in everything, ourselves included-body, soul, and spirit; one in three and three in one; a triune compound-dust enveloping the spirit of deity: "God made man in His own image."

But here is a touching lesson for 'you and me, and we must not lose the profitable suggestions it contains.

Perhaps the great sin of the latter days of our world's history will be a denial of the existence of the great God who made it. I think it will; and I think that what is now so fashionable in the scientific world, known by the word "materialism," fast tends to that dismal and dreadful conclusion. Would that reasonable men would argue that if there be a future life it must have some connection with the present!

When we calmly sit down and examine the constitution of our own spiritual nature, do we not discover that everything both around us and within us is preliminary to something higher and better? And if preliminary, shall we not ask of what? An old author says, "Good eyes see light through the smallest chinks; " and another old writer says—

"Clouds of affection from our younger eyes

Conceal that emptiness which age descries;

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks which time hath made."

God, it has been said, is a circle, whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere. And can we bound or describe the circumference of our own mysterious being? Our present life is a segment only; what we call death is but ceasing to be mortal, it is not ceasing to be!

"There is no death!

What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but the suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call death!"

The threefold envelope of the ant is the hieroglyphic of our life. The death of the first life is only the putting forth of a new existence, the necessary process in order to a higher life, just as the burial of the acorn is necessary to the development of the oak. Decay and change are necessary in order to release the life which is hidden, and. the beauty concealed beneath.

Must it not likewise be that our future being is enwrapped within us now, waiting to be unrolled when the material shall fall off as it does really in the moth and butterfly, where the grand possibility is fully visible and demonstrable ?

The whole life-story of the ant, you will have seen, is laid up within it at one

are temporal; and the parables of Nature, to him who reads them aright, like the dial of a watch, are significant intimations of the greatness and grandeur of the almighty Workman, and of the upper and higher life.

And now, having given you a double preface to our story, we will become a little less theoretical and a little more practical. Let me take one of our favourite insects from my cabinet, and, with my microscope, show you some of the anatomical wonders of the ant.

Seeing, you know, with some people is believing; though, alas! there are many who are unbelievers whether they see or not.

This specimen has been carefully prepared and mounted

for our microscopical examination. It is described, you see, as Formica rufa, and is the largest of our British wood ants.

I told you the ant belongs to the most important of all classes of insects, Hymenoptera-that is, having four membraneous and finely-veined wings. This is a choice specimen, and has been especially prepared to illustrate its internal muscular structure. You will observe first the antennæ, then the very large head, then the "waist-so tall and thin, and so pinched in; " then the small round abdomen, and then the three pairs of legs-each pair, you observe, longer than the others, the foremost being the shortest.

To examine all these parts perfectly we shall require a magnifying power; so we take up our instrument, and the first part of the ant I want you to examine is, perhaps, the most important of all, for it is the two feelers at the head of the insect which are called antenna.

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CHAPTER III.

CO-OPERATION.

The race of mankind would perish, did they cease to aid each other. From the first time the mother binds the child's head, till the moment some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual aid and help; all, therefore, that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-mortals; no one who holds the power of granting can refuse it without guilt."—SIR WALTER SCOTT.

AVE all insects antenna?

All true insects certainly have; but before we bring our glass to examine the structure of these wonderful organs, let me explain to you the meaning of the term insect; it refers to the insected or divided appearance you are observing in the ant's body. All true insects have six legs, two antennæ, two compound eyes, and very often three simple ones-the one, perhaps, for long sight and the other for short, as the eyes of an insect, unlike yours, are fixed and never close, a small brain, the ant's being the largest of all in proportion to the size of the whole body, and a nervous chord running over the entire animal.

Were I to attempt to explain to you all the various pro

cesses of locomotion, digestion, respiration, and the rest, I should weary you. In another specimen I will show you there will be found what also is to be seen on all true insects, two pairs of wings, about which we shall find some interesting matter; but at present let us fix our attention on what I have reminded you is, perhaps, the most important part of the body, namely, the antennæ.

End of antenna of Honey Bee, greatly magnified, showing stethoscopic forms of the sacs; drawn from nature.

How many joints did you count in each of the antennæ ? Yes, thirteen. You remarked on each articulating in the other, and the basal joint articulating in the big brain of the insect.

All these are very well seen with a magnifying power of twenty diameters-that is, four hundred times; but to examine the true structure of the antennæ we must