Lif] AND SYMBOLS. 199 



Involuntary Destruction of Life a Law of Nature. 



Few persons, while indulging in the luxury of early green 

 peas, are aware how many insects they unconsciously swallow 

 and destroy. When the pods are carefully examined, small 

 discoloured spots may be seen upon them, each one corresponding 

 to a similar spot on the opposite pea. If this spot on the pea 

 be opened, a minute whitish grub destitute of feet will be found 

 therein. It is the weevil in its larva form, which lives upon 

 the marrow of the pea, and arrives at its full size by the time 

 that the pea becomes dry. This larva or grub then bores a 

 round hole from the hollow of the pea quite to the hull, but 

 leaves the latter, and generally the germ of the future sprout, 

 untouched. Hence these peas will frequently sprout and grow 

 when planted. The grub is changed to a pupa within its hole 

 in the pea in the autumn, and before the spring casts its skin 

 again, becomes a beetle and gnaws a hole through the thin hull 

 in order to make its escape into the air, which frequently 

 does not happen before the peas are planted for an early crop. 

 After the peas have flowered, and while the pods are young 

 and tender, and the peas within them are just beginning to 

 swell, the beetles gather upon them and deposit their tiny eggs 

 singly in the punctures or wounds which they make upon the 

 surface of the pods. This is done mostly during the night or in 

 cloudy weather. The grubs as soon as they are hatched penetrate 

 the pod and bury themselves in the opposite peas, and the holes 

 through which they pass into the seeds are so fine as hardly to 

 be perceived and are soon closed. Sometimes every pea in a 

 pod contains a weevil grub, and in consuming our dish of peas 

 we therefore annihilate myriads of lives and extinguish the 

 possibilities of myriads of others. But Nature seems to have 

 ordained that man shall be the involuntary destroyer of life on 

 a vast scale. Whenever he treads upon the ground, or drinks a 

 glass of water, or breathes the air, he unintentionally massacres 

 millions of lives. MU. 



The Illusions of Life. 



In youth, the view of our future life expands before us, a 

 splendid region gleaming with a thousand tints of alluring 



