74 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



though it was ** sown an animal body it shall be raised 

 a spiritual body," endowed with augmented powers, 

 faculties, and privileges, commensurate to its new and 

 happy state. And here the parallel holds perfectly 

 between the insect and the man. The butterfly, the re- 

 presentative of the soul, is prepared in the larva (the 

 caterpillar) for its future state of glory ; and if it be 

 not destroyed by the ichneumons and other enemies to 

 which it is exposed, symbolical of the vices that destroy 

 the spiritual life of the soul, it will come to its state of 

 repose in the pupa which is its Hades ; and at length, 

 when it assumes the imago, break forth with new powers 

 and beauty to its final glory, and the reign of love. So 

 that in this view of the subject well might the Italian 

 Poet exclaim, * Do you not perceive that we are cater- 

 pillars, born to form the angelic butterfly.** 



Nature is ever changing, ever beautiful ; but per- 

 haps the richest feast which it presents to the eye at 

 this season is to be found in the Flower Garden. Not, 



• It is worthy of remark that in the North and West of Eng- 

 land the moths that fly into candles are called saules, (souls) 

 perhaps from the old notion that the souls of the dead fly 

 about in search of light. So among the Greeks , Pysche, signi- 

 fied a butterfly as well as the soul, and upon sculptures the lat- 

 ter was often represented by this insect. — Kirby and Spence, 



