AN EMBLEM OF IMMORTALITY. 403 



In the caterpillar he must learn to see the chrysalis ; in the 

 chrysalis he must be ready to recognise the future butterfly. 

 And in all these changes the thoughtful mind may acknow- 

 ledge a significant emblem of that immortality of the soul, 

 that final transformation of humanity, which the Word of God 

 has promised to us : 



" Child of the sun ! pursue thy rapturous flight, 

 Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light ; 

 And, where the fields of Paradise unfold, 

 Quaff fragrant nectars from their cups of gold. 

 There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky, 

 Expand and shut with silent ecstasy ! 

 Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept 

 On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept. 

 And such is man ; soon from his cell of clay 

 To burst a seraph in the blaze of day." * 



To assure ourselves by observation that, in living matter, 

 there are organs irrevocably destined to decay or disappear, 

 while others incline and grow towards perfection, is certainly 

 one of the noblest studies imaginable. If philosophers, 

 instead of employing their time in profitless speculations, 

 devoted themselves to the examination of the great Book of 

 Nature, God's second revelation, they would long ago have 

 discovered what they are still seeking. 



And we should now know how to distinguish, in man as in 

 the insect, the rudimentary condition of his future life ; and the 

 belief in the immortality of the soul would not only be the 

 creed of the Christian, but a scientific truth. 



* Samuel Rogers. 



