10 ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL HiSTORY. 
the subject. Alexander the Great was sorely distressed when he 
had conquered all there was to conquer; but it cannot be so with 
us, Creation knows no’limit. I remember reading in some “wild 
dream of a German poet” that a human being was conducted 
over the universe to view God’s worlds, and that after sweeping 
past innumerable orbs,—planets, satellites, and comets, the 
mind of the man sank into itself, and shuddered with the over- 
powering effects, begging to be shown no more. If it were so 
with the thought of the infinity of worlds, what would it be, could 
he have but a dim comprehension of the infinitude of infinities 
that exists in each separate world. 
Here then is provided for our delectation a goodly storehouse 
of knowledge ; volumes upon volumes lie open before us; take 
them up and reyerently turn over the leaves, they make up the 
Book of GOD. 
Nor only is the past history of each being written in every 
particle of which its material frame is constructed, but the 
past records of the universe to which it belongs, and a prediction 
of its future. God can make no one thing that is not universal in 
its teachings if we would be so taught; if not, the fault is with 
the pupils, not with the Teacher. He writes His everliving 
words in all the works of His hand; He spreads this ample book 
before us always ready to teach if we will only learn. We walk 
in the midst of miracles with closed eyes and stopped ears, dazzled 
and bewildered with the Light, fearful and distrustful of the 
Word! It is not enough to accumulate facts as misers gather 
coins, and then to put them away on our bookshelves, guarded by 
the bars and bolts of technical phraseology. As coins, the facts 
must be circulated, and given to the public for their use. It is no 
matter of wonder that the generality of readers recoil from works 
on the natural sciences, and look upon them as mere collections 
of tedious names, irksome to reqd,,unmanageable of utterance, 
and impossible to remember. Ourscientific libraries are filled with 
facts, dead, hard, dry, and material as the fossil bones that fill 
the sealed and caverned libraries of the past. But true science 
will breathe life into that dead mass, and fill the study of Zoology 
with poetry and spirit.—Rzv. J. G. Woop. 
