462 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
barbaric people, then will it be found to have evolved those characteristics 
which will best enable it to fulfil the conditions of the life which it is to lead. 
If my attempt has been at all successful, I have shown the succession in life- 
forms and how this succession is as necessary as the link to the chain. It is 
not alone in the church that there is a doctrine of apostolic succession, but all 
life is but an illustration of God’s mighty wisdom and providence, and his 
creatures are constantly giving him the praise which consists not in mere 
petition, but in the proper conduct of the life assigned to them, and the dis¬ 
charge of such offices as have been entailed upon them. The animal world as 
.such recognizes, through instinct, the will of its Creator, and yields an unre- 
luctant obedience to the laws prescribed for its being. To an animal, “ laborare 
£st orare ” and by night and by day the animal world is faithful to the laws 
of its being, and thus justifies the opening of the anthem called Genesis: 
“And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one 
place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. And God said, let the 
earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit 
after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth ; and it was so. And God 
said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, 
and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which 
the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl 
after his kind; and God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth 
bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping things, and 
beasts of the earth after his kind; and it was so.” Or as the non-inspired poet 
hath sung: 
Thou from primeval nothingness did’st call, 
First chaos, then existence ; Lord ! on Thee 
Eternity had its foundation ; all 
Spring forth from thee ; of light, joy, harmony, 
Sole origin ; all life, all beauty, Thine. 
Thy word created all, and doth create ; 
Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine ; 
Thou art, and wert, and shalt be ! Glorious 
Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate! 
Thy chains the unmeasured universe around ; 
Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath ! 
Thou the beginning with the end hast bound, 
And beautifully mingled life and death ! 
As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze, 
So suns are born, so worlds spring forth from Thee; 
And as the spangles in the sunny rays 
Shine round the silver snow, the pageantry 
Of heaven’s bright army glitters in Thy praise. 
With the end of the reign of birds, the world was ready for the appear¬ 
ance of the mammal and a new order entered upon existence, beginning with the 
duck-mole and echidnse, and progressing upward till it reached the quadrumana 
or primate , the highest class below man and supposed by some to have been 
man’s ancestors. Such theorists however seem to overlook the fact that the 
quadrumana while developing even structural differences of moment, are wholly 
