NOTES FROM MY OLD DIARY. 113 



Isaac Newton, who had learned to see and think as a 

 child — results so wonderful that the less observant have 

 been disposed to attribute them to actual inspiration 

 from God. True, He implanted the seed thus nurtured in 

 the child, and brought forth the fruits in the man. 



But I am wandering away from my subject, the ways 

 of those tiny insects, the twig-borers. 



How marvellous and wonderful is their instinct ! Note 

 the curious means employed to accomplish an end which 

 could not be foreknown by experience, by teaching or 

 by reasoning, in the creature working for the future 

 preservation of her unseen offspring. The calculating of 

 the exact date when it should come forth, and the 

 corresponding time when the girdled branch should part 

 from the tree, thus providing a nursery for her infant 

 and sufficient nutriment to sustain it, until in its turn it 

 arrives at the perfect state of the mother beetle, to enjoy 

 like her a brief term of life, prepare a cradle for its 

 offspring, and die. 



Surely this leaves a lesson for man to ponder over 

 and confess that he knows but little. The wisdom of 

 man must be but foolishness in the sight of God, since he 

 cannot fathom even the ways of one of the most 

 insignificant of the works of the Creator. How then 

 can man by his puny wisdom find out God ? 



