24 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



a new world, and to become itself, as it were, a life- 

 endowed being. He ceases to be the rigid, unbending 

 stone; with the tiny drop he enters into organic creation. 

 He feeds now as they do upon the ethereal elements of 

 air and fire, and aids in building up a new kingdom 

 of organic beings. Surely, there are sermons in stones. 

 Was there ever sermon preached that taught more clearly 

 the transfiguration of even lifeless matter, and its resur-' 

 rection in a higher world? 



The pebble spends, however, not all of his creative 

 power on the Vegetable Kingdom only ; he works in a 

 still higher world also, and gives a form and a house to 

 millions endowed with animal life. When they die, he 

 gathers together their abandoned home with wonderful 

 care, and builds out of minute, mostly invisible shells, 

 wide plains and towering mountains! Does this not re- 

 mind one of the enchanted princesses of Eastern tales'? 

 Here also there are beings, but beings without number, 

 held in the icy bonds of death, waiting for the day 

 when the great word shall be spoken that will change 

 death once more into life, and sorrow into joy. 



Thus, through plants and animals, the pebble has risen, 

 ever brighter, better, and more useful in the great house- 

 hold of Nature. No longer a selfish recluse, he now 

 offers a brother's hand to other elements, and, with their 

 aid, he enters into and builds up himself a higher world. 

 We know that every drop of our spring water contains 

 some little atoms of the pebble, and plant, animal, and 

 man, drink, all alike, with this water, an indispensable 

 element of their life. Man's very body, it is said, holds 



