Err] AND SYMBOLS. 105 



vapour," we can see that "vapour" possesses a power to melt 

 and to remove. AD. 



The Instinct and Operations of Error. 



Moral error has in it the instinct of mischief. It is bred of 

 malice, works maliciously, and rears its progeny often on the un- 

 suspecting and the unoffending. This is the law of its existence, 

 and all its family follow it. In the history of its birth, its in- 

 sidiousness, and its cowardice, it resembles the flies of the 

 ichneumon tribe. All the flies of the ichneumon tribe are 

 produced in the same manner, and owe their birth to the de- 

 struction of some other insect, within whose body they have been 

 deposited, and upon whose vitals they have preyed till they 

 came to maturity. As moral error attacks everything within its 

 reach, so also do the flies. There is no insect whatever which 

 they will not attack in order to leave their fatal present in its 

 body ; the caterpillar, the gnat, and even the spider himself, so 

 formidable to others, is often made the unwilling fosterer of 

 destructive progeny. A. 



The Reappearance of Old Errors. 



It is very remarkable that errors which are buried in one 

 generation often arise and are current in subsequent gene- 

 rations. You think they have disappeared for ever, but lo, 

 they are again in motion yonder. They remind us of the sub- 

 terranean courses of some of the rivers which we meet with, 

 more particularly in the Secondary Limestone districts of some 

 countries. Styria and the neighbourhood of Trieste are examples. 

 Suddenly emerging in large volumes from the base of a lofty 

 mountain, the waters flow across rich alluvial plains, and are 

 then as suddenly lost in the cavities of another mountain, again 

 to issue forth to the light of day in a distant region after their 

 subterranean course. MA. 



The Recuperative Power of Error. 



Error is a worm which it is difficult to destroy. It possesses 

 a power of wriggling away from its assailants and recuperating 



