270 Metamorphoses of Insects. 



and is most commonly buried under the earth (though sometimes 

 its sepulchre is in the water, and at others in various substances 

 in the air,) and after this creature and others of its tribe have 

 remained their destined time in this death-like state, to behold 

 earth, air, and water give up their several prisoners : to survey 

 them, when, called by the warmth of the solar beam, they burst 

 from their sepulchres, cast oft' their cerements, from this state of 

 torpid inactivity, come forth, as a bride out of her chamber, — to 

 survey them, ,1 say, arrayed in their nuptial glory, prepared to 

 enjoy a new and more exalted condition of life, in which all their 

 powers are developed, and they are arrived at the perfection of 

 their nature ; when no longer confined to the earth they can 

 traverse the fields of air, their food is the nectar of flowers, and 

 love begins his blissful reign ; — who that witnesses this interesting 

 scene can help seeing in it a lively representation of man in his 

 threefold state of existence, and more especially of that happy 

 day, when, at the call of the great Son of Righteousness, "all that 

 are in the graves shall come forth ; the sea shall give up her dead, 

 and death being swallowed up of life, the nations of the blessed 

 shall live and love to the ages of eternity ? " 



But although the analogy between the different states of insects 

 and those of the body of man is only general, yet it is much more 

 complete with respect to his soul. He first appears in his frail 

 body — a child of the earth, a crawling worm, his soul being in a 

 course of training and preparation for a more perfect and glorious 

 existence. Its course being finished, it casts of the earthly body, 

 and goes into a hidden state of being in Hades, where it rests from 

 its works, and is prepared for its final consummation. The time 

 for this being arrived, it comes forth clothed with a glorious body, 

 not like its former, though germinating from it, for, though " it is 

 sown an animal bodi/, it shall be raised a spiritual hody^'' endowed 

 with augmented powers, faculties, and privileges commensurate to 

 its new and happy state. And here the parallel holds perfectly 

 betw^een the insect and the man. The butterfly, the representative 

 of the soul, is prepared in the larva for its future state of glory; 

 and if it be not destroyed by the ichneumons and other enemies 

 to which it is exposed, symbolical of the vices that destroy the 

 spiritual life of the soul, it will come to its state of repose in the 

 fupa^ which is its Hades ; and at length, when it assumes the 

 imago^ break forth with new powers and beauty to its final glory 

 and the reign of love. So that in this view of the subject well 

 might the Italian poet exclaim : — 



