LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
CHAPTER I. 
Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe ! 
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of Thought ! 
And giv'st to forms and images a breath 
And everlasting motion ! WORDSWORTH. 
^ 
"^''f^^is i |V - i/>*^ 
WONDER whether it ever 
" i^ occurs to most people to con- 
sider how brimful our world is 
of life, and what a different place 
it would be if no living thing had 
ever been upon it ? From the time 
we are born till we die, there is 
scarcely a waking moment of our 
lives in which our eyes do not 
rest either upon some living thing, 
or upon things which have once 
been alive. Even in our rooms, 
the wood of our furniture and our 
doors could never have been with- 
out the action of life ; the paper on our walls, the 
carpet on our floors, the clothes on our back, the 
cloth upon the table, are all made of materials which 
life has produced for us ; nay, the very marble of 
