248 MOJSOGRAPHIA 



Having brought my labours to a close, and illustrated all 

 the species which the most diligent search enabled me to 

 obtain examples of, I may observe, in the elegant and ex- 

 pressive language of a modern writer,* " These miniature 

 organizations are not however beneath our notice ; for they 

 have one great value, which will always make them inte- 

 resting to us. They contribute much to amplify and rectify 

 our ideas of the Sovereign Creator, who cannot but display 

 to us His mind in His works. He illustrates His own na- 

 ture by His creations ; The whole presents a delineation of 

 Himself. Now the marvellous immensity and multiplicity 

 of the universe which He has made and governs, present to 

 the thoughtful mind such a tremendous Deity, that we can- 

 not but dread, lest greatness so fearfully vast, should have 

 no community of feeling with us, and should not condescend 

 to maintain any kind relations towards us, or with the earth 

 our abode, which is so inconsiderable a portion of general 

 nature. I have experienced something of this sort, and I 

 know that others have painfully felt it. It is, therefore, 

 delightful to see by these miniature existences, small almost 

 to invisibility, and by their careful organization as finely 

 contrived as in the grandest creature, that greatness and 

 littleness make no difference to Him in His Creation or 

 His Providence. They reveal to us that magnitude is 

 nothing in His sight ; that He is pleased to frame and to 

 regard the small and weak, as benignly and as attentively 

 as the mighty and the massive. Improved reason indeed 

 makes the same deduction, because when it justly reflects, 

 it feels that the grandest creature can be but insignificance 

 before such an Infinite Creator. We are high and low, 

 great and small as to each other, but not to Him. The 

 ant is as full of life and comfort, and curious instincts, and 

 as skilfully organized as the lion or the whale. It is a 



* Sharon Turner. 



