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stump with a nameless charm in the estimation of all 

 true lovers of the picturesque. And returning from the 

 woods and the fields to the retirement of our own homes, 

 we find that there are forms and living things to be seen 

 there as beautiful, interesting, and suggestive of curious 

 thought, as any we have seen in the wider field of nature 

 out of doors. If we examine under the microscope the 

 green or grey covering which spreads over damp walls, or 

 envelopes a stale piece of bread or fruit in a cupboard, or 

 creams over the surface of preserves, what a wonderful 

 scene of beauty suddenly unfolds itself like a miracle to 

 our view ! Thousands of plumy trees and feathery fern- 

 like plants rear themselves up in every conceivable atti- 

 tude, and all so delicate and transparent that the minute 

 seeds are seen lodged in the interior of their stems ; 

 luxuriant forests draperied with pendent parasites, and 

 milk-white mosses enveloping the ground, and clothing 

 old, rotten-looking stumps with beauty, all busy in the 

 fulfilment of their offices, lengthening and swelling, and 

 falling, and scattering their minute seeds in little white 

 clouds up and down upon the surrounding air. He who 

 is privileged to feast his eyes on such a beautiful and 

 instructive spectacle as this, must deeply feel with the 

 eloquent Ruskin, that " the Spirit of God works every- 

 where alike, covering all lonely places with an equal glory, 

 using the same pencil, and outpouring the same splen- 

 dour in the obscurest nooks, in spots foolishly deemed 

 waste, and amongst the simplest and humblest organ- 

 isms, as well as in the star-strewn spaces of heaven, and 

 amongst the capable witnesses of His working." 



