 

 And asketh, in unbelieving dread, for how few years to come 

 "Will the black cellars of the world yield unto him fuel for his winter. 

 Fear not, son of man, for thyself nor thy seed. With a multitude 



is plenty ; 

 God's blessing giveth increase, and with it larger than enough." 



