she said, "when baby was out for a walk, a lady gave her this." She thought
it very pretty, but she was surprised when I showed it to her through a
magnifying-glass, and told her that it had been made by a very tiny kind
of jelly-fish; a plant-animal some people call it, of the same kind as the
sea-anemone; and she wondered still more when we found in a book a picture
of a coral island, and I told her that such little creatures have been busy
ever since the world began, constantly building up the coral-rocks. These
rocks, which are strong enough to resist the force of the waves, rise out
of the sea naked and bare, but are soon covered with green, and become the
resting-place of the sea-birds, until at last they are like that lovely
island, fringed with tall cocoa-palms, which we saw in the picture. If it
were not for the myriads of tiny jelly-fishes, who work on and on, each
forming its own little bones from the lime it gets from the sea-water,
dying, and leaving its skeleton behind for others to build upon, there
would be none of these beautiful green isles of the sea of which sailors
love to tell us.
We were speaking of contrasts some time ago; now for a contrast. Beside the
coral, with its lovely branching sprays, we will put a piece of coal. You
think the coal very black and ugly, not fit to be put alongside the white
coral; but let me tell you that there is that in the coal which was once
far more beautiful than the coral--which is only a bare skeleton after
all--could ever be; for, though coal and coral are alike dead now, both
were once full of life.
But the coal, which is certainly more useful than beautiful at present, has
had a wonderful past. Besides the fossil-animals which are dug out of the
earth's crust, there are also fossil-trees and ferns, and it is of them
that coal, which seems only like a black stone, is made. I have read that
in a part of England where there are now great coal mines, for a long time
no one knew the worth of coal except some old women, who said they could
make their fires burn beautifully by putting those black bits of stone upon
them. How strange this seems; and what should we do now if we had not these
black stones to burn? Coal is generally called a mineral, as all things
which are dug from mines are called; but it is really a vegetable. You may
perhaps pick up in some swampy place, a piece of wood, very black, which
breaks as you handle it. Look at it well, for this wood is being turned
into coal; but for what was once a forest to become a coal-mine takes a
very long time indeed, with a strange history of change and decay; yet it
is true that the coal dug out of mines is nothing else than trees and ferns
and mosses, long ago buried by mud and sand, and so crushed together that
they have become like a piece of black stone.
The other day Chrissie had what you would consider a rare treat, for his
father took him and his brother down a coal-mine. They put on some of the
miners' clothes, and then got into the "cage," and were let down by a
strong chain; down, down, until they reached the bottom of the shaft, as
the tunnel from the mouth of the coal-pit to the place where men are at
work below is called. I have never seen a mine of any kind, but if I ever
find myself at the bottom of a coal-pit, I think I shall use my eyes, and
see whether, even in such a grimy place, I cannot find something beautiful.
I shall hold my safety-lamp high, and look carefully at the roof and sides
of the mine, for I have been told that in all coal-mines remains of the
plants from which the coal is made are to be found; so I should not be
surprised to find here and there in the dark shining walls traces of leaves
and branches; and upon the hard clay which forms the roof, beautiful
patterns of ferns, which lived long, long ago, and have lain buried for
ages.
"In a valley, centuries ago,
Grew a little fern-plant, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender,
Waving in the wind, crept down so low;
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it;
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it;
Drops of dew stole down by night and crowned it;
But no foot of man e'er came that way,
Earth was young and keeping holiday."
We can speak of the roof and the floor of a coal-mine, because the coal
lies in what are called seams, between layers of slate or hard clay. I
cannot tell you much about the sedges and reeds and giant ferns, the
remains of which have been found in these seams of coal, but I know that
they are of the same kind as plants which are now found in damp and warm
places, though they were giants indeed compared with them. Some of these
old-world plants would not grow in our country now, but there are great
mare's-tails, just the same as the small ones which I have often found
beside a pool of black water on an Irish bog; and I have read that some
plants with stems fifty feet long, which are found in coal, are of the same
kind as a pretty little moss which grows upon the mountains almost all over
England.
You remember the story about the boy who was brought up in a mine. Now I
want to tell you about a little girl who did not live in a coal-mine, but
was often taken there by her father. Her mother had died when she was a
baby, and as she grew older her father was her constant friend, and loved
his little daughter so much that he liked to have her always near him. And
so, though she was only seven years old when he came to work in this mine,
he very often took her with him in the cage, and she had leave to stay
underground until his work was done and he could take her home again.
Children can always find ways of amusing themselves, and this child had a
happy time in her strange nursery, and many a merry game she played among
the coal. As she grew older her father allowed her to carry a lantern, as
the miners did, and she would go fearlessly through the dark passages by
herself, until she knew all their windings as well as you know the paths in
your father's garden.
But all at once this happy life came to an end: three years had passed, and
she was just ten years old, when a great sorrow came to this child. As her
dear father was going down the shaft one morning the chain broke, and the
cage fell to the bottom of the mine. When his mates ran to the spot, they
knew at once that he had been killed by that terrible fall, and slowly and
sadly they took up his crushed and wounded body and carried it home. The
first thing that the dear little daughter knew about the accident which had
made her an orphan child, was when she saw the men, who had worked with her
father, coming towards his cottage with their sad burden.
She at once ran to meet them, asking when father would be home; but the
sight of their faces soon told her, young as she was, all the truth. When
first she understood what had happened she cried with a bitter cry, for her
father was all she had in the world. Then, while the rough miners, amid
their tears, tried to comfort her, she suddenly knelt down on the grass
where they had laid the body and prayed as her dear father had taught her
to pray.
[Illustration: THE MINER'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.]
What a touching thing it must have been to see the child kneeling there,
and to hear her, in her great grief, say three times over, "Thy will be
done!"
One of the miners took her to his home, and they all tried to comfort her.
At first it seemed as if she could not recover from the shock, and they
feared she would die of grief; but by-and-by she began to try to help
the kind woman--who was like a mother to her--in the care of her little
children, and at last she got courage to go down into the mine again, to
the very place where her poor father had been killed.
But she did not come now to run about and play hide-and-seek among the
winding ways; those days were over, and the sorrowful time, which had
passed since then, had taught her precious lessons. Her father's Friend
was _her_ Friend now, and she loved to carry the Bible, which had belonged
to her father, down into the mine, and while the miners were taking their
dinner or their short rest, she used to sit beside them and read them
chapters and psalms, and so became a little messenger to tell them of the
love of God. Do you know a hymn about shining in this world--where so "many
kinds of darkness" are found--for the Lord Jesus Christ? I do not know
whether this child had ever heard of it, but it is very sweet to see that
the Lord had taught her to shine--as the hymn says--"first of all for Him";
then in her little corner in that humble cottage where she tried, in spite
of her own sore trouble, to be a cheer and comfort to the miner's wife; and
then He gave her a little corner in the dark mine where she might shine
"Like a little candle
Burning in the night."
The rough men loved this gentle child who had known sorrow so early. They
listened as she read to them, and used to say she was their good angel. If
we remember that an angel means a messenger, we shall perhaps think it not
a wrong name to give to her, since she read to them God's Book, which is
His message to us.
While we were talking about the earth-crust, I daresay you were wishing to
know, as I did, how thick it is--how far down the layers of rocks go, and
what lies underneath the lowest layer of all.
These are questions which cannot be answered; for no one has ever been able
to search so far into the hidden parts of the earth as to tell us what lies
beneath those fire-rocks, which are the lowest known, although they are
sometimes found upon the tops of mountains, cast up by a mighty heaving of
the crust, such as happens when there is an earthquake, or what is called
the "eruption" of a volcano.
But what power could be strong enough to heave up solid rocks, and to make
the firm ground upon which we tread, and upon which the houses are built,
waver to and fro like the restless sea, so that the strongest buildings
begin to totter and fall, and the bravest men run for their lives?
It is the mighty power of steam--caused by the great heat far down
below--which, when it does come to any part of the earth's surface, makes
itself known in very terrible ways.
We do not often hear of earthquakes near home; but in some of the most
beautiful parts of the world they are so common that the houses are built
only one storey high, and of wood, not stone, because low houses are less
likely to fall, and wooden ones are easily built up again, if overthrown. I
think you have heard of the boiling springs in Iceland, which burst through
the ground, shaking it and making it tremble; just as the steam shakes the
lid of the teakettle; and rising almost to the clouds, with a noise like
fireworks; and perhaps you may have seen the hot springs at Bath, from
which a cloud of steam rises almost in the heart of the beautiful old city,
and which are believed to come from a depth of nearly a mile.
Such is the force of this steam that even the bed of the sea has been
heaved up by it into a burning mountain, from which great stones are cast
high into the air; while down its sides flow melted rocks and metals,
forming the lava which, when seen at night, looks like a stream of liquid
fire, but quickly cools into a river of mud. All these strange things tell
us terrible tales of the great heat which is somewhere in the heart of the
earth, and help us to understand the verse which tells us all we really
know about it: "As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is
turned up as it were fire."
New Zealand is a country where there are many hot springs, and several
mountains which were once volcanoes, but were supposed to have died out.
One of these, Mount Tarawera, was situated in what was called the Hot Lake
district, because there were not only boiling springs, but pools of hot
water there. The Hot Lakes valley was not only a lovely green spot, but
it was noted for the wonderful Pink and White Terraces, which were so
beautiful as to be one of the sights which people from all countries came
to see.
Imagine, if you can, basins of white and pink marble rising one above
another, filled with water of the deepest blue, by a warm stream which kept
flowing over them in a constant cascade. You would have enjoyed a bath
there, I am sure, and would have been interested to see the country-people
cooking their food in some of the neighbouring springs where the water came
from so great a depth that it was always boiling.
But this lovely place was full of hidden dangers; for miles around these
lakes the ground was hot and crumbling, and in many places so thin that if
you did not tread very carefully, you might find yourself sinking into hot
mud.
It was in June, which you know is winter-time in New Zealand, in the year
1885, that the people of Wairoa, a beautiful place where some missionaries
had settled that they might teach the Maoris, were awakened at midnight by
a heavy shock of earthquake, accompanied by a fearful roar, which made them
rush out of their houses in terror. The sight which greeted them was grand
but awful. Ernest has a picture of it in his room; but I suppose it would
not be possible for any picture to give an idea of what the poor frightened
people saw. Mount Tarawera had been asleep for a hundred and twenty years,
so that it was supposed to have burnt itself out, and to be no longer
dangerous. But it was awake now: the fearful roar which had aroused the
sleepers was caused by its having suddenly burst into flame; and it
continued to throw high into the sky fire and mud and stones, while the
inhabitants of the peaceful little village saved what they could carry, and
then fled away in their night-dresses.
As morning broke, a dense pillar of ashes rose from the burning, roaring
mountain; the school-house, where sixty Maori boys and girls used to be
taught, was struck by lightning; and while burning, overwhelmed with
torrents of hot mud and stones. Sad to say, the schoolmaster and most of
his family were killed, the two eldest daughters only being rescued from
the buried house. How well it is to know that Mr. Hazard and the four
children who were taken out dead from the ruins, were ready, quite ready
for whatever might happen, because they knew the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Saviour!
God allowed them to lose their lives upon that dreadful day; but for them
the eruption of the volcano was only the "chariot of fire" by which He was
pleased to take them away in a moment, to be for ever with the Lord, who
had loved them and given Himself for them.
The darkness caused by the ashes which fell in a ceaseless shower for
eighteen hours, continued till noon the next day, when it was seen that not
only had the beautiful marble terraces vanished, but the whole valley had
been blown into the air by the tremendous force of imprisoned steam. A
traveller describing the scene of desolation says,[Footnote: Miss Gordon
Cumming on "The Eruption of Tarawera in 1885."] "Even living birds were
coated with mud, while for some days after the eruption the poor bewildered
cattle roamed about this dreary wilderness mad with hunger and thirst,
gnawing boughs of trees or decayed wood, bellowing pitifully, and with eyes
bloodshot and nostrils choked with greasy slate-coloured mud, which lay an
inch thick all over their coats." And of the smiling valley itself, she
says: "Where, but a few days previously, the wild fowl were swimming
securely among the reeds and sedges which bordered the quiet lakes, there
now exists only a chaotic wilderness of cones and craters all in hideous
activity, ejecting clouds of pestilential black smoke and showers of
stones. One large crater was in full action on the spot where the beautiful
Pink Terrace had hitherto gladdened all visitors by its loveliness, and
another apparently close to the White Terrace was throwing up masses of
black dust and steam, which rose in columns thousands of feet in height."
There is a verse in the hundred and fourth Psalm which tells how God
"touched the hills, and they smoke." There are many burning and smoking
mountains in different parts of the world, besides those which have risen
from the depths of the sea; some of them have destroyed whole cities by hot
streams of lava or showers of ashes; there are some whose high peaks are
covered with snow, and yet from those snowy heights the fire sometimes
breaks forth; and there are others which are called extinct volcanoes,
because the fire no longer breaks forth from them as it once did; but Mount
Tarawera has taught us not to be too sure that a volcano which has been
quiet for more than a hundred years is really extinct.
Hot springs, earthquakes, burning mountains, all tell the same tale:
somewhere beneath the earth's surface there is a quantity of heated
material, and these "convulsions of nature" which are so terrible in their
effects come from the efforts made by it to escape from its prison. A
friend who had been in a South American city during an earthquake told me
of the terror-stricken feeling which he experienced when he ran out of the
house in alarm, only to see buildings reeling and falling, and to feel the
solid earth itself rocking beneath his feet, while from beneath came a
rumbling noise, and a sound as of the clanking of chains. This trembling
and rocking of the earth has led savage nations to speak of some monster
underground turning his huge body. Shocks of earthquakes are occasionally
felt in England, and in the north-west of Ireland sheets of lava show that
volcanoes were once nearer home than we think. The Giants' Causeway, in
the north of Ireland, and Fingal's Cave, in the Island of Staffa, off the
north-west coast of Scotland, have been made by this lava having cooled and
split up into beautifully formed columns, which look like stone pillars.
"BEAUTIFUL THINGS.
"What millions of beautiful things there must be
In this mighty world!--who could reckon them all!
The tossing, the foaming, the wide flowing sea,
And thousands of rivers that into it fall.
"Oh, there are the mountains, half covered with snow,
With tall and dark trees, like a girdle of green,
And waters that wind in the valleys below,
Or roar in the caverns too deep to be seen.
"Vast caves in the earth, full of wonderful things,
The bones of strange animals, jewels and spars;
Or far up in Iceland, the hot boiling springs,
Like fountains of feathers or showers of stars!
"Here spread the sweet meadows, with thousands of flowers;
Far away are old woods, that for ages remain;
Wild elephants sleep in the shade of their bowers,
Or troops of young antelopes traverse the plain.
"Oh yes, they are glorious, all to behold,
And pleasant to read of, and curious to know;
And something of God in His wisdom we're told
Whatever we look at--wherever we go!"
ANNE TAYLOR.
THE THIRD DAY.
THE GREEN EARTH.
"_The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof._"--PSALM xxiv. 1.
"_Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it:... Thou preparest them corn,
when Thou hast so provided for it._"--PSALM lxv. 9.
"_Every tree is known by his own fruit._"--LUKE vi. 44.
I want you to read carefully verses 11, 12, 13, and then 29 and 30, of our
chapter in Genesis; for in them God has told us of His work upon the THIRD
DAY of Creation, when at His word the earth--no longer waste and bare, as
when it came up from beneath the waters--was clothed in garments of beauty;
"dressed in living green," as the hymn says.
I remember that when we began our morning lesson about the THIRD DAY, we
noticed that God caused the earth, which had no life in itself, to bring
forth that which was alive; for every green thing which grows upon the
surface of the earth, no matter how tiny it may be, is quite different from
those rocks which form its crust, about which we have been learning. Rocks
and stones are without life, but every blade of grass which you tread under
your feet, every blossom which scents the breeze, is alive.
We had a good deal of talk about this, for life is a very wonderful thing;
one of those "secret things" which belong to God, and which no one has ever
been able to understand. But though we cannot know what this wonderful
secret is, we can understand how great a difference there is between living
things and those which have never had any life in them. If you were to take
a pebble and hide it in the earth, you might water it every day, and the
sun might shine upon it, while you waited and waited till you were quite
old; but no change would come to the pebble, If you dug for it you would
find it a pebble still.
But with a plant, how different! See how those weeds in your garden grow.
You may cut them down, or bury them underground--do anything indeed except
pull them up by the roots--and still they will force their way through the
soil which you pressed down so tightly over them; their leaves will push
themselves up into the light and air, and their roots will strike deep into
the earth, for every bit of them is alive; as the "Song of the Crocus"
says--
"My leaves shall run up, and my root shall run down,
While the bud in my bosom is swelling."
Long ago, when I was a child, I saw a field covered with beautiful white
things, smooth and rounded like the top of an egg, which seemed to rise
here and there from the grass. They grew out of the ground, but yet they
did not look like any flowers I had ever seen. I was told that the pretty
white things were mushrooms, and that I might gather as many as I could in
my pinafore, and take them home for breakfast.
You may fancy how delightful it was to search about in the dewy grass,
every minute finding a mushroom finer and whiter than the rest; but what
puzzled me was the wonder of it--how had they all come there?
They had grown up in the night, I was told, while I had been asleep in
my bed; and I knew it must be so, for I had been in that field only the
evening before, and had seen nothing there but the sheep, eating the grass
and daisies.
The thought of these beautiful white things growing up so quietly in the
night-time, when no one could see them, was very wonderful to me, and I
only wished that I might stay up all the next night in that field, and see
them come, and find out how they grew: I was sure I could keep awake all
night!
But since then I have learnt that there are many, many things about which
we grown people, as well as you children, may ask questions, and say, "How
do they come?" and there is no answer ready for us except that old wise
answer--God has made them to be.
I daresay you may have a little garden of your own. Did you ever, in
spring-time, make a hole in the soft brown earth, and drop into it a little
black round seed? Perhaps last March you put in a good many sweet peas, and
then covered each one up in its earthy bed, and left them. People told you
not to forget to take care of your garden, and so you often watered the
place where the seeds lay hidden, and at last you saw something very tiny,
but fresh and green and full of life, where only the dark brown earth had
been the day before. You clapped your hands for pleasure, and ran to tell
everybody: "My sweet peas are coming up!" You see you can tell when the
seeds are growing, but you cannot tell how they grow; you can water the
ground where they are lying hidden from your sight, but when you have done
all you know how to do, you must still leave them to God's care; for He
alone can make those little dark balls spring up and grow, and blossom in
sweetness and beauty.
What wonderful thing it was that went on underground so quietly, while you
were asleep or at play, neither you nor I can tell; and this dead-like seed
coming to life and springing up into beauty is only one of the many things
which go on in this world all around us, seen and known only by God, who
says of the seed of His word, sown by His servants--not in the ground, but
in the hearts of people--that it is He who "giveth the increase."
We speak of vegetable life as well as of animal life, for I am sure you
have not forgotten that plants breathe through their leaves--they drink in
water by their roots, and some plants even show that they are sensitive to
touch by shrinking if anything comes in contact with them; but how a daisy,
with its hardy little stem and its fresh green leaves and "crimson-tipped"
flower, comes to grow out of the earth, we do not know at all.
The beautiful leaves, fringed with downy hairs, are the lungs of the
plants; and just as the blood runs through the veins at the back of your
hand, the sap: which is the life-blood of the plant, runs through some fine
veins which you see at the back of the leaf. If this sap were to cease
flowing up the stem, the leaves and flowers would soon droop and die.
[Illustration: GREEN PASTURES.]