THE PAGE OF NATURE. 191 



pride of the forest, which had braved the storms of a 

 thousand years, into a hideous mass of touchwood, or 

 into a heap of black dust ! How strikingly do these 

 plants illustrate the great fact, that in nature nothing 

 perishes ; that in the wonderful metamorphoses con- 

 tinually going on in the universe there is change, but 

 not loss; that there is no such thing as death, the ex- 

 tinction of one form of existence being only the birth of 

 another ! And what a remarkable and obvious proof do 

 they also afford of that other great fact, the law of vica- 

 rious sacrifice; a law which permeates and pervades the 

 present system of things, so that if it were to cease, the 

 whole course of the universe would cease likewise. Trace 

 this strange law up through nature, from its lowest to its 

 highest manifestations, and how much that is fitted to 

 astonish and perplex does it suggest ! The mountain 

 rock must yield up that mysterious life it has, which 

 keeps its particles together without changing or decaying, 

 and must have its surface crumbled, by the agency of air 

 or water, into dead inert soil, before the plant can grow. 

 " The destruction of the mineral is the life of the vege- 

 table. Again the same process begins on a yet higher 

 stage. The plant decays, and from its dissolving tissues 

 spring forth new forms of vegetable life. The ear of 

 wheat dies, and out of death more abundant life is born. 

 Out of the soil in which deciduous leaves are buried, the 

 young tree shoots vigorously, and strikes its roots deep 

 down into the realm of decay and death. Upon the life 

 of the vegetable world the myriad forms of higher life 

 sustain themselves; still the same law, the sacrifice of 

 life to give life." Further still, the lower animals feed 



