Ch, XVI. |] THE SEED. 97 
ous eye the vegetable species with which the earta begins to be 
clothed, seeing successively all the types or representations of 
past generations of plants, admires the power of the Author of 
nature, and the immutability of His laws. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
Germination of the Seed. 
402. We have now considered the various organs of plants: 
we have traced them through their successive stages of deve- 
lopment, from the root to the bud, leaf, and flower, and from 
the flower to the fruit and seed. We have seen in imagination, 
the vegetable world fading under a change of temperature, the 
“sear and yellow leaf,” a prey to the autumnal blasts; and 
even the fruits themselves, exhibiting a mass of decayed mat- 
ter. Were this appearance of decay and death, now presented 
to us for the first time, how gloomy would be the prospect! 
How little should we expect the return of life, and beauty, and 
fragrance! No power short of Omnipotence, can effect this 
miracle. 
403. But we are now so accustomed to these changes, that 
“seeing, we perceive not ;” we think not of the mighty Being, 
who produces them: we call them the operations of nature ; 
and what is nature, or what are the laws of nature, but mani- 
festations of Almighty power? / 
404. The word nature, in its original sense, signifies born or 
perce 3 let us then look on nature as a created thing, and 
eware of yielding that homage to the creature which is due to 
the Creator. The sceptic, with seeming rapture, may talk of 
the beauties of nature, but cold and insensible must be that 
heart, which from the contemplation of the earth around, and 
the heavens above, soars not, 
“To him, the mighty Power from whom these wonders are.” 
405. How beautifully is the re-animation of the vegetable 
world, used by St. Paul, as an illustration of our resurrection 
rom the dead! The same power, which from a small, dry, 
403. Why are mankind so forgetful of the Great Being who fro- 
duces the wonderful changes which nature presents? 
ata eee is the meaning of the word nature, and how should we 
regard it? i 
405. What vee remind us of the resurrection from the dead? 
