288 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



ance, so varied in their forms, and so admirably adapted 

 for the purpose which they serve? The symmetry of 

 all disease is a wide and as yet unexplained subject. 

 The phenomenon seems one of those blind, unconscious 

 operations of nature which irresistibly suggest the exist- 

 ence of a Conscious Mind working through them. 



As the result of vegetable activity directed into an 

 unusual channel by insect action, the pathology of galls 

 strikingly illustrates the law of accommodation in 

 nature. When a plant grows up in circumstances alto- 

 gether favourable it attains its ideal form, and is beauti- 

 ful and perfect, as God meant it to be ; but when the 

 circumstances are unfavourable when it is marred by 

 storm or drought, by insect blight or pressure of other 

 objects then it accommodates itself to the circum- 

 stances and develops an inferior form on a lower plane. 

 An acorn that has fallen into a cleft of the rock springs 

 up into the best representation of the ideal form which 

 its untoward lot will allow ; but it will not be like the 

 magnificent tree that has sprung up from the acorn that 

 has fallen into suitable soil and circumstances. A bean 

 develops a finely-proportioned stem and beautiful leaves; 

 but man comes and cuts off its first perfect growth, and 

 from the original root or stem grow two other plants of 

 an inferior type. An insect punctures the leaf-bud of 

 an oak, and it has its legitimate growth spoiled by the 

 operation : its tiny leaves are opened prematurely, and 

 they become simple brown scales like those of an 

 artichoke. All these are specimens, as it were, of 

 God's after-work, which is not ideally beautiful, like the 



