62 
THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
as our line of investigation calls to a different 
field, mosses and fungi will be left to other ram¬ 
bles in Nature’s obscurer pathways. (Frontis¬ 
piece.) 
“ Pausing for a moment in our wanderings by 
pond and moss-bank, we wonder at the change 
which has taken place in our conceptions of 
Nature’s handiwork. The low and obscure 
orders which have been under notice have 
become no longer disgusting, but are found to 
possess attractions that invite and well repay 
our investigations. After such revelations we 
are prepared to repeat, with an emphasis never 
before experienced, ‘ He hath made every thing 
beautiful in his time; also he hath set the world 
in his heart; so that no man can find out the 
work that God maketh from the beginning to 
the end.’ 
“The moral of this study of humble vege¬ 
table orders is obvious. ‘The Lord seeth not 
as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward 
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.’ 
Man is prone to judge of things from what, on 
a hasty and imperfect glance, they seem to be; 
God, however, judges from what things actually 
