METAMORPHOSES. 



57 



especially of the Lepidoptera order, and the resurrection of 

 the body, do away that general analogy which cannot fail to 

 strike every one who at all considers the subject. Even 

 Swammerdam, whose observations have proved that the 

 analogy is not so complete as had been imagined, speaking of 

 the metamorphosis of insects, uses these strong words : This 

 process is formed in so remarkable a manner in butterflies, 

 that we see therein the resurrection painted before our eyes, 

 and exemplified so as to be examined by our hands.'" To 

 see, indeed, a caterpillar crawling upon the earth sustained 

 by the most ordinary kinds of food, which, when it has 

 existed a few weeks or months under this humble form, its 

 appointed work being finished, passes into an intermediate 

 state of seeming death, when it is wound up in a kind of 

 shroud and encased in a coffin, and is most commonly buried 

 under the earth, (though sometimes its sepulchre is in the 

 water, and at others in various substances in the air,) and 

 after this creature and others of its tribe have remained their 

 destined time in this death-like state, to behold earth, air, 

 and water give up their several prisoners : to survey them, 

 when, called by the warmth of the solar beam, they burst 

 from their sepulchres, cast off their cerements, from this 

 state of torpid inactivity, come forth, as a bride out of her 

 chamber — to survey them, I say, arrayed in their nuptial 

 glory, prepared to enjoy a new and more exalted condition of 

 life, in which all their powers are developed, and they are 

 arrived at the perfection of their nature ; when no longer 

 confined to the earth they can traverse the fields of air, their 

 food is the nectar of flowers, and love begins his blissful reign ; 

 — who that witnesses this interesting scene can help seeing 

 in it a lively representation of man in his threefold state of 

 existence, and more especially of that happy day, when, at the 

 call of the great Sun of Righteousnes, all that are in the 

 graves shall come forth, the sea shall give up her dead, and 

 death being swallowed up of life, the nations of the blessed 

 shall live and love to the ages of eternity ? 



But although the analogy between the diflerent states of 



' Hill's Swamm. i. 127. a. 



