26 ANALOGY. 



speaking, one only emerges at a time. Such 

 an instance of an animal destroyed and re- 

 placed by a fungus, affords a striking* proof 

 that a retrograde step is sometimes to be found 

 in the animal kingdom. The usual tendency 

 in the insect creation is to an advance. Each 

 change leads to a higher degree : the egg 

 becomes the caterpillar, the caterpillar becomes 

 a chrysalis, and the chrysalis is at length trans- 

 formed into some beautiful winged fly, often 

 seen glittering in vivid colours under the beams 

 of the noon-day sun. The knowledge of such 

 a transformation leads to reflections deduced 

 from things present, on the future destiny of 

 man. These thoughts are strikingly embodied 

 in the following lines : 



" Oh, start not ! on thy closing eves 



Another day shall still unfold ; 

 A sun of milder radiance rise, 



A liappier age of joys untold. 

 Shall the poor worm that shocks the sight, 



The humblest form in Nature's train, 

 Thus rise in new-born lustre bright, 



And yet the emblem teach in vain ?" 



These beautiful progressions seem to give the 

 Christian a natural shadow of a hoped for exis- 

 tence of a nobler kind. True, the shadow is 

 feeble, but yet it manifests that the promise of 



