190 WILD FLOWERS. 



beauty. Unlike the works of man, the works 

 of God are always perfest, and most admirable 

 when most examined. The finest cambrics, 

 when seen through a magnifying power, will 

 be discovered to have specks, and flaws, and 

 uneven threads ; but the smallest moss will be 

 found full of symmetry and beauty. 



There is something inexplicable in the growth 

 of mosses and lichens on newly-formed soils. 

 We can comprehend how the seeds of plants 

 may have reached the summit of the highest 

 ruin, but how can we account for them on new 

 islands, where httle specks of moss are seen 

 struggling into existence, on barren and lifeless 

 soils. Their seeds were never planted there by 

 man; the waters cannot have borne thither 

 these minute particles, for so much moisture 

 would have destroyed the vital power of the 

 seeds ; the birds of the air can hardly have 

 carried them so far ; one would think they had 

 lain in the earth since the creation, and were 

 now bursting into light from their long night of 

 darkness : it is mystery, all ! But He who made 

 the earth, and the dews which water it, has 

 planted them there, and daily vivifies them with 

 his fresh airs, and the showers of heaven. 

 And while we see how unable we are to com- 

 prehend these his works, shall we wonder that 

 some of the great mysteries of spiritual truth 

 should be incomprehensible to finite minds; 

 and if a little moss on a rock can suffice 

 to make us feel our ignorance, need we, on 

 the sublime things of the kingdom of heaven. 



