Bible truths in Nature: an illustration of Rom. i. 20, and Job xi. 6. Transformation of the Gnat, showing in the water larva and pupa, and escape of the imago, or perfect insect; in the air the male and female.

is afforded in that of Nature; how everywhere, especially amidst country scenes, there is abundant matter to interest and delight those who have eyes to see and ears to take in the sweet sight of flowers and insects and the delightful songs of birds.

"The leaf-tongues of the forest, the flower-lips of the sod,
The happy birds that hymn their rapture in the ear of God,
The summer wind that bringeth music over land and sea,
Have each a voice that singeth this song of songs to me-
The world is full of beauty, like other worlds above,
And if we do our duty, it might be full of love."

CHAPTER XI.

PERSEVERANCE.

"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise and wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance. It is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion. Yet those petty operations incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings."-JOHNSON.

ID you observe that my young friend had discovered that the ants are good anatomists ? "His skeleton shall go into my cabinet as soon as the ants have got it ready," he writes. You cannot have a cleaner nor a more perfect specimen of a mouse than that which may be had in the neighbourhood where ants abound. Only place the animal in a pasteboard box, then bury it, and go and look for it a month afterwards.

Perseverance is the ant's motto. If the bee is a model of industry, the ant is of perseverance. I have heard of one making seventy different attempts to remove its pupa

that is, the baby-ant in its charge-and never giving up till it was accomplished. And, amongst the many lessons the little people teach us, none is more striking than the necessity for determination and decision in the affairs of life, a resolution to accept the advice given in the grand old Bible, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

Here is one of the lessons I have learned from the little people, and so much good has it done me, Mark Twain notwithstanding, that I recommend it to you.

"Never give up! it is wiser and better

Always to hope than once to despair;
Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter,
And break the dark spell of tyrannical care.

"Never give up! or the burden will sink you,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup;
And in all trials and troubles bethink you,
The watchword of life must be, Never give up!'

"Never give up! There are changes and chances,
Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one;
And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges
Certain success, if you'll only hope on.

"Never give up! for the wisest is boldest,
Showing that goodness has mingled the cup
And, of all maxims, the best and the oldest
Is the true watchword of- Never give up!""

In no respect is the virtue of perseverance shown in ant-life more than in the construction of the nest. You may observe the multitude of building materials employed; much has been brought from a distance. Hannibal crossed the Alps, so did Napoleon, but the difficulties of the little people are far greater than either of those great generals, in proportion.

The turf-ant's nest, one of the most common of our native species, is the most simple of any of the family; it is usually found under a flat stone, and consists chiefly of hollow cells with galleries communicating with each other. But what is worth doing at all is worth doing well," appears to be an ant's motto generally, although, as Mark Twain discovered, there are "stupids" among ants quite as much as among men. All men are not " Mark Twains," and all ants are not equally wise. I think among the little people the stupid ant is the exception, and I will leave you to suppose what I think of bigger "people."

The turf-ant sometimes selects a tuft of grass for a beginning, and piles around it a considerable quantity of bits of stick and dead leaves. It almost always chooses a southern aspect, as freer from the wind, and there it builds chamber after chamber and gallery after gallery with an amount of perseverance under difficulty which in its proportion would dishearten many a man.

Preliminary failure is necessary to ultimate success in human affairs: we used to sing

"'Tis a lesson you should heed,

'Try again!

If at once you don't succeed,

'Try again!""

This is the philosophy of life, and the ants practise it in a wonderful degree.

Both ants and spiders, bees and wasps, as well as other insects, in less degree, learn from experience and teach us lessons in perseverance. The spider wishing to pass over a