Vic] AND SYMBOLS. 385 



what a strange place this seems for a mother to choose, and what 

 a chevaiix de /me, as it were, of stings all about her pretty ones ! 

 It matters not, however, to them, as she well knows. The larva, 

 once successfully hatched, rapidly covers itself with silk, which 

 the bees cannot destroy nor penetrate with their stings for the 

 destruction of the noxious intruder. Gradually this silken 

 covering becomes a tube or covered way, stretching in any 

 direction that the larva pleases right through the combs. 

 When this enemy becomes numerous it is all over with the 

 hive ; the bees have no choice but to desert the place altogether 

 and construct a new habitation. The movements of these 

 galleria moths suggest an analogy to the insidious operations 

 of vice in the moral world. Like these moths, vice is shrewd 

 of selecting a home, audacious in its method of entering it, 

 and active in its plans for eluding pursuit. It has a horrible 

 power of self-propagation, and by a sad irony of fate it constantly 

 happens that the very people who hate it most intensely are 

 often the unwilling victims who have to support it and its 

 progeny. Nor does the resemblance end here, for as the larvae 

 of the galleria moth sometimes bring absolute ruin upon the 

 industrious hive which their progenitors shamefully invaded, 

 so do the children of vice bring down to undeserved destruc- 

 tion the happy fabric in which they have scandalously reared 

 themselves at the expense of unconsenting sufferers. In its 

 relation to society, vice, like this moth, is a shameless invader, 

 an unscrupulous inhabitant, and a ruthless destroyer. B. w. 



The Fecundity of Vice. 



The fer de lance of the West Indies, a much-dreaded ser- 

 pent, is, when adult, about five or six feet long. The number 

 of young produced by this deadly species of reptile at one birth 

 is immense, being seldom less than fifty. At the moment of 

 birth these young ones are completely formed, very nimble, 

 and ready to bite if irritated. In its poisonousness, and in its 

 fecundity, this serpent resembles human vice. One immoral 

 idea will bring forth a horrible progeny of others, all of 

 which, from the moment of their birth, are ready to do injury. 



MU. 

 2 B 



