Agg] AND SYMBOLS. 7 



The Uniting 1 Power of Adversity. 



Many people who are very quarrelsome in prosperity, become 

 very good friends when hostile circumstances throw them to- 

 gether. Many statesmen who quarrel desperately when they 

 are in power, become firm friends when they are combined 

 together on the Opposition bench. So venomous and non-veno- 

 mous snakes, when confined together, appear to live in good 

 fellowship ; they are then generally seen mutually entwined in 

 voluminous and intricate folds, and they have enjoyments in 

 common, for they all drink water freely, and seem pleased 

 when any is thrown over them. No doubt, restraint of liberty 

 and metaphorical cold water are good things for pacifying all 

 snake natures. G. 



Aggressive Glory. 



One of the most terrible of insects is that which is appropri- 

 ately called the driver ant of Western Africa (Anomma arcens). 

 They drive before them every living creature. There is not an 

 animal that can withstand them. In their march they carry 

 destruction before them, and every beast knows instinctively 

 that it must not cross their track. They have been known to 

 destroy even the agile monkey when their swarming host had 

 once made a lodgment on its body. So completely is the dread 

 of them on every living creature that on their approach whole 

 villages are deserted. Fire will frighten almost any creature, 

 but it has no terrors for the driver ant, which will dash at a 

 glowing coal, fix its jaws in the burning mass, and straightway 

 shrivel up in the heat. Here is a noble model for aggressive 

 military nations. When ants can be so courageous in the work 

 of destruction, surely men should renew their zeal in that 

 direction. Besides the eclat which must attach to them if 

 they equal the driver ants, there are ribbons and crosses and 

 decorations awaiting them, and the plaudits of Christendom. 



H. 



