ROYAL WATER-LILY. 37 



knees to acknowledge and to worship the Great 

 Creator ! Too few, alas ! go to see the wonders of 

 the deep with that devout and fervent feeling of reve- 

 rence towards their Supreme Author, which so well 

 becomes the scientific naturalist, and in the absence 

 of which he can see but the dim shadows of those 

 glories in the great temple of nature that are meant 

 as the heavenly monitors of man. Not a flower of 

 the field, not a leaf of the forest, not a twinkling star 

 in the innumerable host of heaven, but proclaims, in 

 language that " he who runs may read," a thousand 

 messages of heavenly wisdom ; and he who cannot 

 see the traces of the Almighty's hand in the humble 

 blade of grass, and the dewdrop that glitters in the 

 morning beam, need not go to foreign lands to dis- 

 cover Him in the more majestic forms of His handi- 

 work. Haenke could not be filled with a deeper sense 

 of the Divine presence when on his knees before the 

 magnificent Water-lily, than was the weary traveller 

 in the African desert, when his eye met the hope-in- 

 spiring little moss, which gave him hope in God. Lin- 

 naeus, also, the great father of Natural History, when 

 he first beheld the bright glow of the English furze, 

 instinctively fell upon his knees in profound admira- 

 tion of the lovely plant, and breathed in spirit, if not 

 in words, a devout and holy prayer of thankfulness 

 to God, under a deep feeling of gratitude for the 

 bountiful manner in which His creating hand had 

 adorned the earth with beautiful productions, mani- 



