THE HAVrTHORX. 



235 



Plague ; by others, as the actual cause of it ; and 

 by some it was supposed that the destruction of 

 every kind of vegetable would follow. Prayers 

 were offered up in some of the churches to deliver 

 the country from the apprehended approaching 

 calamity. 



We leani from Holy Writ, as well as from the 

 testimony of travellers, both ancient and modern, 

 that an instrument, apparently so contemptible 

 as an insect, is occasionally employed by the Al- 

 mighty as a national scourge — that creatures, 

 whose agency, when they are taken singly, can 

 scarcel}^ be said to be productive of any appreci- 

 able effect, are sometimes commissioned to spread 

 famine and desolation to a degree not to be sur- 

 passed by the worst horrors of war. We know, 

 too, that the produce of the earth may be 

 checked, and the hopes of man disappointed by 

 the instrumentality of a yet meaner agent. Wit- 

 ness the invisible and unknown cause, which, in 

 the present year (1846), defying all the theories 

 of our wisest philosophers, is secretly acting on 

 our potato-fields, and depriving a large portion of 

 our rustic population of a staple article of food. 

 AVe cannot think on these things ^^rithout reflect- 

 ing on the imsearchableness of the ways of God, 

 or ^^ithout deriving to ourselves a deeply prac- 

 tical lesson in humility. We may, if we will, 

 gain yet further instruction from the history of 

 the Hawthorn Butterfly. The transition of in- 

 sects generally from the chrysalis to the perfect 

 state has been compared, ages ago, to the re- 

 surrection, when the redeemed shall rise from 

 their earthly tombs with glorified bodies ; and it 

 would be rash to pronounce the comparison fanci- 



