Page:Execution, or, The affecting history of Tom Bragwell.pdf/11

 this bean-stalk is composed. Here is the root for taking hold of the earth, and drawing nourishment from the soil; the trunk for conveying the sap upwards, and supporting the other parts; the little branches, or props, which support the leaves; the leaves, which serve as organs of respiration, to modify and prepare the sap as it passes through them for its important purposes in the economy of vegetation, as the blood is, for its uses in the animal structure, by the action of the lungs in its circulation through them in tire human frame; and, at the same time, to defend and preserve the flower and fruit in their progress to maturity; the flowers, which serve to cherish and protect the first rudiments of the fruit; and, lastly, the fruit itself which you know partly the use of, but which is also necessary for the production of the future plant; so that a continual succession of this useful vegetable may be kept up for man and beast. You observe how nicely all these parts are adapted to their several ends; but these are only a specimen of the wonderful contrivances manifested in the structure of a bean-stalk. Had I a microscope to show you the different parts of this common production of nature when cut across, and was botanist enough to explain the several uses of the various filmy fibres, tubes, and sap vessels, in its composition, you would be lost in admiration; and, without my having occasion to go further, had been here, even he would have been forced to confess, 'that no human creature could do the like!'"