of narrow range and low intensity 

 except oxygen. Oxygen is greedy to 

 attack almost everything, the others 

 unite but sparingly and feebly. From 

 these elements, life chooses combina- 

 tions that are easily changed in form 

 and light enough to stand up from the 

 earth, to swim in the waters, and even 

 to fly in the atmosphere. So gaseous 

 and quick to change are the things of 

 life that life itself has the reputation 

 of being fleeting. Development is a 

 change in the arrangement of parts, 

 and function is a transformation of 

 motion. These four elements, three 

 gaseous and one solid, three very 

 exclusive and one very free in choosing 

 all sorts of associates, have been the 

 means whereby life has been possible 

 upon the earth. Their characters 

 have provided for what are known as 

 differentiation and integration. 



With these materials is formed the 

 mass which is the lowest form of life, 

 protoplasm. This may be formed 

 into cells or not, but it is from this 

 beginning the scale of living things 

 springs, rising in beautiful and 

 mysterious forms till the earth is 

 enveloped and beautified so that we 

 can hardly think of it except as the 

 receptacle prepared by Omniscience 

 for the entertainment of living beings, 

 all of which point to the highest and 

 speak of the expansion and eternal 

 value of the human soul. 



By getting next to other substances, 

 or by getting them inside, the 

 organism draws within itself new 

 matter of its own selection. It chooses 

 always material that is chemically 

 similar to itself, and we say it grows. 

 Where it wears away in the pursuit, 

 it makes repairs with the fresh 



material. Where the pursuit is 

 wearing, and requires great activity or 

 strength, the new matter is consumed 

 in furnishing energy alone. 



When the period of growth is well 

 advanced, the living thing matures 

 organs for the preservation of its kind. 

 Male and female are distinguished. A 

 seed marks the female element in the 

 plant, and in the animal an ovum or 

 egg. And as soon as the race has 

 been provided for, the individual is of 

 no more use upon the face of the 

 earth. It has served its purpose, and 

 merits a reward. But whether in the 

 economy of nature the joys of life are 

 regarded as sufficient reward to every 

 living creature, there follows fast upon 

 the heels of its usefulness a period of 

 lamentable decline. The elements 

 which were so facile in building up 

 the individual are no longer active in 

 furnishing energy, repair, and growth. 

 All these products are lopped off. 

 Weakness, debility, and shrinking 

 ensue. The organism loses its 

 attractiveness for its kind, the pulse 

 of life weakens, and the corpse falls to 

 the earth, yielding rapidly to a process 

 of transformation called decay, which 

 is merely a giving up of what has 

 been recently of use to this form of 

 life to some new form of the same sort 

 or a different one. Life is so swift 

 and relentless that most of its subjects 

 fall by the way and give up their 

 substance so effectually that there is 

 no memory or record left upon the face 

 of the earth that such a form has ever 

 been. 



And so God is creating the heavens 

 and the earth. While we participate 

 in a measure in this creation, let us 

 observe and enjoy it and be wise. 



38 



