274 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



to be the written revelation of God, and the beautiful 

 objects of nature the pictures which illustrate the divine 

 truth it contains, then hold fast " that thou hast, that no 

 man take thy crown." I believe that the great spiritual 

 adversary has many emissaries at work, both in the 

 church and in the world, in different forms and garbs, 

 and that their chief is what is called materialism ; that 

 under this name his prime minister busies himself in the 

 church as well as the world, and that many great and 

 noble minds have been blighted by first listening to the 

 voice, which whispered into their ears, as it did to one of 

 old, "Yea, hath God said?" 



Do you know what " blight " is ? " The word is used 

 in common language in an exceedingly loose and unde- 

 fined way," says the author of the " Micrographic Dic- 

 tionary." " Blight is, indeed, ' in the air' in many cases, 

 since a frequent source of disease in vegetation is sudden 

 change of temperature, or hygroscopic condition of the 

 atmosphere, deranging the processes of evaporation and 

 respiration in the tender, actively developing portions of 

 the foliage or inflorescence of plants." It is also often " in 

 the air" in another and still higher sense, and we see 

 the pernicious effects of "blight" just as much in mind 

 as we do in matter; and this is why I close our little 

 evening studies with the microscope with a warning as 

 to the seductive spores which belong to the invisible 

 world of doubt, but which lie thickly scattered in the 

 words of many authors and teachers who have been be- 

 guiled, as I believe, by the insinuations of the spiritual 

 adversary. 



"Blight in the airl" There are blighted minds I 

 know, alas ! of several ; and it is because I know, that I 

 warn you in your microscopical studies, which are the 

 best antidotes to materialism when rightly seen and used ; 



