MISCELLANEOUS. 279 



commence upon. A three-inch glass will be most useful ; 

 even a four-inch is most valuable in the examination of 

 living flowers. Beyond a half-inch glass magnifying one 

 hundred diameters, that is, ten thousand times, to begin 

 with, it is unnecessary to go ; when you have made steady 

 progress then you may venture upon higher magnifying 

 powers. 



Never forget that in the study of the works of God, if 

 you would grow in knowledge, the same secret has to be 

 discovered as in the study of His Word illumination. 

 I have known those who possessed excellent microscopes, 

 but who failed in the management of light. I have 

 reminded you of the good motto for every good thing in 

 every good mind, "Incessant pains the end obtains." 

 Preliminary failure is frequently necessary to ultimate 

 success. I found this saying true in my first lessons in 

 self-culture ; so may you. I remember once cutting out 

 the eyes of a house-fly and mounting them dry in a deep 

 cell. Imagine my surprise soon after, on examining my 

 object, finding that, lodged in those thousands of eyes, had 

 been the invisible spores of a fungoid plant, which began 

 to grow directly I mounted it, and, like an ivy creeping 

 into the church window, was filling up the facets of my 

 interesting object: that drew my special attention to 

 insects' eyes and parasitical growth, the study of which 

 has occupied me from that time to this hour. 



And now " cometh the end," and I must reluctantly 

 bid farewell to this tenth volume, which henceforth shall 

 be an adopted child of that happy family, the Sunday 

 School Union. I can scarcely hope that it will be to the 

 reader what it has been to me, because in my own mind 

 it has been a recalling of past memories, the culling of old 

 thoughts, in which so much of true and lasting pleasure has 



