352 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



The body slowly consumes away; the muscu- 

 lar tissues shrink and soften, and the haggard 

 face and incipient delirium assure us that the 

 work of death is going on at the nervous 

 centres. If no help arrives, if the poor starving 

 one is left to be " burnt with hunger," death 

 sooner or later ensues, and the expression of 

 the sacred text, which strikingly coincides with 

 the philosophy of starvation, is realized ; for the 

 unhappy person is burnt alive. This effect is 

 unquestionably principally due to the oxidizing 

 influence of the atmosphere. 



Our " earthly tabernacle" is but a tent after 

 all ; a tent which each moment undergoes re- 

 pair and waste. The structure which is the scene 

 of such incessant conflicts between the powers 

 of destruction and reproduction, is already 

 doomed. The balance cannot always be kept 

 in equilibria; equalization of the forces cannot 

 always be secured. The surplus accumulates ; 

 the reparative powers give way before the on- 

 ward march of the destructive. The body 

 wastes down, as we say with old age, and when 

 not actually hurried into the grave by disease, 

 dies at last of exhaustion. Well is it for him 

 who is able to say with one of old, " I know 

 that if the earthly house of this tabernacle be 

 dissolved, I have a building of God, an house 

 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."* 

 * 2 Cor. v. 1. 



