Page:Natural Phenomena and their Spiritual Lessons.djvu/20

8 than in the well-appointed mansion where provision for every want in either health or sickness exists in abundance. Not that riches are to be despised or depreciated; for it would be irrational to undervalue the means without which few external advantages are attainable. On the contrary, like other good gifts, they are to be valued and accepted with thankfulness, when they reach us in the upright and energetic pursuit of a profession, or in any other orderly way. It is the hankering after them when no honourable road is sought or opened by Providence for obtaining them, and that chiefly to add to the mere pomp and glitter of life, that is to be condemned and avoided. It is pleasant to gratify such inclinations of the natural man as in themselves are harmless; but to forego the gratification undisturbed is one of the great lessons of life. The caterpillar exactly typifies the increase of appetite that follows each gratification of it; and the natural consequence of its continual feast is its rapid growth. Its outer covering becomes too small for its extended bulk, and it casts its skin; and this operation it repeats several times in the course of its short existence. Could the larva think, would it not reason thus?—'I am a larger and more important insect than I formerly was, how can I be satisfied with an amount of food that sufficed me when I was small?' Thus, then, it proceeds; eating, growing, moulting, and eating again; and thus does the natural man appropriate, distend himself, change the form and covering of his external life, and appropriate again, with ever augmenting eagerness.

The habits of the insect have, however, other analogies more agreeable to contemplate; and in reference to them