PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 27 



There are some minds beyond one's reach. I remem- 

 ber once arguing with a man on the revelations which 

 the microscope made, and he coldly made answer, " he 

 shouldn't care for it unless it magnified the balance at 

 his banker's." Others are incredulous, considering you 

 are an enthusiast, and "nothing more," forgetting that 

 nothing great can be accomplished in which there is no 

 enthusiasm ; forgetting, too, that enthusiasm means 

 "inspiration," and that inspiration is indissolubly asso- 

 ciated with revelation. In what follows, it may be that, in 

 reviewing the records of many years, old scenes will be 

 revived and old stories remembered, some very likely to 

 provoke a smile, I hope not ridicule. To begin with one 

 of these stories, let me in reminding him of the dis- 

 covery of the spring in the Sandwich Islands many years 

 ago, and what the result was tell the reader something 

 about the wording of our title-page, how it came about, 

 and what it led to. 



When I first began my microscopical studies I could 

 find no rest until I taught others. I commenced with 

 lecturing to the young men amongst whom I worked as 

 the superintendent of a Sunday school. My first lecture 

 was entitled " The House Fly and the Garden Spider." 

 I had some excellent diagrams drawn from the various 

 objects I began to collect. The attempt was singularly 

 successful : I was greatly encouraged. Since then that 

 is thirty years ago in various parts of London and the 

 country I have delivered about a thousand lectures upon 

 various branches of natural history, a labour of love in 

 which I have freely given what I have so freely received. 

 And if I thus speak of myself, it is only that it may be 

 for the example and encouragement of others who may 

 work in the same profitable field, who will find, as I have 

 found, unquestionably, that if we know God in nature 



