_Uncle Philip tells the Children of a Door, with a Hinge and
Spring to it, made by a Spider; and shows them Pictures to let them
see the Difference between God's Work and Man's._
"I was thinking, boys, last night, of what you said about killing the
poor spiders; and I was sorry that I did not then recollect one thing
about a spider which I could have told you, and which would have made
you like the poor little creatures better. However, I determined that
when you came to see me again, it should be the first thing I would tell
you, if you wished to hear it."
"Wish to hear it! Why, Uncle Philip, we always wish to hear you tell us
of any thing that you please to talk about. You have told us of a great
many strange things, about which we knew nothing before; and we will
thank you to tell us the story about the spider."
"Very well, boys; you shall hear it. Pray, do you not think that it is
a piece of difficult work to make a door to a house, and to make hinges
to hang it with, and to fit it so nicely that when it is done you cannot
see the joints where the door is shut?"
"Indeed it is a piece of very hard work. Uncle Philip, and it takes
the carpenter a long time to do it; and it is hard work, too, for the
blacksmith to make the hinges. But what has that to do with the story
about the spider?"
"Patience, boys, patience: you shall know presently. Never be in too
great a hurry: it is a bad plan. I have always noticed that those
persons who hurried most, went slowest in the end. Another question I
wish to ask you is this,--do you not think it was hard work for the
first man who ever made a spring, and put it on a door, to make it shut
itself again when it had been opened?"
"Yes, it was so: and the man who does it now gets well paid for it."
"Very good, boys. And now what will you say when I tell you that a poor
little spider did all these things long before man did?"
"What, Uncle Philip! A spider make a door with a hinge and a spring to
make it shut itself!"
"Yes, boys; a spider. Do you think he deserves to be killed for doing
it?"
"Oh no, no! But pray tell us all about it. Uncle Philip."
"This kind of spider, then, boys, I saw in Jamaica, and I saw its house,
too. It is called the mason-spider. The nest or house which I saw was a
tube made of very hard clay, about six inches long, and an inch across,
and was a little bent at one end. The inside of this tube was lined
all the way through with a kind of soft silky stuff, something like
silk-paper, but stronger, and it was of a yellowish colour; but the
curious part was the door. I never saw any thing which an insect had
made more strange than that. This door was round, about as large as a
quarter of a dollar, and was a little hollowed on the upper side like
a saucer; the inside of it was rounded like the outside of the saucer.
It was of the same stuff with the lining of the nest, and seemed to be
made of more than a dozen pieces of that lining, put one on the top of
another: it was shaped so, too, that the inside layers or pieces were
the broadest, and the outside ones became smaller and smaller, except
at the hinge, which was about an inch long. All the pieces in the door
were joined into this hinge, and then the hinge was joined and worked
into the lining in the tube. That made the hinge the thickest and
strongest part of the whole work. How the spider made it so, boys, I
cannot tell; but so it was, that this hinge not only was a hinge, but
was so good a spring, that whenever the door was opened it would shut
itself immediately: and when shut, it fitted so nicely that it was very
difficult to see the place of joining."
"Well, Uncle Philip, this is most wonderful! But will not the hinge wear
out at last?"
"Wonderful as it is, boys, it is all true. As to its wearing out, I
cannot tell you; but I know that a gentleman who had one, said that his
friends were very anxious to see it; and there were so many of them,
that he had to open the door and let it shut itself many hundreds of
times to satisfy them; and it did not hurt the spring at all."
"Uncle Philip, we shall not kill the poor spiders any more."
"A good resolution, boys: only let them alone, and they will not hurt
you. There is another kind of mason-spider, which I never saw, but I
have read of it. It is found in the south of France; I did not happen,
however, to meet with one while I was in that beautiful country. This
kind digs a gallery or hole under ground as much as a foot deep. She
lines it with a sort of silk glued to the walls, and makes her door,
which is round also, with many layers of mud or earth all kneaded and
bound together with some of her silk. On the outside, the door is flat
and rough, to make it appear like the dirt around it, and hide it; on
the inside it is shaped like the inside of the door of the other spider
I have told you about; and all covered with a coat of fine silk. The
threads of this silk are left long on one side, and fastened to the
upper part of the hole; and these make the hinge. There is no spring to
this; but when the spider pushes its door open and comes out, it shuts
again by its own weight. If this door is forced open by any one when
the spider is at home, she will catch hold of it and pull it in; and
sometimes even when it is half-opened; she will snatch it out of the
hand. Here is a picture which shows the nest open, and another of it
shut; and there is a drawing of the spider, too.
[Illustration: A, the Nest shut; B, the Nest open; C, the Spider; D, the
Eyes, magnified; E, F, Parts of the Foot and Claw magnified.]
A gentleman says, in a book which he wrote about insects, that he once
broke one of these doors off, to see what the spider would do."
"And what did she do, Uncle Philip?"
"She made another door; but took very good care not to put any hinge
to it, for fear she should be disturbed again. But when she thought
all danger was gone, she could then put a hinge to it, you know; and
probably she did."
"Well, Uncle Philip, we thank you again for this account of the spiders,
and shall always look at them hereafter with more pleasure. Who would
have thought that we should ever find doors and hinges among such little
creatures, and these too so very well made and fitted!"
"Why, boys, I have noticed the works of God very often; and I will now
tell you one thing which I always found. It is this: a piece of the very
best work which man can make is really coarse when you compare it with
the work of God. The poor spider that we have talked about, when she
makes her door, makes it to fit perfectly; because in doing that one
thing, God made her to know perfectly how to do it. The knowledge is
God's, boys; but the work is the spider's: but in making any thing else,
except about her house, the spider knows nothing."
"Uncle Philip, you told us once that you were very fond of watching all
sorts of dumb animals, and we think now that we know the reason."
"Well, what is it?"
"It is because you see so much of God's knowledge in them; is it not?"
"Yes, my dear boys, it is. When I look at many things which man makes
or does, I think to myself, 'Now this thing is likely to have a mixture
of sense and nonsense in it; the sense is God's, and the nonsense is
man's.' But when I look at a thing made by one of the dumb creatures for
its own comfort and safety, like the spider's house, with its door and
hinge, for instance, I say to myself, 'Now here is the wisdom of God,
without any of man's nonsense.' And yet, boys, men are far wiser than
any other animal in this world."
"But, Uncle Philip, you said that a piece of man's best work was really
coarse: some things must be neat, we should think. Is the point of a
needle coarse? It does not seem so."
"Boys, you have mentioned the very thing which was in my mind when I
spoke. The point of the smallest needle is very coarse. You have heard
me talk of the microscope. I told you it was a set of glasses, so
fixed that when you looked through them, it made small things appear
very large: on some other day, perhaps, I will let you look through
my microscope for yourselves; but now, I just wish to show you the
difference between the work of God and that of man. Let us go home,
and I will show you some pictures I made, and you can see in them the
difference. Last winter, you know, was very cold, and there was a great
deal of snow: one day, while the snow was falling pretty fast, I was
obliged to go out; and as the flakes of snow fell upon the sleeve of my
coat (which was black), I thought they had a curious shape, and did not
all appear alike; so when I returned home I caught some of the flakes,
and looked at them through my microscope. They were so beautiful that I
made pictures of them; and as we have now reached home, just let me step
into my study, and I will bring them to you. Here they are, boys."
[Illustration: Snow-flakes, seen through a Microscope.]
"Oh, Uncle Philip! these are very pretty; they are all so different,
too!"
"Yes, boys, I picked out different ones to draw: when I was done, I
began to look into my books to find out what others had written about
this thing; and I found that a gentleman named Dr. Hook had seen more
than a hundred different shapes and sizes of these flakes. This is God's
work, boys.
"Now I have brought you out another picture: it is the point of a very
small needle, seen through the very same microscope which showed me the
snow-flakes. Just look at it, boys. This is _man's_ work."
[Illustration: The Point of a very small Needle, seen through the
Microscope.]