of a shepherd with a lamb upon his bosom. She was very fond of looking at
it, and saying how it made her think of herself. "If you see a flock of
sheep going along the road, and one of them is very weary," she said--one
day when she was very tired, and her feet were very hot, so that she felt
as if they would never be cool again--"you would not like to see them go on
driving it, but would wish to see the shepherd take it in his arms to the
fold." She asked that these works, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His,"
should be put upon her gravestone, saying that it was her favourite text;
and against her name in the family Bible she wished them to write,... "so
He bringeth them unto their desired haven."
When she was almost Home, her father spoke to Alice about the many she had
to love on earth, and the many in heaven; for two little sisters, Constance
and Eva, were already with the Lord. Looking up with a smile, as if she
really saw the One who had been her Friend in life, and from whose love
death could not separate her, she said softly, "Whom have I in heaven but
Thee?"
I think these were her last words; a little before, she had said, "It seems
strange to be going where you can none of you come with me; but He is
there, and that is enough."
If you are like the rest of my young friends, you do not mind having the
Spider's history interrupted, that we might think of this sweet story of
Alice, and how she too "tried the ropes," and found them "all right." But
there was one great difference, was there not? The spider's ropes are spun
out of his own body; they are twisted so strongly and firmly by his own
feet; but Alice knew that if she was to be safe in life and in death,
nothing of her own was strong enough to hold by; she could be saved only
because the Lord Jesus Christ had finished the work which God gave to Him
to do. It was because Alice knew Whom she had believed that she could say
she had tried the ropes and found them all right; she knew they would bear
_any_ strain, and so she could answer that question about being afraid, and
reply that she had no fear whatever.
I want just here to copy for you some beautiful lines, written by one who
"fell asleep in Jesus" when he was quite young, not yet sixteen; they were
found in his pocket-book.
"Oh! I have been at the brink of the grave,
And stood on the edge of its dark, deep wave;
And I thought, in the still calm hours of night,
Of those regions where all is for ever bright;
And I feared not the wave
Of the gloomy grave,
For I knew that Jehovah was mighty to save.
"I have watched the solemn ebb and flow,
Of life's tide which was fleeting sure though slow;
I've stood on the shore of eternity,
And heard the deep roar of its rushing sea;
Yet I feared not the wave
Of the gloomy grave,
For I knew that Jehovah was mighty to save.
"And I found that my only rest could be
In the death of the One who died for me;
For my rest is bought with the price of blood,
Which gush'd from the veins of the Son of God;
So I fear not the wave
Of the gloomy grave,
For I knew that Jehovah is mighty to save."
How happy it was for his parents to read these words in their dear boy's
own writing, after they had laid his body to rest in the grave which had no
terror for him!
But to return to our Spider, or Spinner, as his name means. You have not
only watched him coming down from the ceiling upon his own strong rope,
spinning it longer and longer as he travels, but have seen him crawling
along the ceiling head downwards, and perhaps wondered that he did not
fall. If you were to look at one of those eight feet of his through a
microscope, your wonder would be turned into admiration, as you saw the
beautiful little brushes by which he is enabled to cling fast to the smooth
surface, and walk along the ceiling as securely as you do on the floor.
And now I will leave you to read in some interesting book how prisoners
have tamed House-spiders, and about the Water-spider which has been known
to spin its nest in a tumbler of water, and the great Americans, as large
as sparrows, which catch tiny birds; for it is time to pass on to the
Insect family. But I must first tell you a story about a Tarantula, a very
large spider, which lives in the south of Europe, as well as in tropical
countries, and makes holes for itself about four inches deep in the ground.
Two officers from India agreed to spend their furlough together in a visit
to Australia, the one for the sake of making researches in natural history,
the other for any chance interest or amusement that might offer itself in a
new country.
The former, Dr. Prendergast, was one day writing in his log cabin, when a
huge Tarantula spider gently lowered itself from the roof by its slender
cord, and dangled in front of him. "Ha!" said the naturalist, making sure
of the handsome specimen that had thus unwittingly come within his reach,
"I'll have you, my good fellow"; and taking a valuable pin from his necktie
he made a dexterous shot, and pierced him through the body.
To his dismay, however, the spider, quite equal to the occasion, turned
and bit him so sharply that he drew back with a cry, and before he could
recover himself, the Tarantula had scrambled back up its rope, bearing the
pin with it, and was again safe in its hiding place in the roof.
Now as the pin contained a precious stone which Dr. Prendergast had had set
in order to carry it about in safety, he was exceedingly annoyed at this
loss, and he and his companion searched the roof with care in the hope
of finding it; but all in vain, and Dr. Prendergast could only reproach
himself with having made such a foolish experiment.
A few days later he was again writing in the same position, when he beheld
his enemy the spider once more descending from the roof, and to his
surprise and joy it carried with it the pin, still sticking through its
body. This time our naturalist made no vainglorious display of his power as
a marksman, but beating down the spider with the nearest object at hand,
he again possessed himself of the lost treasure, now doubly valuable on
account of its extraordinary adventure, and his mother, for whom he was
preserving the beautiful stone, afterwards wore it, set in a small brooch.
There are six "orders" of Insects, arranged according to their form, and
the number of their wings, and one of each is chosen to represent the whole
class.
First, the Beetle.
Second, the Grasshopper.
Third, the Dragon-fly.
Fourth, the Bee, the Wasp, and the Ant.
Fifth, the Butterfly, and the Moth.
Sixth, the Fly and the Gnat.
I wonder which of all these we had better discuss; for there are such
wonderful things to tell even of the tiniest creeping and winged creature,
that I only wish we had time for them all--the honey-making bees and
the paper-making wasps, the many coloured dragon-flies, the moths, the
butterflies and the beetles--but as we must choose one out of this great
family, it shall be the "wise" and busy little ant: for how are we to learn
the lesson which God has given her to teach us, if we do not, as He bids
us, "consider her ways?"
Before we attempt to do so by noticing her "city," so full of life and
bustle, suppose we ask ourselves for a moment how it is that we see so very
few insects in winter. Did you ever stand very still, in the silence of
a clear frosty day in the country, and wonder what made all around so
strangely quiet?
One reason is, that the myriads of insects, whose hum and buzz make a good
part of the noise and stir of a summer afternoon, are all gone. No whirring
wings rush past; there is no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or
musical winged bee" to break the stillness; all the insect-world seems
dead, or flown south with the swallows--though, as there are still spiders'
webs to be seen, each delicate thread marked in sharp outline, like the
rigging of an icebound ship, it would seem that there must still remain
some unwary fly to be taken in the beautiful snare.
But _are_ they all dead and gone, those happy winged things that danced up
and down in shady nooks, or so lately shone like jewels in the sunshine?
Where are the topaz-coloured butterflies that glanced from flower to
flower, the emerald tiger-beetles, the ladybirds, and the grasshoppers?
Some of them are indeed dead; their little life, bounded by a few summer
days, was soon lived out; they have laid their eggs, making careful
provision for the protection and food of the young ones which they will
never see--for the eggs of insects will bear the cold which so soon proves
fatal to their mothers--and their little hour of work in this busy world
is finished; but many more are only very fast asleep. Like the dwarfish
Esquimaux, when _their_ long dark winter comes, and they draw their mossy
blankets over them, they are taking their winter rest, and lie hidden
safely in depths of soft moss, or beneath the bark of some ivy-grown tree,
or deep in the lap of Mother Earth herself.
And with many of them, before they wake to life again, such changes will
have taken place that they will come forth from their hiding-places like
new creatures, fitted to enjoy a new mode of living. It is not difficult to
see that this winter-sleep, or torpor, is no wasted time, but a means by
which God has ensured the lives of hosts of His creatures which, having no
extra clothing to protect them from the frost, and no power of migrating to
a land of sunshine and plenty, would otherwise be liable to perish during
the long season of cold and dearth.
So when
"Bright yellow, red, and orange,
The leaves come down in hosts,"
those insects whose life is in "the herb of the field" have the instinct
("that power," as it has been well explained, "of doing without thinking
what _we_ do by thinking") which makes them seek out some safe shelter or
quiet hole, and there give themselves up to sleep, awakening only when
the time of the singing of birds has come, and all the green things are
sprouting and budding, and there is food for them everywhere.
Those who have watched this mysterious slumber, tell us that when it begins
the insect is as if benumbed, and will move when touched; but that as the
cold increases, the torpor deepens, until the little dormant creature seems
no longer to breathe, but lies to all appearance dead, until the warmth of
the sun shall break the spell, and call it up to life again.
We are a long time reaching the ant-city, but it would be quite an insult
to the Insect-family to give no thought to the most wonderful thing about
it--the "transformations" by which many of its six-legged members pass
through their three distinct stages of existence; so it will be well
to turn over a few pages in the story of the Butterfly, one of the
family-branch called Lepidoptera, because its wings are covered with
thousands of tiny scales, which enclose the colouring that makes them as
softly tinted as the flowers upon the nectar of which it feeds.
[Illustration:... "Little butterfly, indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed."]
When we, by rough handling, brush the bloom off a butterfly's wing, we have
really torn away these delicate scales.
Let us suppose we have been so fortunate as to find a Red-admiral, the
most gorgeous of British butterflies--often found late in the summer near
nettles, because its caterpillar used to like their leaves better than any
other.
We will look at this beautiful insect and see what it _is_, and then go
back in its history and find out what it _was_.
It has six feet, and its head bears two horns or feelers ("antennæ," they
are called), two large eyes which, when seen under a microscope, seem as if
cut like precious stones, and a trunk like that of an elephant, which it
can uncurl so as to suck the honey from the very heart of the flowers. Its
legs are hairy, and very little used; its body, light and slender. Of the
broad, beautifully-marked wings, generally erect when at rest, we need not
speak, for it would be impossible to describe them.
Now for a page or two in the early history of this brilliant creature.
We will go back to the time when it was a tiny egg, laid by the mother
Red-admiral shortly before her own death; this egg soon develops into the
"larva," or caterpillar--the word, which means a _mask_, expressing that
the butterfly that is to be, is thus disguised in its first form.
How admirable are God's orderings--the same spring sunbeams which, as it
were, waken up the living creature sleeping in the egg deposited by Mrs.
Red-admiral, also cause the green things, upon which it will feed so
voraciously, to appear!
For the little worm is a tremendous eater; it seems to do almost nothing
else during its grub existence; but eats and grows, eats and grows;
constantly changing its skin for a new one in order to obtain room for
itself, while it is laying up a store against the time when it will be
unable to take in food.
At last it really seems tired of eating, and after it has cast its skin
four times, the fifth one becomes thick and hard, and the caterpillar hangs
itself by a fine silken thread of its own spinning to a twig, and passes
into its second stage--that of the "pupa," or chrysalis, from which it will
awaken, a thing of life and beauty, to live in the air instead of crawling.
[Illustration: (A) CATERPILLAR; (B) CHRYSALIS.]
The name "pupa" or doll, was given to the creature in this stage, because
long ago people thought the way in which insects are thus enclosed was
somewhat like the way in which the babies used to be wrapped round in
bandages or "swaddling clothes": it is also called a "chrysalis," because
sometimes dotted with gold or pearly spots. But the wonder of it is that
inside that narrow shell lies an insect quite unlike the caterpillar which
lay down to rest; a creature with legs and wings beautifully folded, all
ready for use when the time for its release has come.
How little we dream, as we watch a caterpillar crawling along a leaf, of
what lies hidden beneath its skin! Yet I have read of a naturalist who
proved for himself that it was actually so. Having killed a full-grown
caterpillar, he let it remain for a minute or two in boiling water, then
gently drew off the outer skin, and beheld to his delight "a perfect and
real butterfly." But though I tell you of this, I do not wish you to
try the experiment, as he warns us that it requires great care, for the
limbs of the butterfly are very tender and small, and folded in a very
complicated manner. Nor should I advise you to try hatching butterflies
like chickens, by enclosing some chrysalides in a glass shaped like an egg,
and placing them under a hen, though it has been done successfully!
There seems no doubt that all the while the caterpillar sleeps within its
chrysalis, it is being made ready for the new kind of existence it is to
enjoy; and just as, while the grub lay dormant in the egg, its food was
being prepared, so while the butterfly that is to be sleeps in its dark
tomb, the flowers upon which it is to live are slowly unfolding to the
light.
And now, what words can describe the wonder of the _third_ chapter of this
story of life in its changes? The pupa dies and falls to pieces,
"An inner impulse rends the veil
Of his old husk,"
and the butterfly comes forth, a glorious creature, "a living flash of
light" whose home is in the sunbeam!
What a change! No wonder that it has so long been looked upon as a parable
and type of resurrection, an image of what will come to pass when the Lord
Jesus comes, according to that promise which was a comfort to that little
girl in the Children's Hospital, for His own--whether they have "fallen
asleep in Jesus," or are living on this earth--and all "they that are
Christ's at His coming" shall be "changed in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye."
To both alike the Lord will give a body of glory, "fashioned like unto His
glorious body," a body which knows not, weakness or suffering or death--"a
spiritual body."
You remember--do you not?--that a type is but a very small and faint
picture of the real thing; yet, when you see a butterfly, and think of what
it once was and what it has become, let it preach its little sermon to you;
say to your own heart, "If that wonderful moment, which is so soon coming,
were to come just now, should I be one of those who are Christ's at His
coming? Would my body be changed and made like His glorious body? Should
I 'be caught up together with them' (those who 'sleep in Jesus') 'in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air,' and so be for ever 'with the Lord'?"
And now as we turn from the wonderful story of the butterfly, in which we
may, as has been said, "see the resurrection painted before our eyes,"
to the busy little ants; let us see that it is the sluggards, the lazy
persons, who are especially told to "consider" their ways. To do this we
must visit them in their own home, which we shall find in some pine-wood,
like the "pincushion-wood," or in some grassy thymy spot, covered with
little green tufts. Each of these grassy hillocks is an ant nest, and if
you look inside you will find that it contains a great many tiny rooms,
connected by galleries. Some of the rooms are hollowed out below the
surface of the earth; these are the cellars where the baby-ants are kept
warm in cold weather, while in summer they are taken by their watchful
nurses to the cool upper storeys.
Now I have read that every ant-city has its wary sentinel, to keep watch
and ward, and give warning of the approach of the foe. And when he does
give warning there is a great hurry-scurry in the town; young ants, whether
in their larva or pupa stage, must be carried down to the cellars for
safety, and all the provisions which have been collected and stored with
so much care must also be removed to a secure hiding-place. But who is to
accomplish all this?
If you notice carefully, you will see that it is a mistake to think of
these insects as all of one kind, and you may have heard that they have
been divided by those who have studied them, into three classes--males,
females, and neuters.
It is about the neuters we will talk now, for these busy, unselfish little
creatures do all that has to be done; the whole work of the ant-city is
left to them. It is they who collect the food--and very clever hunters they
are, carrying their prey, whether alive or dead, right home to the nest; it
is they who build the nests with their chambers and galleries, and bring up
the little ones. Yet these earnest little workers have no wings, and must
toil along upon their feet, while the ladies and gentlemen lead much easier
lives, and fly about at will.
Still I do not think the workers are to be pitied, for they know their
work, and do it in a very beautiful and unselfish way; and we must not
forget that when the earth was in all the freshness of its beauty--no
serpent's trail, no touch of fallen ruined man to mar its perfectness--"the
Lord God took Adam, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to
keep it." As an old writer says--"What was man's storehouse was also man's
workhouse; his pleasure with his task ... if happiness had consisted in
doing nothing, man had not been employed."
A child, who has been set to watch beside the cradle of a baby brother
or sister, and wants very badly to be off to play, may learn a lesson of
patience from the way in which these little workers take care of the
babies which are their special charge--for I suppose an ant's egg may be
considered in its tiny way like a baby in its cradle.
These eggs are at first so small that you could scarcely see them, and
they would probably never become living ants if not diligently tended; but
under the care of their nurses they soon grow larger, and at the end of a
fortnight the baby ants creep out, not bigger than grains of sand, but with
head and wings complete. The first want of every living thing is food, so
the nurses begin to feed their charge by placing the little open mouths to
their own, and giving them the food which they have stored. Then I have
watched them carrying them up and down, that they may enjoy the warmth of
the cellars or the air and sunshine of the upper rooms, just as if they
had a thermometer to tell them the exact amount of heat or cold that was
needed. And I must not forget to tell you that part of the duty of the
nurses is to keep their babies white and clean, and this they do not
neglect, but wash them with their tongues, as pussy washes her kitten.
Even when their nurslings are full-grown, and begin to spin a silken cocoon
round themselves, and it would seem as if, being no longer in need of food,
they might be left to themselves, the untiring workers do not give up their
charge. We may see them carrying little oval bodies carefully about: and
these are the cocoons which they take to the top of the nest every morning,
and back again at night. Most wonderful of all, they have an instinct which
tells them when the perfect insect within the cocoon is ready to escape
from its prison-house, and also that it is not strong enough to force its
own way through. Working three or four together, very gently and patiently
they open the silken covering, just where the insect's head lies, cutting
the threads one by one until a hole is made, large enough for the young ant
to crawl through.
When at last released from what has been its cradle and its prison, the
tiny creature is still wrapped in a thin covering, which the kind nurses
remove. They carefully stretch out the wings of the males and females, and
pile the empty cocoons outside the nest ready for building; for waste and
disorder are unknown in an ant-city.
Nursery days ended, the young insects are now shown "all over the house,"
conducted from one "winding stair" to another, taught to know friends from
foes, fed and petted, until they take their airy flight beyond the reach of
the wingless caretakers of their infant needs.
By-and-by you will read more about how the workers, by their busy toil,
"Raise such monstrous hills along the plain
Larger than mountains,"
in proportion to their own small size; you will read also strange stories
of how they collect the eggs of those little green insects which you may
see in such numbers upon a rosebud, and tend them with great care--because
these tiny aphides are their "cows," and they "milk" them by gently
stroking them with their antennæ, and so obtain a kind of honey--also how
the red and black ants occupy the positions of masters and slaves, the
blacks doing all the hardest work, and being kept strictly indoors; and how
it is not _all_ work, even with the workers, for they have been caught at
play, having high games of leap-frog and hide-and-seek!
Interesting as is the mode of life among our ants at home, not less so is
that of those found in Southern Europe and in Syria, as well as in India.
They are called "Harvesters," because they "prepare their meat in the
summer" by gathering the seeds of grasses, and storing them in granaries
against the winter. I have watched long trains of these ants going and
returning with their loads, keeping their "own side" as carefully as if
passengers in London streets. A naturalist who was watching such a train,
once strewed a number of grey and white beads about, and waited to see what
would happen. One unsuspicious ant seized a bead and trotted off with it
to the nest; but not so a second time; the mistake was soon found out, and
the (to them) worthless beads were left untouched by the wary workers, who
before they stored the seeds in their granary, took off the chaff and left
it in heaps outside, to be blown away by the wind.
It has been thought strange that the seeds thus collected do not sprout and
grow, but for this moisture would be necessary, and the ants keep their
grain as free from it as possible, spreading it out in the sun to dry, and
storing it in granaries, underground like the nurseries, but quite distinct
from them.
If you have ever disturbed one of their nests, you do not need to be
told that ants, as well as bees and wasps, have stings, with a "poison
apparatus" like that of a serpent.
How wonderful are these tiny creatures made by God, who has set them in
their places in His creation, and given them their work to do, and the
instinct which enables them so faithfully to play their part in the great
world, that they are set as a pattern for us to imitate! How true it is
that
"Each shell, each crawling insect holds a rank
Important in the scale of Him who framed
This scale of beings; holds a rank which, lost,
Would break the chain, and leave a gap behind
Which Nature's self would rue."
And what may we learn from the Harvester-ant, who "provideth her meat in
the summer"?
I think I can hear you answer, "A lesson of prudence and foresight."