AND GROWTH. 179 



the same manner, and with the same hope as 

 before. 



At that season of the year, nature has many busy 

 labourers to feed, and many young plants, and 

 come or coming blooms, and other previous things 

 to look after, that her grand messenger, the atmo- 

 sphere, requires to be on the alert ; and as nothing 

 in nature ever does that which it is not the very 

 law and purpose of its nature to do, her messenger 

 is always in time, and not one of her workers 

 slackens or is palsied until it has answered the 

 end for which the Author of Nature ordained it, 

 and the matter which has ceased to be useful in it 

 is required for another purpose. 



Those variable winds of the spring which seem 

 to shift about and change in their rate and their 

 temperature, in a manner absolutely capricious, 

 are far more unerring than if the wisest man that 

 ever lived had the management of them. That is 

 proved by the very fact of our thinking them ca- 

 pricious, which is just in other words admitting 

 that we do not understand them ; and of course 

 that we could not get one of the things done, of 

 ourselves, or by our directions, which they are 

 unceasingly doing for us. The most intelligent of 

 us know but few of the properties of plants 

 and animals, and many of us do not either know 

 their names or themselves when we see them. 

 How then could it be possible for us to tell what 

 would give them the appearances that they in 

 future are to evolve? To take a single instance, 

 the future peach is not yet the size of a pin's head, 

 and few can tell what it is if they do not see it 

 taken out of a bud which they believe to be the 

 bud of a peach-tree ; and very few could tell it 

 7 



