THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
73 
go on some August day to a clear pond or 
meadow rain-pool and gather a few fronds of 
any water-plants or strands of submerged hay, 
and you will doubtless have an opportunity to 
feast your eyes on some of the most exquisite 
objects ever looked upon. In addition to those 
specimens of water-jewelry already named, but 
more rarely, the Etidorina will be found float¬ 
ing and rolling before the eyes. Smaller in 
size, but more rich in coloring, it is indeed a 
thing of beauty. The Syfiura and several other 
forms of this order of minute vegetable life will 
be found, but further detail may be omitted, for, 
like the rainbow, description can give no just 
conception of the bright reality: sight alone can 
hold the picture up to the excited imagination, 
and then there will be room and verge enough 
before the mind will fully get the glories of this 
beautiful life as Jehovah fashioned it. 
“ What a sublime idea of creative power is 
impressed upon the mind when we try and 
measure its possibilities from the standpoint of 
these globular atoms in a drop of water, sweep¬ 
ing onward and upward to the incomprehensible 
magnitudes of the stellar worlds! And truly, 
the infinitely great has not plainer proofs of the 
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