bright sunlight to invigorate it nor soil to cling to. Year by year and
age by age did these humble plants extract their nourishment from the
murky vapors that shrouded the earth, and, after fashioning those gases
into a living tissue of stems and leaves, year after year did they die
and lay their remains upon the rocks, accumulating by slow steps a soil
which would in time be capable of giving holding-ground to mightier
plants. The trees came,--and gigantic they must have been; and every
species of tree, shrub, and herb now upon the earth, and of all animals
that walk, fly, or swim, was introduced before the creation of man.

It was as if the elements were too gross for the constitution of man,
when they were first collected from the nebulous mass,--as if they
needed to go through the intermediate forms of plants and animals,
passing in succession from one to another, before they could be
permitted to enter into the bodies of those beings who were to be in
God's likeness. But, in very truth, the elements were unaltered by their
many transmigrations. It was the divine act of God which caused every
plant to spring forth and gave birth to every living thing. Every seed
and every egg was at the first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's
will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have animated the
work of his chisel, nor any industrious current of electricity, passed
for uninterrupted weeks through the purest gum, and stimulated by the
enthusiasm of a Cross, can transform the worm to a breathing being, or
reach the human climax by slow steps, even if the first one be in the
humble form of a louse. When a new plant appeared, it was the hand of
God that formed the seed. When a new species of animal came upon the
earth, it was the same Power that created it. But the materials were not
new; "out of the dust of the earth" was man created.

Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, and Nitrogen,--do not turn away from us,