THE MYSTERIOUS BALANCE, 
149 
of life and death of which He holds the beam in His 
own hands. 
But my aquarium which has not thus been interfered 
with, presents already a similar scene of life and bustle. 
When first supplied, the milky-looking water was abun¬ 
dantly full of gaseous matters, and every part of the 
rough rockwork was, for a time, studded with silvery 
globules. The fishes consumed all that in the process 
of breathing. As the water passed through their gills 
the oxygen was absorbed; that oxygen, by a process of 
refined chemistry, and perhaps by the help of iron also, 
gave their gills a bright red colour, gave their blood its 
red colour too, and by other processes not less refined, 
sustained the balance of lifers functions within them, for 
without it they must perish. We believe that not the 
airiest particle of earth, atmosphere, or water, nor the 
most minute globule of condensed moisture, or the most 
infinitesimal point of meteoric dust, can ever be lost, at 
least during Time, from the fabric of the universe. My 
fishes tell me that the oxygen they absorb from the 
water, they again return to it, but in another form . 
They Aspire oxygen and ^rpire carbonic acid, just as a 
man does, and every other living creature that moveth 
upon the face of all the earth. Is it within the reach of 
human power, even when reason, imagination, and fancy 
combine together as a bold triad to look direct upon a 
fact, to appreciate that principle of terrestrial life by 
which animal and vegetable organisms reciprocally 
labour to maintain the balance of atmospheric purity ? 
The carbonic acid given off by the animal is poison to it, 
if it accumulate while the supply of oxygen is cut short. 
