THE GRIST OF THE GODS 



matter that has fallen upon its surface from out 

 the depths of space must be enormous. It certainly 

 must enter largely into the composition of the soil 

 and of the sedimentary rocks. Celestial dirt we 

 may truly call it, star dust, in which we plant our 

 potatoes and grain and out of which Adam was 

 made, and every son of man since Adam — the 

 divine soil in very fact, the garden of the Eternal, 

 contributed to by the heavens above and all the 

 vital forces below, incorruptible, forever purifying 

 itself, clothing the rocky framework of the globe 

 as with flesh and blood, making the earth truly 

 a mother with a teeming fruitful womb, and her 

 hills veritable mammary glands. The iron in the 

 fruit and vegetables we eat, which thence goes into 

 our blood, may, not very long ago, have formed 

 a part of the cosmic dust that drifted for untold 

 ages along the highways of planets and suns. 



The soil underfoot, or that we turn with our 

 plow, how it thrills with life or the potencies of 

 life! What a fresh, good odor it exhales when we 

 turn it with our spade or plow in spring! It is 

 good. No wonder children and horses like to eat it ! 



How inert and dead it looks, yet what silent, 

 potent fermentations are going on there — millions 

 and trillions of minute organisms ready to further 

 your scheme of agriculture or horticulture. Plant 

 your wheat or your corn in it, and behold the mir- 

 acle of a birth of a plant or a tree. How it pushes 

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