120 THE SCIENCE OF LIFE. 



oven of minute and apparently insignificant Acrogens, 

 an incident in the life of Mungo Park is appropriate. 

 This enterprising traveler, during one of his journeys 

 into the interior of Africa, was robbed and stripped by 

 banditti. When the robbers had left him, he says : " I 

 sat for some time looking around me with amazement 

 and terror. Whichever way I turned, nothing appeared 

 but danger and difficulty. I found myself in the midst 

 of a vast wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, 

 naked and alone, surrounded by savage animals, and men 

 still more savage. I was five hundred miles from any 

 European settlement. All these circumstances crowded 

 at once upon my recollection, and I confess that my 

 spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate as cer- 

 tain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and 

 perish. The influence of religion, however, aided and 

 supported me. I reflected that no human prudence or 

 foresight could possibly have averted my present suffer- 

 ings. I was indeed a stranger in a strange land, yet I 

 was still under the protecting care of that Providence 

 who has condescended to call himself the stranger's 

 friend. At that moment, painful as my reflections were, 

 the extraordinary beauty of a small moss irresistibly 

 caught my eye, (I mention this to show from what 

 trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive 

 consolation,) and, though the whole plant was not larger 

 than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contem- 

 plate the delicate conformation of its root, leaves, and 

 fruit without admiration. Can that Being (thought I) 

 who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this 

 obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so 



