34 SYMBOLIC TEACHING. 



body, recomposed of its elements, and re-united, after a cer- 

 tain interval, to the soul. 



But whatever the views taken of the mode in which we 

 shall put on immortality, or however modern science may 

 have impaired the fitness of the insect symbol employed to re- 

 present it, there yet remains a very obvious analogy between 

 the stages of insect development, and the progressive states 

 of our own being. The gross and grovelling habits of the 

 Caterpillar, with its repeated castings of skin as it advances 

 towards maturity a maturity which it often fails to reach 

 owing to parasitic enemies ("apt symbols of the vices which 

 prey upon the soul "*) still serve to parallel completely the 

 work of spiritual regeneration. 



Although th^ butterfly seems to have been the first, if not 

 the only insect noticed by the ancients as representative of the 

 immortal principle, there are a multitude of others which fur- 

 nish emblems quite as fitting of the soul's destination to a 

 higher sphere. 



The fly, now regaling upon sweets, or buzzing in the sum- 

 mer sun, has come out from a shape, and most likely from a 

 substance, of disgust. The beetle, now careering it through 

 the summer evening sky, has emerged from the form of an 

 unsightly grub, and from a living burial within the earth. 

 And the gnat, now a graceful and agile sporter in the air, has 



Kirby. 



