GARDEN AND ITS ENEMIES. 131 



of the boy, he is reminded that he has some need 

 of looking after his own, lest he be judged some- 

 what hard of feeling when the reader perceives that 

 all this stirring of motive to the youthful servant 

 is for the work of death. The smallest creature is 

 wonderfully made ; and the shortest life is the Crea- 

 tor's boon, which, as man cannot give, he should be 

 cautious how he takes away, lest God inquire by 

 what right, and show the man that he is "crushed 

 before the moth." Yet, viewing the devastation 

 caused by locust and caterpillar, it is plain, as it 

 is humbling, that the highest creature is placed in 

 a field of strife with the lowest, and obliged often 

 to wage unequal war for the bread that sustains 

 him. And hence, what mercy may not safely spare, 

 justice may of necessity demand; but the Maker 

 of all stands between the high and the low, and will 

 discern the motive, whether wanton or needful, that 

 inflicts either pain or death upon any thing that 

 lives. 



The philosophy as well as the right feeling and 

 piety proper to this theme are best given by one 

 who lived much in a garden, where he caught, in 

 the hue of its flowers, the polish of the hardest 

 virtues, or drew out those softest threads of feeling 

 which, like the floating gossamer, were faintly seen 

 as they shone in purple light amidst the rays of his 

 genius, or seen too well when wet and weighed down 

 with the dew of tears that fell from a heart of deep 

 and solitary woe, and who yet felt no breaking of 

 such slender cords when, in love to the sinless 



