of narrow range and low intensity 
except oxygen. Oxygen is greedy to 
attack almost everything, the others 
unite but sparingly and feebly. From 
these elements, life chooses combina- 
tions that are easily changed in form 
and light enough to stand up from the 
earth, to swim in the waters, and even 
to fly in the atmosphere. So gaseous 
and quick to change are the things of 
life that life itself has the reputation 
of being fleeting. Development is a 
change in the arrangement of parts, 
and function is a transformation of 
motion. These four elements, three 
gaseous and one solid, three very 
exclusive and one very free in choosing 
all sorts of associates, have been the 
means whereby life has been possible 
upon the earth. Their characters 
have provided for what are known as 
differentiation and integration. 
With these materials is formed the 
mass which is the lowest form of life, 
protoplasm. This may be formed 
into cells or not, but it is from this 
beginning the scale of living things 
springs, rising in beautiful and 
mysterious forms till the earth is 
enveloped and beautified so that we 
can hardly think of it except as the 
receptacle prepared by Omniscience 
for the entertainment of living beings, 
all of which point to the highest and 
speak of the expansion and eternal 
value of the human soul. 
By getting next to other substances, 
or by getting them inside, the 
organism draws within itself new 
matter of its own selection. It chooses 
always material that is chemically 
similar to itself, and we say it grows. 
Where it wears away in the pursuit, 
it makes repairs with the fresh 
material. Where the pursuit is 
wearing, and requires great activity or 
strength, the new matter is consumed 
in furnishing energy alone. 
When the period of growth is well 
advanced, the living thing matures 
organs for the preservation of its kind. 
Male and female are distinguished. A 
seed marks the female element in the 
plant, and in the animal an ovum or 
egg. And as soon as the race has 
been provided for, the individual is of 
no more use upon the face of the 
earth. It has served its purpose, and 
merits a reward. But whether in the 
economy of nature the joys of life are 
regarded as sufficient reward to every 
living creature, there follows fast up<m 
the heels of its usefulness a period of 
lamentable decline. The elements 
which were so facile in building up 
the individual are no longer active in 
furnishing energy, repair, and growth. 
All these products are lopped off. 
Weakness, debility, and shrinking 
ensue. The organism loses its 
attractiveness for its kind, the pulse 
of life weakens, and the corpse falls to 
the earth, yielding rapidly to a process 
of transformation called decay, which 
is merely a giving up of what has 
been recently of use to this form of 
life to some new form of the same sort 
or a different one. Life is so swift 
and relentless that most of its subjects 
fall by the way and give up their 
substance so effectually that there is 
no memory or record left upon the face 
of the earth that such a form has ever 
been. 
And so God is creating the heavens 
and the earth. While we participate 
in a measure in this creation, let us 
observe and enjoy it and be wise. 
38 
