268 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



never be ashamed, either of your aim to glorify God, or 

 to confess your own ignorance. 



An American author, writing of the Dutch entomo- 

 logist Swammerdam, says', "Those who look into the 

 works of Swammerdam will be abundantly gratified, 

 whether they consider his immense labour and unremit- 

 ting ardour in these pursuits, or his wonderful devotion 

 and piety. On the one hand his genius urged him to 

 examine the miracles of the great Creator in His natural 

 productions, while on the other the love of that same 

 All-perfect Being, rooted in his mind, struggled hard to 

 persuade him that God alone, and not His creatures, was 

 worthy of his researches, love, and attention." 



Here is an extract from one of Swammerdam 's prayers : 

 just compare it with the "ifs" and "huts" and "un- 

 certainties " and " supposes " and " doulifuls " to be found 

 in the modern "Descent of Man," and then frankly tell 

 me which is the most worthy of your acceptance. 



" God," he exclaimed, " how Thy works infinitely 

 surpass the reach of our feeble understanding : all that 

 we actually know of Thee, or ever can, is but a faint 

 and lifeless shadow of Thy adorable perfections, in con- 

 templation of which the brightest understandings grow 

 bewildered ! " Such were the words of that clever 

 old naturalist. 



How many arguments for the truth of that divine 

 system of religion revealed to us in the Bible, may be 

 drawn from the testimony of a multitude of characters 

 illustrious in science and literature, the profoundest 

 students either of nature or theology ! 



" Newton, whose mind burst the fetters fastened by 

 nature upon our finite conceptions; whose science was 

 truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge was 

 philosophy, which, resting upon the basis of mathematics, 



