SOMETHING GATHERS UP THE FRAGMENTS. 237 



The depths of the forest present to the eye of the 

 traveller a scene of tangled confusion. Here fallen 

 trees, with upturned roots, lie prostrate on the ground ; 

 branchless, leafless, decaying trunks, unsightly to the 

 eye ; beds of blackened leaves ; shattered boughs, 

 whitened and grey with fungous growth ; naked stems 

 ready to fall, their barkless wood graven with many 

 fantastic traceries, the work of the various insect larvae 

 that have sheltered therein their nurseries while the 

 tree was yet living and strong. A thousand forms of 

 vegetable life are below, filling up the vacant places of 

 the soil. 



In the silence of that lonely leafy wilderness there is 

 active, sentient life — nothing is idle, nothing stands still ; 

 instead of waste and confusion we shall find all these 

 things are working out the will of the Creator. 



" Disorder — order unperceived by thee ; 

 All chance — direction which thou canst not see." 



Here lies one of the old giants of the forest at our 

 feet. Take heed how you step upon it. By its huge 

 size and the pile of rifted bark beside it one judges it 

 must have had a growth of two hundred years, drinking 

 in the rain and the dews, and being fed by the gases 

 that float unseen in the atmosphere. The earth had 

 sustained it year after year, giving strength and support 

 to the mighty trunk from its store of mineral substance 

 through the network of cable-like roots and fibres 



