200 DISTINCTIVE DIRECTION". 



to offer, seemingly, no footing for our steps. And, however 

 lowly our position, however often we may have struggled 

 vainly to get onwards, and have sickened with hopelessness at 

 want of means, let us look at the upward movements of the 

 legless, wingless chrysalis, and find therein a symbol of en- 

 couragement. Or let us contrast the wondrous leaps of an 

 insect grub, destitute, to all appearance, of every requisite for 

 active motion, with the dormant inactivity of certain butter- 

 flies and moths, which, possessing ample wings, never use, 

 seem scarcely conscious of possessing them, and we shall 

 herein read, in emblematic language, that it is not to external 

 appliances, but to inward energy, power, and will (used al- 

 ways with reference to their Almighty Giver), that we owe 

 most chiefly our progress and our place. 



We often see such obvious marks of Divine guidance in the 

 movements of animals, that there are times (times of trial, and 

 doubt, and despondency), when one could almost envy the 

 lowest among them for their entire and necessary dependence 

 on their Fatherly Creator. Passing after a tempestuous night 

 through an avenue of lofty elms, we may notice on their 

 rugged trunks a multitude of caterpillars* progressing slowly 

 upwards, in order to regain the leafy pastures from which the 

 wind has shaken them. What, when thrown upon the ground, 

 free, seemingly, to wander in any direction, has thus impelled 

 them to converge, with one accord, towards their native tree, and 



* Those of the Elm Saw-fly are often thus seen. 



