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ledge? therefore have I uttered that which I un- 
derstood not: things too wonderful for me that I 
knew not. Job xiii. 
He that hath shut up the sea as with doors, hath 
here fixed a barrier against the swelling of the mind 
of man. Here must we rest in faith. 
A mixture of good and of evil is found in every 
class of sensitive and sentient beings: good abun- 
dant without evil; evil rarely or never without at- 
tendant or succeeding good. ‘“ If you do good with 
pain,” says Chrysostom, “ the pain flies off, the good 
remains. If you do ill with pleasure, the pleasure 
flies, the ill remains.” The physical and moral 
balance is in favour of good. 
Plants considered with relation to man supply 
him with the first allotted, the principal means, 
throughout all time, of his subsistence. The seed, 
the root, the stem, the leaf, the flower, the solids, 
and the juices, all supply nutritious and delicious 
food; all supply medicines which alleviate or heal 
diseases, nearly of opposite diversities of character. 
Some, however, but few in proportion to the total 
number, produce thorns and poisons. ‘The thorns 
arranged by art become useful fences; the poisons, 
modified by experience, as the juices of the poppy, 
the hemlock, the henbane, the thorn-apple, the 
deadly night-shade, the foxglove, are the most po- 
tent balms of the most improved pharmacopeeia. 
The plant kind, as well as mankind, is subject to 
inconvenience and injury from excess of population, 
and from parasites which overwhelm their luxu- 
K 3 
