62 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



infinite past carry the mind back to periods prior to 

 those when ferns existed, or, at all events, plants of 

 the fern idea ; and in the green lace of their delicate 

 leaves, reappearing so sweetly year by year, now, 

 after a thousand ages of heritage of perfect beauty, 

 they are youthful and fresh as ever, and seem to 

 announce themselves immortal. Ferns existed in the 

 earliest ages of the world's history, long before man 

 was ushered upon the scene. Their race has seen the 

 rise and fall of empires, the birth and decease of 

 countless generations. Like the stars, in whose self- 

 same light they grew and flourished, they seem an 

 integral part of the glorious system we call our own, 

 and in the middle of which we live. I do not know a 

 more grand and exalting thought in connection with 

 external nature than when on a fair summer's evening, 

 in a country lane, while it is yet too light for the stars, 

 but the planets peer forth like loving eyes, we look 

 at these green ferns, so old and yet so young, then at 

 those " diamonds in the sky," so young and yet so 

 old, new-born and yet so ancient, and compare their 

 antiquity, pondering that before man was, that same 

 soft lustre came streaming down on their ancestry of 

 verdure, and that when our little lives have run their 

 length, and we have dropped back into the dust of moth- 

 er earth, still will stream hitherward that inextinguish- 

 able brightness, still will these tender leaves rejoice in 

 their innocent life. It is when in the silent contem- 



