INDIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 24? 



And here, I think, I see you throw aside ray papers, and 

 hear you exclaim — " Will this enumeration of scourges, 

 plagues, and torments never be finished ? Was the whole 

 insect race created merely with punitive views, and to 

 mar the fair face of universal nature ? Are they all, as 

 our Saviour said figuratively of one genus, the scorpion, 

 the powerful agents and instruments of the great enemy 

 ofraankind^?" If you view the subject in anotherlight, 

 you will soon, my friend, be convinced that, instead of 

 this, insects generally answer the most beneficial ends, 

 and promote in various ways, and in an extraordinary 

 degree, the welfare of man and animals; and that the 

 series of evils I have been engaged in enumerating 

 mostly occur partially, and where they exceed their na- 

 tural limits; God permitting this occasionally to take 

 place, not merely with punitive views, but also to show 

 us what mighty effects he can produce by instruments 

 seemingly the most insignificant: thus calling upon us 

 to glorify his power, wisdom, and goodness, so evi- 

 dently manifested whether he relaxes or draws tight the 

 reins by which he guides insects in their course, and re- 

 gulates their progress; and more particularly to ac- 

 knowledge his overruling Providence so conspicuously 

 exhibited by his measuring them, as it were, and weigh- 

 ing them, and telling them out, so that, their numbers, 

 forces and powers being annually proportioned to the 

 work he has prescribed to them, they may neither ex- 

 ceed his purpose nor fall short of it. 



From the picture I have drawn, and I assure you it 



the sugar, sometimes so swarm with ants, of the common kind, that they 

 have no other way of getting rid of these troublesome insects tlian bysink- 

 ing the vessel in shallow water. * Luke .x. 19. 



