40 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



queer, vegetable-like animal. It seems to consist of a 

 horny mesh-work covered with slime. We put a drop 

 of this slime under a microscope, and find it to be alive. 

 This, in fact, is the real sponge, to which the commonly 

 known sponge acts simply as a mechanical support, or 

 skeleton. This living slime represents life in one of 

 its lowest forms. Its substance is homogeneous. It 

 really has no structure, yet it feeds, breathes, feels, and 

 possesses, in a primitive form, most of the character- 

 istics of higher animals. 



Men and Sponges. —Strange as it may appear, 

 there is an affinity between the sponge, at the lower 

 end of the scale of life, and man, who stands at the 

 top. If we follow the life history of a human being 

 back to the earliest moment of its existence, we find 

 only a little speck of living jelly, substantially like the' 

 live portion of a sponge. This living bit of jelly has 

 no nerves, yet it feels ; has no lungs, yet it breathes ; no 

 stomach, yet it digests ; is without hands, yet it works. 



The sponge was once a mere little drop of slime, 

 which grew, gathered material from the surrounding 

 waters, and from this material built for itself a skel- 

 eton over which to extend, and upon which to live. So 

 the human jelly-drop works and grows, developing and 

 building cells, fibers, structures, and organs, till at last 

 the human body, with all its wonderful details, is per- 

 fected. In this marvelous process of transformation, 

 in which there seems to be ever present a guiding in- 

 telligence, taking food materials and arranging them 

 according to a definite and wonderful plan, we have 

 one of the most convincing arguments of the existence 

 of a beneficent and all-wise Creator. 



Two Hundred Bones.— The body, like a dwelling 

 house, requires a framework for firmness and sym- 



