162 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



and now ministering to the vilest wants of degenerate 

 man and arming him with deadly poison. 



But these little cells are not consumers only; they live 

 and work not for the day merely, but for the future also. 

 An almost invisible point in the cell begins to swell and 

 to increase, as it consumes first the colorless fluid, then 

 the soft substance, and at last even the tissue of the outer 

 walls of the cell, until already at this early stage of 

 vegetable life death ensues, and out of death comes new 

 life. The old cell dies, giving birth, indeed, as a mother, 

 to other cells, and thus gradually building up the full- 

 grown plant. The young ones leave their former home, 

 after an equally mysterious design, according to the posi- 

 tion they are hereafter to occupy in the structure of the 

 plant, and the function they are destined to perform. 



Here is the great turning point in the history of veget- 

 able life. All plants consist of cells of the same kind 

 and of the same round or oblong form but the arrange- 

 ment and the subsequent shape of these cells differ in 

 each variety of plants. The finger of the Almighty writes 

 on the transparent walls of these microscopic cells as 

 momentous words as those that appeared in flames on the 

 gorgeous walls of the Syrian palace. Only one feature 

 of this wonderful design is permanent and common to all : 

 no cell produces more than two others ; of these only one 

 is again productive, it finds a place on the outside, where 

 its activity is unfettered, and dies after it has performed 

 its duty. The other remains within, grows harder and 

 thicker, until it can expand no longer ; the thickening sub- 

 stance coats the inner walls, fills up the interior, and thus 



