42 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 



breathed into the nostrils of the animal the "breath of life," 

 and that it became "a living soul I" 



Now, this was the crowning act of the six days' work. 

 And man, the sublimation of material forms, alone was 

 trusted with that awful gift " the breath of life !" There is 

 no mention of the " breath of life" when he made the beast, 

 cattle, and creeping things. Yet in the common sense of 

 these words, they too were given the breath of life. 



No ! He before says " God made man in his own 

 image," that is, in his spiritual image for there can be 

 no material likeness of spiritual existence, and these ma- 

 jestic words were used in reference to that spiritual resem- 

 blance of which the Eternal Life of God was the first feature. 



The breath of life from his own lips was the bestowal of the 

 eternity of his own spiritual being. A distinct, peculiar a.ct ! 

 adding another element to the animal framed of the same 

 dust of which the beast was made interfusing a portion of 

 Himself, of His own ultimate and indivisible essence, into 

 the subtlest, purest organization of compounded matter: 

 and man became a living soul, and that soul in the image of 

 its Maker ! 



Between the atomic * reasoner, and the reasoning man, 

 there is a mighty stride. The shadow, though far away, 

 is like, for one and the same principle governs in each. 

 The stride between the attributes of God, so far as he has 

 chosen to reveal them, and th attributes of the Living Soul 

 in man, made after his own image, is vast too; but the shad- 

 ow, though cast from afar from out the abyss of Infinity 

 is yet dim, is still like ! 



We cannot know how much more high those other attri- 

 butes of which it has not pleased Him to instruct us may 

 be ; but we do know from His own words that the Crea- 

 tive Power is one of them, and Omnipresence and Foreknowl- 

 edge are others. 



Then has not the Imagination, the Living Soul of man, in its 

 own narrow sphere, the Creative power. Out of the chaos of 



