Infusorial Animals [pp. 430-433]

THE LADIES REPOSITORY.
tance. They came in wagons, stayed all night,
and the next day went with us part way to our
new home. That was all the trip I had. We
had no presents either, but as we expected
none we got along just as well."
"Is that all? What else did you have in
your outfit?"
"You mean for my housekeeping? Well, as
things were then I had a good deal, and the
best of it, to my mind, was, that I had paid for
it myself. All my furniture, and my six silver
tea-spoons, I earned. And my sheets, and table cloths, and towels, and napkins, I had spun,
and woven, and bleached myself. I had quilts
and comforts too-fancy quilts, with more work
on one of them than all the fancy work you
ever did in your life. My handsomest one it
took me a year to piece and quilt. It had a
shell border, and the center piece was vines
and bell flowers. That was the quilting pattern,
you understand. I have n't told you, have I,
what my wedding bonnet was? It was brown
cambric, shirred and trimmed with narrow bind ings of green silk. That was plain enough, I
hope.
"We set up housekeeping in a single room,
eighteen by twenty. 0, how happy we were!
I used to think of it afterward, when we had
got along in the world, and had our horse, and
carriage, and a girl to help me. I wanted to
get along for the sake of the children, but I
used to think I was happier in my one room.
That's all there is to tell you, Nelly, I think."
"One thing more. What did Uncle John
wear?"
Aunt Rebecca laughed outright. "Gray
pants, green coat and vest, white gloves, and a
white beaver hat. Odd enough he would look
now to you, but it was very elegant then. But
all our ways are different now, though the same
fashions are apt to come up about so often; and
human nature is the same, I suppose, through
it all. I hope so at least, for if we're all poor
sinners we may all claim Christ."
.~~~~~~~~~~
HEARING the criticisms which some make
on members of the Church, the thought arises,
Would that those who have such decided views
of the Christian life were themselves members
of the Church, to afford us patterns of true
Christian excellence! Do they never reflect
that the rules which they lay down, and the
exactions which they make with regard to
Christians, will be likely to be produced on
their trial at the last day? "The servant
that knew his Lord's will" must expect plain
dealing.
INFUSORIAL ANIMALS.
iHE Creator has distributed with marvel ous profusion the species and individuals
of the lower grades of the animal kingdom. He seems to have wished to console the
silent abysses of the sea and at the same time
to enliven them by crowding their waters with
millions, countless millions, of beings which
possess a wonderful versatility of life.
The ocean is inhabited by innumerable nations of the infinitely little. This diminutive
life would have remained utterly unknown to us
to this day had we pot possessed the microscofie-the sixth sense of man, as Michelet well
MICROSCOPE.
called it. The microscope! marvelous instrument, which penetrates the depths of life as the
telescope roams in the endless space above us!
The knowledge of the infusoria, without any
question, is the most beautiful of the achievements of optics. A perfectly new world is revealed to us, a world which fills us with astonishment and wonder at the resources of creative
power. Well says Belon: "There is nothing
in the world which we may call small or trivial,
which does not bear witness to the grandeur
and unapproached excellence of the Almighty
Creator."
The infusorial animalcules are so minute that
a single drop of water may contain many millions of them. They exist in all waters, the
fresh as well as salt, the cold as well as hot.
The great rivers teem vast quantities of them
hourly into the ocean. The Ganges, in the
course of one year, transports a mass of invisible infusoria equal in volume to six or eight
of the great pyramids of Egypt. Among these
animalcules, according to Ehrenberg, may be
counted seventy-one different species. The
water brought up from a depth of 21,600 feet
between the Philippine and Marianne Islands,
was found to contain II6 species. In the Arctic regions, where beings of a higher organi
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