TRANSMUTABLE. 89 



beings, is my answer. To carry him across the 

 ocean to distant lands, and there to spread abroad 

 the blessings of civilization, and to speak of Him 

 among the heathen and the savage ! Look again, 

 I say, at that oak, with its myriads of acorns, 

 you will find there is an abundance, greater than 

 is needed for the propagation of the species ; and 

 some you will find wither and decay, and others 

 are made use of by animals to live upon. Insects, 

 too, pierce the leaves with their ovipositors, and 

 produce one of the most useful articles of com- 

 merce. The bark contributes as much as perhaps 

 any natural production to man's comfort and 

 happiness. 



Now are all these things produced by an acci- 

 dental variation occurring myriads of years ago, 

 and altered by successive changes and modifica- 

 tions? Or was that primeval acorn specially 

 formed and created by God? I will allow no 

 sophistry to convince me that secondary causes 

 produced this tree. It is to me evidence of de- 

 sign, and of creation specially adapted to a special 

 purpose, too strong to be rejected by any one 

 whose reason is perfect. 



And if this is so of the oak, how much stronger 

 is the evidence of design in the attributes of 

 reasoning man. It is indeed an enormous stretch 

 of imagination to strain homologies into identities. 

 What though the paddle of the whale, or the wing 

 of the bird, has a similar arrangement of its bones 

 to that of the human hand? Does it not merely 

 shew that the same exquisite combination is made 



