20 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



globe, Death seems to stalk triumphant. The summer 

 passes away, flowers fade and fruits decay; field and 

 meadow are buried in deep slumber. Broad lands are 

 swallowed up by the hungry ocean, and gigantic moun- 

 tains sink to be seen no more. But Death has found his 

 conqueror in Nature also. What perishes, rises again ; 

 what fades away, changes but form and shape. Sweet 

 spring follows winter; new life blossoms out of the grave. 



So with stones also. The poor pebble lies unnoticed 

 by the water's edge ; soft rains come and loosen the bands 

 that held him together ; refined, almost spiritualized, he 

 rises with the gentle water-drops into the delicate roots 

 of plants. With the grass he passes into the grazing 

 cattle, and through vein and artery, until at last he be- 

 comes part and portion of the being into which God 

 himself has breathed the breath of life! And when dust 

 returns to dust, he also is restored once more to his 

 first home, after having served his great purpose in the 

 household of Nature not to rest or to perish forever, 

 but to begin again the eternal course through death and 

 life. 



But even whilst yet "only a pebble," he claims our 

 attention as the very Proteus of stones, that meets us 

 in a thousand ever new and ever changing forms, at all 

 times of our life, from the cradle to the grave, until we 

 ourselves return dust to dust. 



Far below in the vast deep of primeval mountains he 

 dreams of the gay, light life on the sunny surface of the 

 earth, of strange forms of plants, and of still stranger, 

 free motions of animals. A new, irresistible impulse 



