Page:Natural Phenomena and their Spiritual Lessons.djvu/24

12 others of an opposite character; nor, indeed, to discern the difference in their quality. All power of discernment belongs to the understanding; and it is by the light—the truths—of which it is receptive, that we learn the quality of the affections, and of the objects to which they are devoted. But it does more than this. It shows how the affections can be changed; and reveals laws of life, by obedience to which a readiness to part with the old loves, and a capacity for receiving new ones, are acquired; and then in due time, when the state is mature, He who alone can change the heart operates that change in us. Without spiritual truths, however, to enlighten and guide, invigorate and restrain, this could never be effected; but aided by them we are borne upwards, as the butterfly on its wings.

Meditating on the use and beauty of these important organs, we observe that in those delicate membranes, with their covering of filmy scales that sparkle in the sunshine, all the colour and splendour of the insect reside. Colours are representative of variations and modifications of intelligence and wisdom; and the tints on the butterfly's wing, that attract and delight the eye as it pursues its aerial course, may be taken as symbols of vivid, though transitory perceptions and consequent thoughts that recreate the mind in its happy summer time, when there is sunshine in the heart.

Another notable difference here claims attention,—the improved vision of the soaring, as contrasted with the creeping insect. 'Instead of twelve invisible eyes,' with which the latter is furnished, 'we behold two, very large, and composed of at least twenty thousand convex lenses,