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being of powers so comparatively exalted, and of beauty so superior, as to be 
one of the most elegant of the whole insect tribe. * 
The inquisitive reader may yet wish to inquire still deeper into the state 
of man after death, and to know, before the first and second resurrection, 
where the unembodied spirit is placed, and what is its condition? Scripture 
has kindly unfolded this mysterious part of the dispensations of Providence, 
and in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus we have a clear explanation, 
recorded in chapter xvi. of Luke. 
“ There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple, and fine linen, and 
fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named 
Lazarus, who was laid at his gate full of sores; and desiring to be fed with 
the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover, the dogs came 
* A line poet thus elegantly describes this metamorphose, or change: 
The helpless crawling caterpillar trace, 
From the first period of its reptile race.— 
Cloth’d in dishonour, on the leafy spray 
Unseen he wears his silent hours away. 
Till satiate grown of all that life supplies, 
Self-taught, the voluntary reptile lies. 
Deep under earth his darkling course he bends. 
And to the tomb, a willing guest, descends; 
There long secluded in his lonely cell. 
Forgets the sun, and bids the world farewel. 
O’er the wide world the wint’ry tempests reign, 
And driving snows usurp the frozen plain: 
In vain the tempest beats, the whirlwind blows; 
No storms can violate his grave’s repose.—- 
But when revolving months have won their way. 
When smile the woods, and when the zephyrs play. 
When laughs the vivid world in summer’s bloom, 
He bursts, and flies triumphant from the tomb. 
And while his new-born beauties he displays. 
With conscious joy his alter’d form surveys. 
Mark, while he moves amid the sunny beam, 
O’er his soft wings the varying lustre gleam. 
Launch’d into air, on purple plumes he soars. 
Gay Nature’s face with wanton glance explores; 
Proud of his various beauties wings his way. 
And robs the fairest flow’rs, himself more fair than they, 
And shews to man death’s awful power is vain, 
If worms can die, and glorious rise again. 
Shaw. 
Allegorical of this, we have in ancient sculpture Cupid holding a butterfly on his finger, 
expressive of divine love, shewn in the new embodying of the spirit, for there were two Cupids, an 
heavenly and earthly Cupid. So in our scripture, “ God is love." John. 
