152 The Microscope. 



And here my Microscopic Teachings end. But, 

 reader, shall we not rather say, HEEE THEY BEGIN ? 

 A teacher who truly loves his art or science is best 

 pleased when those whom he has instructed outdo in 

 after years their early lessons. And such is my feel- 

 ing about this little book. I wish that those who 

 read it may enter on many fields of observation to 

 which I have not directed them for instance, the 

 productions of the sea, a mine of interest ! and also 

 that they may study the objects which I do describe in 

 more completeness, and with a far deeper understand- 

 ing of their meaning than I have done. If my book 

 has helped to place them on the way to such studies, 

 as may enable them to add to the general stock of 

 knowledge, I shall not regret the time and application 

 it has cost me not as it might once have been, as 

 the delightful employment of abundant leisure, but, on 

 the contrary, a serious occupation, done amidst inter- 

 ruptions and under pressure of numerous home duties, 

 in the feeling that I had a few things to say which 

 might be pleasant and instructive to some readers at 

 the present time, and to my own dear children by and 

 by. To those readers I commend it, hoping that it 

 will assist them in the study of Nature ; hoping, too, 

 that it will suggest thoughts which the heart can feel 

 more readily than the tongue can speak them, of the 

 unsearchable greatness of Him who made these 

 things. 



