A WORLD OF BILLIONS 



717 



parental devotion. In other cases, siieli 

 as cleft palate, harelip, and clubfoot, 

 surgery holds out relief by operation. 



Let us now go back again to the 

 single cell of tlie fertilized ovum in 

 which the human or animal body al- 

 ways begins. We have seen its develop- 

 ment into many billions of cells which 

 have become differentiated from one 

 anotlier and have formed many differ- 

 ent tissues (bone, muscle, or nerve), 

 and many different organs (brain, eye, 

 ear, liver, or kidney), in which the ulti- 

 mate cells differ enormously from one 

 another, although all have had this 

 common origin in the single cell of the 

 fertilized ovum. 



Think for a moment of the enormous 

 powers latent in that single little micro- 

 scopic, primordial cell ! Nothing that 

 I know of can for a moment compare 

 Avith it. If we know its origin we can 

 foretell its development into a horse, a 

 bird, a fish, or a human being. We can 

 foretell that it will show the racial 

 traits of its parents to a greater or less 

 degree : the white skin, the black skin, 

 the yellow skin ; the straight hair or the 

 curly hair ; the oblique or the horizontal 

 eye; the racial nose of the Eoman, the 

 Greek, the Hebrew, or the Negro; the 

 high cheek-bone of the American In- 

 dian. There are marked physical re- 

 semblances in many, if not in most 

 cases, even to the features of the parents 

 and the brothers and sisters which in 

 turn may be transmitted to the next 

 generation. Nay, more, in that tiny 

 cell are contained the forces that make 

 not only for the physical structure and 

 the intellectual characters of his race, 

 but also for those of his nation, and it 

 may be, of his particular family. In it 

 are contained in posse, and if fertilized 

 and developed, in esse, the powers of a 

 Newton, a Shakespeare, a Franklin, or 

 an Abraham Lincoln. 



Why should the little bud which is to 

 become a human arm always develop at 

 exactly the right place and not grow 

 out on the front of the chest or on the 



back nearer the spine? Why should the 

 human arm grow to its proper length 

 and then stop, instead of growing far 

 longer as it does in our simian ances- 

 tors? Why should tlie two arms (and 

 the two legs) always grow to virtually 

 the same length ? Why should the hu- 

 man body grow for about twenty years 

 and then stop growing? 



The answer is evident. In that sin- 

 gle, primordial cell there existed a 

 force, a law of orderly development 

 which compelled all these phenomena 

 to take place, and to take place at the 

 proper situation and in the proper se- 

 quence; and, when the proper time 

 came, the laws enshrined in that pri- 

 mordial cell said to the lengthening 

 arm and the heightening frame, 

 "Stop," and they stopped ! 



As a rule each tiny egg develops in 

 an orderly normal way the characteris- 

 tics of its particular breed of ancestors. 

 The sheep's ovum will develop into a 

 timid adult, while that of the lion will 

 be courageous and cruel; in the differ- 

 ent breeds of horses one ovum will de- 

 velop into a powerful draft horse, 

 another into a fleet race horse ; if it be 

 a dog's ovum it will develop, it may be, 

 into the swift gre3diound, the fierce 

 bulldog, or the fawning spaniel. If this 

 be true of horses, dogs, and cattle, 

 should it not be true of men ? I firmly 

 believe in the virtues, and alas, as the 

 Great War has revealed them, in the 

 vices, inherent in different breeds of 

 men and of nations. Good blood is a 

 great asset whether in horse or man. 



I confess I stand in awe before such 

 manifestations of power packed, one 

 might say, into such a microscopic 

 space. To me there is no other expla- 

 nation of such a mighty gift save from 

 an Almighty Giver— the Fountain of 

 Life, the ever blessed God. I bow be- 

 fore Him in reverence and also in 

 gratitude that we live in a world of 

 such wonderful Order, instead of a 

 world of blind Chance. 



