THE WOOD. 67 



tured vegetable substance to a form which will 

 enable them to afford sustenance to new varieties 

 of vegetable life, and, through their instrumen- 

 tality, to new forms of animal existence. Such 

 objects, on account of their minuteness and seem- 

 ing insignificance, are often little noted ; but, when 

 they are closely and patiently scrutinized, attest 

 the wisdom and design of Omnipotence as dis- 

 tinctly as the most highly developed and most 

 complicately constructed organ of the noblest work 

 in the creation. None but a Mighty Being could 

 create and govern the solar system ; but to effect 

 so important an end as the maintenance of animal 

 and vegetable life, by the humble agency of insects 

 and Fungi, scarcely cognizable to our senses, 

 this would seem to require, if possible, a superior 

 Intelligence a Mind that not only can contrive 

 and execute a great work, but can do all this with 

 the simplest machinery a Being not only most 

 powerful but all powerful. And most merciful also 

 must be that Being, Who manifests to us His 

 omnipotence in an atom of the Creation barely 

 visible to the human eye, Whose beneficence is no 

 less visible in the blade of grass on which we tread, 

 than in the glorious luminary whose quickening 

 influence awakens it into life. The famous Sici- 

 lian philosopher, Archimedes, is said to have con- 

 ceived in his mind a machine sufficiently powerful 

 to move the world ; but no one, as far as I am 

 aware, ever devised a scheme of fertilizing a single 

 square foot of ground, without calling in, directly 

 or indirectly, the aid of agents whose interference 

 he could neither destroy nor check. 



Plants which depend upon other organized 

 bodies for their support are called Parasites; 



