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certain conditions, are literally immortal. That is to say, they are capable of retaining their growing power indefinitely; not merely for a few years, not merely for a few centuries, but for thousands of years,how long indeed no man can say. The earthy crust of our planet appears to be stocked in every part with seeds that have been produced in years gone by, scattered upon the surface, and subsequently covered up with soil. Whenever the ground is disturbed, either by the plough, or by the spade of the railway excavator, or for any purpose which causes its depths to be overturned, that portion which was many feet below being thrown to the surface, and exposed to the air, the sunbeams, and the moisture of dew and rain, immediately there springs up a crop of young plants, certainly not originating in seeds only just then brought from neighbouring fields, and as certainly from seeds that have been lying in it for ages. How they came to be covered up is easy to conceive, when we see with our own eyes what is done by wintry floods, and the sweeping down of great masses of earth and soil, which accumulate often to a considerable depth, and are no doubt similarly charged with seeds that, after waiting their turn, will some day grow. For it is a clearly established fact that no seed can germinate or begin to sprout, unless it have the threefold influence in direct operation upon it, of warmth, moisture, and the air. Let it be shut in from the access of these, and it lies passive, giving no sign of life or growth, and incapable of doing so.

How wonderful to think that this crust of the earth upon which we daily walk so thoughtlessly, is at once the cemetery of five or six thousand billions of men and women, so far as regards their terrestrial bodies, they themselves being all vigorously alive in another state, and a storehouse of the germs of as many billions of plants and flowers! What a provision in it for the perpetual renewal of the earth's green carpet! Let blight, or locusts, or the cold grip of an inexorable frost, change it to brown barrenness, and the simple upheaval of a few feet of soil would soon furnish material for clothing it anew. God never leaves himself without a witness. The world is never so drowned but some little ark swims upon the water's top with a treasury of new blessedness; and could we conceive it possible that desolation should afflict the earth's surface, under the laws of natural calamity,-we are assured that from the granaries below there would soon flow forth an abundant restoration.

Some people have tried to refer this wonderful circumstance of the immediate growth of plants upon newly turned-up soil to an origin inconsistently called "spontaneous generation," that is to say, development out

of earth, sand, and water, and any other odds and ends of inanimate matter that might happen to be collected together. No doubt, if it pleased the Almighty to sow life afresh upon our planet, he could do so. It may be in conformity with the laws of his Divine Order so to do. But all that it has been permitted to man to learn and think in reference to this subject, is opposed to the idea of plants and animals ever now arising except from seeds and eggs produced by previous individuals or pairs of the same species. We are never justified in going to supernatural causes for the explanation of occurrences which a calm and religious exploration will show to have their rise in natural causes; and no ground has ever yet been shewn for supposing that the plants which appear on railway embankments and any similar places, cannot have originated in the way described.

True, there is a great deal that is very perplexing in regard to the apparently spontaneous development of some forms of living things, such as grubs in flour and bran. But the perplexity is the sign merely of our ignorance of particulars, that no doubt it will be granted to future generations of men to discover. It is certainly no proof that the hypothesis of spontaneous development is a reasonable one. We are under no circumstances justified in trying to accommodate facts that we do not understand to speculations that are not founded upon other and well-established facts. If they will not fit, our wisdom is to wait. No one can discern the seeds in the earth; yet they are there. So are the germs in the bran, waiting, like the former, for their needful stimuli. Nothing is ever got by arguing from our ignorance, nor is anything ever got by too much eagerness and haste to possess it. "Tarry ye the Lord's leisure," is the soundest principle yet, both in religion and philosophy. If materialists, who look with approval on such hypotheses as that of "spontaneous devolopment," would first seek to learn all that it has pleased God to disclose concerning development according to the laws of order, as exhibited in the regular succession of plants and animals, and in the history of the human heart and mind, they would find that no philosophy is so wise and good, and will help them through so many difficulties, as that which starts from the spiritual and from MAN; and primarily from the Divine Humanity, which,—with all reverence be it spoken,-is the point from which run the avenues to all science and all nature, and in which they all converge, like the branches of a tree in its pillared stem.

Special examples of the growth of long-buried seeds upon newly turned-up soil are easy to cite. Some of the most extraordinary are those where poppies are the subject. No plant in nature is more

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remarkable than the poppy. Humble in its growth, its juice is one of the most powerful sedatives known to medicine, while the essence of that juice, called morphia, is one of the most powerful of vegetable poisons. At night the flowers close in a peculiarly elegant manner,— sleeping as if lulled by their own lethean balm; the petals, instead of being laid smooth and flat in the bud, as happens with almost every other flower, are squeezed and crumpled together, so that they never become perfectly straight; and when they expand, they do so with such force as to thrust off the green chalice that encircled them as a cradle. Every capsule, or 'poppy head," contains thousands of minute seeds, which are beautifully chased upon the outside, so as to form exquisite objects for the microscope, without which the embossing cannot be seen; and lastly, these seeds, when they fall upon the ground, seem indestructible. They only spring up, however, and form new poppy plants when the earth which contains them is lightly disturbed. Trodden in, so that the earth is compacted, and themselves denied, as it were, elbow-room, they lie without any effort to grow. Of course, under such circumstances, they cannot be stimulated by the threefold essentials, sunshine, air, and light. There is little doubt that within these last few years, and probably this very last summer, crops of the wild crimson poppy of our own country have sprung up from seeds which were ripened at that remote period in the history of the fragment of Europe we now call Britain, when no part of it was occupied by human beings. The geological character of the surface and subjacent layers shews that thousands of years must have rolled away since the parents of these poppies flaunted their gay apparel in the inexperienced sunshine; and but for the accidental disruption of the soil that contained them, they would apparently have retained their growing power for ages to come.

When tracts of forest-land are cleared of the timber, as often happens in North America, and occasionally in our own country, the following season there springs up in abundance where the trees stood previously, some pretty herbaceous plant that was quite unknown there while the trees existed, and which had been patiently "biding its time." The explanation of such curious appearances is perfectly simple. The herbaceous plant, whatever it may be, had occupied the ground when there were no trees there, forming some kind of herbage or meadow, and letting fall its annual progeny of seeds. In course of time trees have sprung up, their own seeds conveyed thither either by human agency, or by one or other of the wonderful contrivances of nature which ensure their propagation, whether man give his aid or not. These trees have offered too dense a shade for the herbaceous plant, which retires, as it

were, into private life; but when, in their own turn, cut down, the original plants return, covering the surface with the old imperishable carpet. Is the mortality or the immortality of nature the most wonderful? Every season the ranks of the vegetable population of our planet are smitten by death,-there seems no hope for its restoration. There is no sound, no movement, to shew that life is still throbbing; yet, with the first kisses of the new-born year, the necropolis changes into a scene of nimble and beautiful growth, and we see that it was not destruction that was effected by the cold touch of winter,-that nothing had really perished; but that it was Life that had retired awhile to gather itself up for a new effort-simulating death, and which now bursts forth again in all the old exuberance and sprightly sweetness. What looks like death in nature is never anything more than the highest and essential part of its life, pausing awhile that it may start anew. The forms in which it is clothed are cast away; but the life never gives way for a single instant.

And this is the grand lesson to be learned from the consideration of seeds, and their wonderful vitality. Every particular seed contains within itself the life of the plant, just as one's own true life resides in the spiritual body. Our leaves and blossoms drop away with autumn; the white snow descends upon our brows, its flakes tremble in the wind; the colours fade; the force declines; presently the whole of the poor, old, worn-out frame sinks helplessly in the dust, never to rise again; but who or what is dead? Cross the dark river, which in the material world is represented by winter, and then all that is worth having is found safe, and beautiful, and shining in the sweet lineaments of renewed youth!

Many kinds of seeds are gifted with powers not merely of retaining life under the ordinary circumstances of nature, but of resisting the most terrible attacks. When wine has been made from raisins, and the refuse has been scattered over the fields as manure, it has been observed that the grape-seeds have vegetated, and produced young vines, and this notwithstanding the various processes of boiling and fermentation they have had to endure. The seeds of elder-berries have been observed to grow after similar trials by fire. Many experiments have been made to ascertain exactly what amount of unnatural heat seeds can really bear without being destroyed. It considerably exceeds that which plants can bear, and the same is the case with extreme cold.

Here we must now conclude, inviting all intelligent and living minds, the younger the better, to take up for themselves the study of the wonderful phenomena of nature. They are not only good and delight

fnl to contemplate in themselves, but they have the higher value of invariably representing the great truths of religion. There is probably no true doctrine in matters of religion which is not somewhere illustrated in the processes of nature; certainly there is nothing in the benevolence of God with regard to man of which we may not find some exquisite parallel among the forms of humble nature, learning from them even to understand it better, because shewn in such a simple way. The "diligent hand" always "maketh rich," both in worldly possessions and in the best of all knowledge, which is that of the Love and Wisdom of God.

DEVOTIONAL MEDITATIONS.-No. I.

PSALM CXXXIX.

"CANST thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find him out to perfection? Higher than heaven, what canst thou know? Deeper than hell, what canst thou do?" How, then, can finite man find out the Infinite? The deeper are the depths he searches, the deeper seem the depths unsearchable! The higher are the heights he scans, the farther from the highest he seems to be!

And if thou canst not search infinity, canst thou reach back into eternity? Thou worm of yesterday! look forth upon creation's mighty scene, and say, whence camest thou into this great universe? Hast thou not crawled hither from the dust? Is not thy span of life but threescore years and ten? And long time before thou wert, had not ages unrecorded, and unknown, been measured out in yonder firmament? Canst thou become historian of the heavens? Where wert thou, then, when first Orion glorified the heavens? when first the Pleiades shed their sweet influences abroad? when, too, the morning stars first sang together? Oh, Father of Eternity! "before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God!" How shall I search out Thy being, when all worlds were before me, and Thou Thyself before all worlds!

Yet, if by searching I cannot find out God, can He not by searching find out me? Yes, verily. O Lord my God! Thou hast searched me out and known me! And yet shalt Thou, the Omniscient One, add to Thy knowledge by searching out me? or must Thou, too, search that Thou mayest find? or hast Thou not found before Thou searchest? May I not say with Job-" Hast Thou eyes of flesh? Seest Thou as man seeth? Are Thy days as the days of man? are Thy years as man's days, that Thou inquirest after my iniquity, and searchest after my

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