150 A Walk from 



and simple, cried, " Think ! for we want bread, we want 

 drink, we want shelter and raiment against the cold." 

 The finer senses cried continually, " Give ! give thought 

 to this, to that." The Eye, the Ear, the Palate and 

 every other organ that could receive and diffuse delight, 

 worked the mental faculties by day and night, up to 

 the last sunset of the antideluvian world ; and all the 

 intellectual result of this working Noah took with him 

 into the ark, and gave to his sons to hand over to 

 succeeding ages. Flowers that Eve stuck in the hair 

 of the infant Abel are just now opening the last casket 

 of their beauty to the favored children of our time. 

 This, in itself, is a marvellous instance of the law we 

 are noticing. But what is this to the processes of 

 thought and observation through which the mind of 

 man has reached its present expansion ; through which 

 it has developed all these sciences, arts, industries and 

 tastes, the literature and the intellectual life of these 

 bright days of humanity ! The figure is weak, and every 

 figure would be weak when applied to the ratio or the 

 result of this progression ; but, at what future age of 

 time, or of the existence beyond time, will the mind, 

 that has thus wrought on earth, open its last petal, put 

 forth no new breathing, unfold no new beauty under 

 the eye of the Infinite, who breathed it, as an immortal 

 atom of His own essence, into the being of man ? 



