168 



SPO'J'TED SKIP]'ER. 



is but the centre of one system, and that there may be others, 

 perhaps countless others, in comparison with some even of 

 which ours may be insignificant, revolving each in their pre- 

 scribed orbits in the regions of infinite space. There is indeed 

 a "Music of the spheres," which is heard by the soul alone, 

 and it sings the power of Him who is the Eternal, the Almighty, 

 and with its silent voice invites us to join in its harmony with 

 the unspoken and unutterable language of the heart. "And these 

 are but parts of His ways, but how little a portion is heard 

 of Him, but the thunder of His power who can understand?" 

 In the contemplation of the limited portion of the works "which 

 God created and made" that it comes within the bounds of our 

 knowledge or of our capacity in some small degree to comprehend, 

 the mind is lost in admiration, the soul appalled with awful 

 reverence. 



Every one of those minute, and to the eye invisible creatures 

 I have alluded to, which yet again may be gigantic compared 

 with others which even the aids of science will not enable us 

 to discover, has all its internal organization complete, and adapted 

 in the most absolutely perfect way to all its requirements, and 

 is even able, as has been proved, to impart animal heat to the 

 fluid in which it lives. How astonishingly small then must 

 each separate part of each be, all acting in as harmonious 

 co-operation as any of those of the higher orders of earthly 

 being! Every individual of them too has, so to speak, mental 

 capacities, by which the actions of their bodies are unerringly 

 ordered and directed. Yet, "known unto God are all His works 

 from the beginning of the world," and every separate action of 

 every separate animalcula is known to Him, both before its 

 occurrence, and as afterwards registered, as well as every motion 

 of every vast planet, and the history of each atom of its 

 component parts! 



I conclude my "History of "British Butterflies" with the 

 sentiment and in the words of an old writer, "The jMajesty of 

 God appears no less in small than in great, and as it exceedeth 

 human sense in the immense greatness of the universe, so also 

 doth it in the smallness of the parts thereof." 



