8 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



spectacle of the heavenly bodies moving in their or- 

 bits, and the wonderful forces brought into play to 

 control their motions, astonish us by their vastness 

 and their power * but the surprise awakened in us at 

 the view of the celestial wonders has its source chief- 

 ly in the comparative material greatness of the ob- 

 jects we contemplate. The Author of Nature mani- 

 fests His greatness as much in the germination of a 

 plant or in the generation of a living being as in the 

 guidance of a sun across the starry fields. It is His 

 Almighty Hand that studs the heavens with millions 

 of stars ; but it is the same hand that daily scatters the 

 wind-blown seeds of earthly flowers upon the soft soil. 

 Both works reveal the action of an infinite intelli- 

 gence. To rescue a world beaming with life from the 

 fiery fury of a comet, or to close a corolla at the ap- 

 proach of cold fogs or the touch of the north wind ; 

 to spread out in space a milky-way rich in suns or to 

 adorn our garden trees with purple blossoms ; to di- 

 rect the gradual formation of the successive layers of 

 the earth's crust or to ripen the fruits that refresh us 

 in summer these are equally the works of a Divine 

 Hand, a hand that recognizes no difference between 

 the small and the great. 



To contemplate nature in flowers or in stars is 

 only to reach Truth in various ways : in both cases we 

 try to fathom the mysteries of the infinite in its dif- 

 ferent manifestations, to study the world under a 

 thousand aspects, to study Nature under two distinct 

 masters, but in the same school. 



A full and complete description of the marvels of 



