NATURE'S UNCEASING WORK. 11 



time and less than five hundred miles in space 

 to the square yard of mother earth at my feet 

 where now they rest, O the changes which 

 have come to pass over the surface of this world 

 of ours since then! Empires have risen and 

 have ceased to be; empires, that is, of man's 

 making. Perchance even he has become pos- 

 sessed of reason and of speech. Caesars have 

 ruled. Christ has risen from the dead. Mo- 

 hammeds have given us their creeds. Aztecs, 

 and sachems of many tribes have proclaimed 

 their power and vanished from the earth. 



The forces of nature have meanwhile gone on 

 in their slow, unceasing action, carving out val- 

 leys here and there raising mountains from 

 old ocean's depths changing stone into earth, 

 earth into plant, plant into animal life. Un- 

 mindful of man they do their duty. ^Eons of 

 time they require, but the results of continued 

 action are all powerful. Persistence, patience, 

 stick-to-itiveness are grandly exemplified in the 

 workings of nature. A million years to Na- 

 ture's God is as but a second in the idea of time 

 as known to man ; yet the latter, made proud by 



