Brief as our glance has been, we must now leave the
Animal Kingdom, to take up another volume of Nature's library, more
ancient, and its language perhaps more difficult to read, and yet where
diligence will assuredly find itself abundantly rewarded. The place of
the Vegetable Kingdom has been as yet only just indicated. We must try
now to realize a little what it presents to us in its primary
divisions.
But, first, what is the vegetable type itself as
compared with the animal? It would seem that if spiritual law reigns
throughout nature, there should be some broad distinction between the
two, which we could grasp as easily as we can those of the divisions;
and it should be found that the classification of forms involves, where
true, a classification of thoughts and spiritual principles also. A
hard test this for the numerical system, and yet if this can be shown
to be the case, even tolerably, then its triumph is indeed assured! For
such consistency as is implied in this would be as easy to imagine a
chance effect as a child's box of letters fallen out upon the floor
arranging themselves into intelligible sentences. Let us see, then, how
far the thoughts we have connected with the divisions of the animal
kingdom conform to this ideal, and what help they give us toward
realizing the animal type as a whole.
Animal Kingdom, to take up another volume of Nature's library, more
ancient, and its language perhaps more difficult to read, and yet where
diligence will assuredly find itself abundantly rewarded. The place of
the Vegetable Kingdom has been as yet only just indicated. We must try
now to realize a little what it presents to us in its primary
divisions.
But, first, what is the vegetable type itself as
compared with the animal? It would seem that if spiritual law reigns
throughout nature, there should be some broad distinction between the
two, which we could grasp as easily as we can those of the divisions;
and it should be found that the classification of forms involves, where
true, a classification of thoughts and spiritual principles also. A
hard test this for the numerical system, and yet if this can be shown
to be the case, even tolerably, then its triumph is indeed assured! For
such consistency as is implied in this would be as easy to imagine a
chance effect as a child's box of letters fallen out upon the floor
arranging themselves into intelligible sentences. Let us see, then, how
far the thoughts we have connected with the divisions of the animal
kingdom conform to this ideal, and what help they give us toward
realizing the animal type as a whole.
Here they are, then. We have, as to the spiritual principles implied, -
1. The Vertebrata: "harmonious obedience."
2. The Articulata: the soldier- "virtue."
3. The Protozoa: "truth to the heavenly calling."
4. The Radiata: "strength in weakness."
5. The Mollusca: "glorying in our hiding-place."
Mr.
Swainson would have told us that we have to prove the circularity of
this group to prove its naturalness. As far as this is zoological, I
think no naturalist would question it ;* but it is perfectly in order
to demand that this should be shown as to the spiritual grouping as
well as the other. Here also there is little difficulty, however, - for
those, at least, whose minds are governed by the Word of God.
*Except
it might be the connection between the Annulata and the Protozoa. But
through the Rotifera and Planaria“ this seems to be found with little
difficulty. Details and arguments of this kind would hardly suit the
popular character of these suggestions.
1.
Every thing must begin with the spirit of OBEDIENCE; nor can there be
true progress where this is not, in purpose, at least, entire. Measured
obedience Godward is not that: it is the assertion of one's own will
where we please. With God, no command is arbitrary; but wisdom, love,
and holiness shine in all. Thus there can be no resistance but in pride
and unbelief.
2. And this is what characterizes the world of fallen men, in
whom opposition to God is alas, open and organized! Clearly, if in such
a world we would obey God, we must expect at once CONFLICT. Thus the
apostle enjoins as the first thing, if we have faith, that we "add to"
it "virtue," - what in Greece or Rome was called that - the
soldier-virtue, courage. After this come knowledge, temperance, -
patience, godliness, brotherly love; but courage, - decision of heart
that presses on through all opposition - this is the prerequisite to
all these things.
The conflict is everywhere, and there can be
no non-combatants. Neither God nor the world permits neutrality. That
which is simply negative, or assumes to be so, is positive enough in
evil: to be indifferent to Christ is to be against Him. Thus, that the
second thing here is the plain issue of the - first, we see at once.
3. But that the third follows the
second is not so evident. The connection is that which the apostle
gives, that "no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of
this life, that he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier."
This is the spiral which is traced in the orbit of obedience, - the
upward movement of the heart toward Him who is, though in heaven, the
Captain of salvation, and by whom we are called with a HEAVENLY
CALLING. If our eyes are there, we shall be free from entanglement with
the affairs of this life; temptation will not press upon us; our heads
will be covered in the day of battle. Thus the third particular is
intimately joined with what goes before, as well as with what follows
also.
second is not so evident. The connection is that which the apostle
gives, that "no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of
this life, that he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier."
This is the spiral which is traced in the orbit of obedience, - the
upward movement of the heart toward Him who is, though in heaven, the
Captain of salvation, and by whom we are called with a HEAVENLY
CALLING. If our eyes are there, we shall be free from entanglement with
the affairs of this life; temptation will not press upon us; our heads
will be covered in the day of battle. Thus the third particular is
intimately joined with what goes before, as well as with what follows
also.
4. For with all this will go the
sense of WEAKNESS, the conscious need of strength not one's own, the
craving and the finding it as inward realization, though leaving one
still to the conviction that it is not one's own. This is the coral
type, which has its manifold and beauteous forms, as has its antitype:
Here association has also its recognized place, where those who are
agreed are found together, and "God sets the solitary in families." In
all these things, how large a field opens up before us! but we cannot
enter upon it here. It is very plain how this unites with -
sense of WEAKNESS, the conscious need of strength not one's own, the
craving and the finding it as inward realization, though leaving one
still to the conviction that it is not one's own. This is the coral
type, which has its manifold and beauteous forms, as has its antitype:
Here association has also its recognized place, where those who are
agreed are found together, and "God sets the solitary in families." In
all these things, how large a field opens up before us! but we cannot
enter upon it here. It is very plain how this unites with -
5. The GLORIFYING of Him in whom the soul has found its refuge
and its hiding-place, and that in this way we return to that with which
we set out, God's "statutes" being "songs in the house of our
pilgrimage." Thus the life - not ends, for it never ends, but -
completes its orbit, and returns afresh to begin its course with God in
psalm. How beautiful here is the unending circle, the type of eternity!
Can one conceive that all this is mere imagination? Does not its very
sweetness speak for its truth?
This circle of animal life, then,
how as a whole shall we define it, what is the animal type, as told out
in it? We have seen that "the living soul that moveth" is the Scripture
definition; we have seen that the number 2, which is that of the
kingdom, speaks of service, as it does of conflict and even of
destruction, on which account Mr. Swainson makes his subtypical groups,
too exclusively by far, the types of evil, while, in truth, the work of
Him who is above all the typical Servant is to destroy, but to destroy
the works of the devil, and the lion, for example, is one type of
Himself. Thus, putting all together, and in connection with what the
circle of its primary groups declares, the animal kingdom seems to
furnish us with the types of active life of the soul in a scene where
service becomes necessarily conflict, and where hate is as necessary in
its place as love, and is the fruit of it: "Ye that love the Lord, hate
evil" is the motto of it. (Ps. xcvii. 10.)
Only we must
remember that, while this is the prevailing and characteristic thought,
we shall find that, as the shadow accompanies the sun, so the types of
evil are to be found in it also, as we have been reminded, and that
numerously. For the world pictures for us the whole strife betwixt good
and evil, and only so could it present to us the conflict of good at
all.
We must also remember that there are many minor
but necessary types that come in to fill out the picture, "aberrant" as
well as truly "typical" forms having their necessary place in it, as we
have seen. God's thoughts are not narrow, nor possessing the mere
symmetry that we would often give them. While our thoughts of order are
often like the close-clipped bushes of an antique garden, or the dead
level of a Dutch landscape, He delights in the wild luxuriance of the
forest, and the bold outlines of the breezy hills.
But it is
time to come back to our question, What is the meaning of the vegetable
type as a whole, when compared with the animal? And here it is plain at
once that the vegetable, whatever else it may be, is not the type of
external activity. Exceptionally we may find among the animals (in
their aberrant forms) a mollusk anchored for life to its
dwelling-place, or even the coral-reefs of many generations; but the
law of the plant is that it is fixed: as another has said, its root is
its fetter; although this be a thought which after all has its
incongruity also. For the root is hand and mouth to it rather, by which
it makes the soil in which it is rooted minister to its sustenance, and
turns the dead inorganic dust into living forms of wondrous beauty and
magic power.
Yea, this root is the underground workshop of a
life-force which is, as long as it abides, ever pushing out into the
earth its mines, and manufacturing its products of many patterns and
for many uses, which it perfects then in leaf and flower and fruit in
its factories above-ground, where it clothes itself, in the assurance
of the dignity of labour, in glorious apparel beyond Solomon's. Here,
in this manufacturing power, as we have seen, is the significance of
the plant. In the life, which is its characteristic, having no higher
qualities of soul as the beast has, it develops a marvellous power such
as we never find again, by which it becomes the tender nurse and
bounteous provider for all other life. It is the natural vitalizer and
regenerator of the dead and lifeless; typically this, and thus filling
its place as the third kingdom, reflecting in its measure the operation
of the third Person of the Godhead.
Its activity is not
external, like that of the animal, but internal, manifested in growth
and production, processes of life alone; which in the animal also are
the necessary basis and support of the external activity. The world,
like any other building, is not built down from the top, but upward
from the bottom, - a fact which has crazed the evolutionists, - and
thus that which is higher rests upon what is lower, and "much more that
which is feeble is necessary," as the apostle teaches. Yet not in the
way of evolution, but as here, where that which is higher is not
produced by the lower, but roots itself in it, and transforms it. Life
is never except from life: so, in opposition to theory, the facts
teach. Yet the lower is necessary to the higher, but as a basis only:.
it does not rise to the higher level, but is raised. And this is the
constant law.
The vegetable kingdom, then, does not speak of
outward, but of internal activity, - of growth and production, - of
root and leaf and flower and fruit. Spiritually, this is easy to
interpret. Here, the root is faith, - unseen, hidden, yet active, and
the elaborator of all that is developed in the plant. Let us not be
stumbled by the fact that the root is not always this: we have seen
that in natural types the false is shown to us with the true, the evil
with the good. There are roots which dangle in the air, flourished
before men's eyes, but never reaching the earth at all: so is there a
faith which is for show, not use, and useless, - " faith, if it have
not work, is dead, being alone." These roots cannot alter the
significance of the root, and this faith cannot take from the value of
true faith.
The leaf is, as is well known, the lungs of the
plant, that in which the root-sap is elaborated by exposure to air and
sun. It is that "confession of the mouth," of which Scripture makes
much, in which that which faith has produced comes to light and air,
and is ripened and invigorated. The leaf has a beauty of its own, and
gives the tree its character before men also. There would be no fruit
without leaf: let us not disparage the leaf; though here again there
may be the leaf which signifies nothing - profession, not confession, -
a parasite upon the plant instead of something integral. None the less
is the leaf as the leaf a beautiful and significant thing.
Then
the flower, what shall we say of it? It is, most of all, what they say
all is, and with a transcendent spiritual meaning which yet they
generally miss, the reproduced sunshine, the face that greets you with
welcome, the host with his honey-cup, the smile that anticipates the
fruit in store for you. There are deceitful smiles, we know, and
poisonous advances, and pleasures that intoxicate: and yet the flower -
something spent of God in mere delight for you - may well speak of what
is in store against the leaf-fall and the winter, and of the love that
planted Eden once, and yet shall make the wilderness to blossom as the
rose, - may be witness against mere utilitarianism, or that God has a
use for pleasure also, and joys at His right, hand for evermore.
Lastly,
the fruit: and the fruit is promise fulfilled; something of no utility
to the tree, but a draft upon its resources, a sacrifice that it makes
in order to minister to you: all true fruit is not for one's self, but
for our Master, and we can easily distinguish between work and fruit.
Here,
then, are the elements of the plant-life. They show the character we
have before ascribed to it: they speak of internal activity, the
product and manifestation of the life itself, the sign of that strange
regenerative power that belongs to it, and by which alone are sustained
the external activities of service and of conflict.
To come,
then, to the divisions of the vegetable kingdom: botanists are coming
to agree that there are five divisions; three of which, too, are
plainly united also among themselves in more than the fact that they
are all cryptogamous, or flowerless, plants. The flowering plants have
two main types of structure - the dicotyledonous or exogenous, and the
monocotyledonous or endogenous plants. We may arrange them thus, then:
-
1. Exogens: plants with a central woody axis, two seed-leaves, and the others netted- veined.
2. Endogens: plants with a woody circumference, one seed-leaf, and the rest parallel-veined.
3. Thallogens: growing from a thallus, in which root, stem, and leaves are fused into one general mass.
4. Anogens: stem distinct from leaves, without vessels.
5. Acrogens: stem vascular in part, growing from the top.
Between
these divisions and those of the animal kingdom there seems some real
analogy, which, in his edition of Agassiz and Gould's "Outlines," Dr
Wright has pointed out. As he makes only three divisions of each,
however, I can avail myself only - partially of his remarks, especially
as he puts the Mollusca, along with the Radiates, into his second
division. The analogy, as far as I have been able to trace it, runs
thus -
1. Between the Vertebrata and the Exogens it consists in this, that the latter -
"grow
by the addition of concentric layers or rings of wood made to their
outer surface," the softer parts being thus outside, the solidity more
"internally, like the osseous skeleton of the Vertebrata. The central
pith is inclosed in a sheath, analogous to the spinal canal, extending
through the entire length of the plant."
While -
2. In the Endogenous plants
"the
marrow or pith is interwoven with their vegetable fibres, as the
nervous system is disseminated by ganglia through the bodies of the
Invertebrata: there is no osseous skeleton in the one, nor is there any
true wood in the other; but in both, the circumference is more solid
than the centre. We see among some families of this section, (as the
grasses, lilies, palms, etc., the same as among insects, crustacea, and
annelids,) the integument more or less indurated, and in some families
containing a quantity of silicious particles. The knotty-jointed sterns
of many grasses represent the articulated body of worms, crustacea, and
myriapods. Many families in this division produce seed only once in
their lives, like some worms and insects that cease to exist after
having deposited their ova. None of these endogenous vegetables grow by
layers, but by a swelling out of their internal structure, just as the
horny or calcareous envelope of insects and crustacea is periodically
shed to allow of a general increase from within."
Thus far I
thankfully follow Dr. Wright, and it will be seen that the analogy
shown under this second group is all with the Articulata. Although
grouping the Mollusca with these, he traces no link of resemblance
between the endogens and the former. Indeed, between the two animal
groups themselves there is no special resemblance.
"the
marrow or pith is interwoven with their vegetable fibres, as the
nervous system is disseminated by ganglia through the bodies of the
Invertebrata: there is no osseous skeleton in the one, nor is there any
true wood in the other; but in both, the circumference is more solid
than the centre. We see among some families of this section, (as the
grasses, lilies, palms, etc., the same as among insects, crustacea, and
annelids,) the integument more or less indurated, and in some families
containing a quantity of silicious particles. The knotty-jointed sterns
of many grasses represent the articulated body of worms, crustacea, and
myriapods. Many families in this division produce seed only once in
their lives, like some worms and insects that cease to exist after
having deposited their ova. None of these endogenous vegetables grow by
layers, but by a swelling out of their internal structure, just as the
horny or calcareous envelope of insects and crustacea is periodically
shed to allow of a general increase from within."
Thus far I
thankfully follow Dr. Wright, and it will be seen that the analogy
shown under this second group is all with the Articulata. Although
grouping the Mollusca with these, he traces no link of resemblance
between the endogens and the former. Indeed, between the two animal
groups themselves there is no special resemblance.
3. I go on, therefore, to the
Thallogens, where, among the Algae, there are so many forms that
resemble animalcules, that there has been even a difficulty to decide
whether they were vegetable or Protozoa.
Thallogens, where, among the Algae, there are so many forms that
resemble animalcules, that there has been even a difficulty to decide
whether they were vegetable or Protozoa.
4. The Mosses are simple-tissued, stemmed, and social, so far like the corals.
5. While the scalariform vessels of
the Fern may answer to the development of the circulatory system in the
Mollusk, beyond the other aberrant animal divisions. The fibrous
cylinder of the tree-ferns, constituted of the bases of the fallen
leaf-stalks, may remind one somewhat of the Mollusk's shell.
the Fern may answer to the development of the circulatory system in the
Mollusk, beyond the other aberrant animal divisions. The fibrous
cylinder of the tree-ferns, constituted of the bases of the fallen
leaf-stalks, may remind one somewhat of the Mollusk's shell.
Between the types of life so fat apart as the
animal and vegetable these analogies, though sometimes faint, seem
true. I certainly do not think that any thing like them could be shown
between the divisions which do not correspond in the two lists; and if
this be so, it is strong proof that they are real. But let us now look
at the divisions of the vegetable kingdom in their inner meaning, and
as connected with the numerals severally attached.
1. THE EXOGEN.
EXOGENOUS WOOD.
(A) Sapwood. (B) Heartwood. (C) Bark.
The
exogen is distinguished by the woody axis of its stem, its netted
leaves, its two cotyledons: we will begin with that to which it owes
its name - the stem. This, of course, is only to be seen in its full
meaning in the tree, and all the trees of our temperate and colder
climes are exogens.
If we cut across the stem or branch of an
exogenous tree, we shall find it composed of three parts essentially.
There is, first, a central pith: this is the tissue of which the whole
plant is at first composed, and from which all other is formed. It is
composed of cells, the primary elements of all living things, in which
is contained the "protoplasm," the substance in which alone life
manifests itself, and of which the simplest living forms, whether plant
or animal, seem wholly to consist. Cellular tissue is therefore the
typical life-tissue, in which the activity characteristic of life
manifests itself, the actual workshop in which the inorganic matter
received into it becomes living, and then takes its place in the
organism to fulfill its destined purpose in it.
We do not
wonder, then, to find this cellular tissue in the middle of the stem,
connected with "rays," - the "medullary rays," - which proceed from it
to the outer portion. As the tree or branch gets older, the life-tissue
diminishes and dries up in the heart, and the tree (alas, as we do)
grows old fast in this way. Yet the medullary rays remain, and serve an
important purpose, of which we shall presently have to speak.
The
pith is surrounded by the woody layers, the number and thickness of
which increase yearly with the growth of the tree itself. These woody
layers constitute, of course, the strength of the tree, by virtue of
which it lifts its glorious foliage and its harvest of fruit into the
light and air of heaven. In the exogen, these woody layers, the product
of ; transformed living cells, are pressed close to the heart of the
tree, as if it knew and clung to its support. Would that we knew as
well! But at least we do know, for we have seen it already in the
Radiate, what this axis of support represents. It is Christ with all
that is revealed to us in Him, and as He is received by the soul in
living reality, that is the stay and support of it. Well may He be
clasped to our hearts, and become the prop upon which our whole life
hangs, with all the weight it carries.
Only observe, as you
may in the herbaceous stem, how the woody layers form, namely, in
strings: "each string separated from its neighbours by a prolongation
of the pith, which thus maintains its connection with the bark." For
the reception of Christ is by the Word, - the "doctrine of Christ" -
and this must thus (every string or line of truth) be wrapped up - to
speak according to the type - in living tissue. Alas! the accumulation
of this woody fibre, all-valuable as it is, may choke up these
life-channels, through which the sap penetrates through out the stem of
the tree, and sad injury be done. The medullary rays are to remain: all
the truth of God must abide in connection with the life, and the
life-pulses, as it were, ramify through it.
But the woody
layers must increase: year by year, a ring of wood is added to the
central axis, the tree enlarging to make room for it; this is the way
too for us to acquire truth without being choked up by it - the only
way. And the tree, at least, never neglects to lay up its store. You
may count its years of growth by these annual rings! Thus too with us
should the new truth apply itself to, wrap round, and strengthen what
we possessed before; and thus that which was first received becomes
like the "heart-wood" - stronger and more solid continually.
The
bark is formed on the outside of the wood, but grows from the inside
out, the outer layers gradually decaying, and dropping off. With every
fresh life-burst in the spring, the bark is loosened from the wood by
the newly organizing substance; so that the new wood clothes itself
afresh with a coat to suit it. So should it be with our outward life:
it should receive its expansion from within, and be always ready to
receive expansion and new modeling. These changes are incident to
growth, and should not subject us to the charge of fickleness or
inconstancy. The expansive power of life is a mighty energy, and if it
can be resisted, yet there is death in the resistance.
The
stem as the ascending axis of the plant is fittingly accompanied by
that spiral arrangement of the leaves in which we have the type of
orbital and upward progress. The leaf itself, it is assured us,* gives
the pattern of the whole tree, supposing the branches were brought into
one plane, as the veins of the leaf are. If the leaf speak of
profession, then we are reminded here of the needful consistency
between what we profess and what we are. In the reticulated veins of
Exogens we have an arrangement by which the sap is more completely and
persistently exposed to light and air than it is in the parallel veins
of the Endogenous leaf. And this corresponds in measure to the more
perfect oxygenation of the blood in the Vertebrata than in the other
divisions of the animal kingdom.
*"Typical Forms and Special Ends In Creation." By Drs. McCosh & Dickie.
In
that living and internal activity which we have seen the plant
typifies, - that in which alone fruit is found, the Exogen has clearly
the highest place. As already said, all the trees of temperate climes,
and the largest number of all trees by far, belong to this division. It
is the type of endurance, as it is of perpetuity, in its duration of
life surpassing all other trees. As taking first rank among vegetables,
its numerical place speaks, as I think, of that harmonious,
full-rounded life in which alone is power and perpetuity; and the
peculiarity of its growth assuredly should remind us that it is Christ
in the heart, Lord and Master there, that communicates this power. For
this, doctrine - dogma, if you please, - is absolutely needful: that
is, the Word of God received in the love of it. We are sanctified by
the truth, - not by what we think truth merely, nor by sincerity. We
take form by it; we are cast in the mould of the doctrine. That there
is danger for us here we have already admitted, but the danger in the
present day is comparatively little in the direction of adherence
over-much to dogma; it is much more that of careless indifference and
unbelief. Let these concentric rings of animal growth in the Exogen be
our admonition: for the life of the plant is shown in these new
acquirements; here it is that the circulation of the vital sap is
mainly carried on, which ceasing, the tree is dead.
(A) Sapwood. (B) Heartwood. (C) Bark.
The
exogen is distinguished by the woody axis of its stem, its netted
leaves, its two cotyledons: we will begin with that to which it owes
its name - the stem. This, of course, is only to be seen in its full
meaning in the tree, and all the trees of our temperate and colder
climes are exogens.
If we cut across the stem or branch of an
exogenous tree, we shall find it composed of three parts essentially.
There is, first, a central pith: this is the tissue of which the whole
plant is at first composed, and from which all other is formed. It is
composed of cells, the primary elements of all living things, in which
is contained the "protoplasm," the substance in which alone life
manifests itself, and of which the simplest living forms, whether plant
or animal, seem wholly to consist. Cellular tissue is therefore the
typical life-tissue, in which the activity characteristic of life
manifests itself, the actual workshop in which the inorganic matter
received into it becomes living, and then takes its place in the
organism to fulfill its destined purpose in it.
We do not
wonder, then, to find this cellular tissue in the middle of the stem,
connected with "rays," - the "medullary rays," - which proceed from it
to the outer portion. As the tree or branch gets older, the life-tissue
diminishes and dries up in the heart, and the tree (alas, as we do)
grows old fast in this way. Yet the medullary rays remain, and serve an
important purpose, of which we shall presently have to speak.
The
pith is surrounded by the woody layers, the number and thickness of
which increase yearly with the growth of the tree itself. These woody
layers constitute, of course, the strength of the tree, by virtue of
which it lifts its glorious foliage and its harvest of fruit into the
light and air of heaven. In the exogen, these woody layers, the product
of ; transformed living cells, are pressed close to the heart of the
tree, as if it knew and clung to its support. Would that we knew as
well! But at least we do know, for we have seen it already in the
Radiate, what this axis of support represents. It is Christ with all
that is revealed to us in Him, and as He is received by the soul in
living reality, that is the stay and support of it. Well may He be
clasped to our hearts, and become the prop upon which our whole life
hangs, with all the weight it carries.
Only observe, as you
may in the herbaceous stem, how the woody layers form, namely, in
strings: "each string separated from its neighbours by a prolongation
of the pith, which thus maintains its connection with the bark." For
the reception of Christ is by the Word, - the "doctrine of Christ" -
and this must thus (every string or line of truth) be wrapped up - to
speak according to the type - in living tissue. Alas! the accumulation
of this woody fibre, all-valuable as it is, may choke up these
life-channels, through which the sap penetrates through out the stem of
the tree, and sad injury be done. The medullary rays are to remain: all
the truth of God must abide in connection with the life, and the
life-pulses, as it were, ramify through it.
But the woody
layers must increase: year by year, a ring of wood is added to the
central axis, the tree enlarging to make room for it; this is the way
too for us to acquire truth without being choked up by it - the only
way. And the tree, at least, never neglects to lay up its store. You
may count its years of growth by these annual rings! Thus too with us
should the new truth apply itself to, wrap round, and strengthen what
we possessed before; and thus that which was first received becomes
like the "heart-wood" - stronger and more solid continually.
The
bark is formed on the outside of the wood, but grows from the inside
out, the outer layers gradually decaying, and dropping off. With every
fresh life-burst in the spring, the bark is loosened from the wood by
the newly organizing substance; so that the new wood clothes itself
afresh with a coat to suit it. So should it be with our outward life:
it should receive its expansion from within, and be always ready to
receive expansion and new modeling. These changes are incident to
growth, and should not subject us to the charge of fickleness or
inconstancy. The expansive power of life is a mighty energy, and if it
can be resisted, yet there is death in the resistance.
The
stem as the ascending axis of the plant is fittingly accompanied by
that spiral arrangement of the leaves in which we have the type of
orbital and upward progress. The leaf itself, it is assured us,* gives
the pattern of the whole tree, supposing the branches were brought into
one plane, as the veins of the leaf are. If the leaf speak of
profession, then we are reminded here of the needful consistency
between what we profess and what we are. In the reticulated veins of
Exogens we have an arrangement by which the sap is more completely and
persistently exposed to light and air than it is in the parallel veins
of the Endogenous leaf. And this corresponds in measure to the more
perfect oxygenation of the blood in the Vertebrata than in the other
divisions of the animal kingdom.
*"Typical Forms and Special Ends In Creation." By Drs. McCosh & Dickie.
In
that living and internal activity which we have seen the plant
typifies, - that in which alone fruit is found, the Exogen has clearly
the highest place. As already said, all the trees of temperate climes,
and the largest number of all trees by far, belong to this division. It
is the type of endurance, as it is of perpetuity, in its duration of
life surpassing all other trees. As taking first rank among vegetables,
its numerical place speaks, as I think, of that harmonious,
full-rounded life in which alone is power and perpetuity; and the
peculiarity of its growth assuredly should remind us that it is Christ
in the heart, Lord and Master there, that communicates this power. For
this, doctrine - dogma, if you please, - is absolutely needful: that
is, the Word of God received in the love of it. We are sanctified by
the truth, - not by what we think truth merely, nor by sincerity. We
take form by it; we are cast in the mould of the doctrine. That there
is danger for us here we have already admitted, but the danger in the
present day is comparatively little in the direction of adherence
over-much to dogma; it is much more that of careless indifference and
unbelief. Let these concentric rings of animal growth in the Exogen be
our admonition: for the life of the plant is shown in these new
acquirements; here it is that the circulation of the vital sap is
mainly carried on, which ceasing, the tree is dead.
2. THE ENDOGEN.
The Endogen has no proper woody axis: it is rather,
in idea, a woody cylinder; it is sometimes, as in the grasses, almost a
hollow one. Its stem is a walled stem, a fortified inclosure, as it
built against assault. In the trailing palms, and in the grasses, the
stems are "additionally hardened by a copious deposition of silex; this
is especially the case in the Rattan, which will readily strike fire
with steel." In the interior, the cellular tissue is mingled with
bundles of woody fibres carrying vessels: there is no proper wood. The
palms, indeed, are the only real trees among the endogens; and for
value, they are far exceeded by the grasses, which to men and cattle
furnish so large a proportion of their food. The biblical notices have
to do almost entirely with these two, - the grasses and the palms.
in idea, a woody cylinder; it is sometimes, as in the grasses, almost a
hollow one. Its stem is a walled stem, a fortified inclosure, as it
built against assault. In the trailing palms, and in the grasses, the
stems are "additionally hardened by a copious deposition of silex; this
is especially the case in the Rattan, which will readily strike fire
with steel." In the interior, the cellular tissue is mingled with
bundles of woody fibres carrying vessels: there is no proper wood. The
palms, indeed, are the only real trees among the endogens; and for
value, they are far exceeded by the grasses, which to men and cattle
furnish so large a proportion of their food. The biblical notices have
to do almost entirely with these two, - the grasses and the palms.
STEM OF A PALM: ENDOGENOUS.
The palm-tree is, in Scripture, the figure of the
righteous, taking its name from that uprightness which furnishes so
ready a similitude.
righteous, taking its name from that uprightness which furnishes so
ready a similitude.
"The familiar comparison, 'The righteous shall
flourish like the palm-tree,' " says Dr. Howson, "suggests a world of
illustration, Whether respect be had to the orderly and regular aspect
of the tree, its fruitfulness, the perpetual greenness of its foliage,
or the height at which the foliage grows, - as far as possible from
earth and as near as possible to heaven. Perhaps no point is more
worthy of mention, if we wish to pursue the comparison, than the
elasticity of the fibre of the palm, and its determined growth upward,
even when loaded with weights."
To which Tristram adds that it
flourishes in a barren soil; being characteristic of sandy and
semi-tropical deserts, but requires constant moisture, and has died out
of much of Palestine from the lack of human care.
The palms in the hands of those come out of great
tribulation, therefore, in the book of Revelation, may well speak, not
only of the desert out of which they have come, but no less of the
divine love which had there tended and nurtured them; for thus all
human righteousness is dependent upon the grace of God and the "living
water" of the Spirit of God.
At the other extreme from the stately palm, the grasses render to man incomparable service.
"When
it is considered," says Dr. Carpenter, "that all the wheat, barley,
oats, rye, and other corn-grains used as food by man, - as also rice
and maize, or Indian corn, which support an even larger number than the
former, - the sugar, which is now become, not only an article of luxury
to him, but of necessity, and the various grasses, which form the
staple food of nearly all the animals, upon which he relies for the
supply of his appetite, and for assistance in his labours, - it will be
at once seen that no single tribe can be compared with the Graminea in
importance to him. We have had to notice other tribes, and even
particular species, which are of the most important benefit in certain
situations; such are the date and the cocoa-nut. But these are valuable
just because the grasses, which are otherwise universal in their
distribution, are prevented, by peculiarities of climate, or other
causes, from flourishing in those particular spots. In all but the very
coldest parts of Europe we find some of the corn-grains affording the
principal supplies of food; - barley and oats in the north, rye in
latitudes a little more southern, and then wheat. In the southern parts
of Europe, rice and maize come into ordinary cultivation; and the use
of these extends throughout the tropics.
"The various
provisions for the natural propagation of these important vegetables
are extremely interesting. The animals which browse upon them usually
prefer the foliage, leaving the flowerstalks to ripen their seed; or,
if they destroy both, the plant spreads by offsets from the underground
stems. Even if they be trodden down, they are not destroyed; for buds
are developed from the several nodes of the stem, which thus multiply
the plant. It is on exposed downs and barren places, where the heat is
insufficient to ripen the seeds, and where there is no germination,
that we find the tendency to multiply by buds most remarkable."
Not
only do the grasses minister thus directly to man, but they even
preserve for him the fertility of the ground, and the ground itself.
The Sand-Reed and other species -
"Can vegetate amidst dry and
drifting sand, and are hence employed to give firmness to embankments,
which they pierce with an entangled web of living structure, that
offers a resistance rarely overcome by the force of storms, and is
renewed as fast as it is destroyed. Cattle will not eat them, and hence
they are providentially adapted to escape that mode of destruction; but
when they have been up-rooted by the thoughtlessness or ignorance of
man, the most serious evils have arisen. In Scotland, for example,
large tracts of once fertile country have been rendered barren by the
encroachment of sand hills, which have given them the desertlike aspect
of Egyptian plains; and this encroachment has resulted from the wanton
destruction of the mat-grasses."
Thus service has here also to take the form of conflict, and the service of the grass is largely of this character.
"Indeed," says Macmillan, "the great primary
object which God intended to serve by the universal diffusion of the
grass, seems to be the protection of the soil. Were the soil freely
exposed to heaven without any organic covering, it would speedily pass
away from the rocks on whose surface it was deposited. The floods would
lay bare one district, and encumber another with the accumulated heaps.
The sun would dry it up, and deprive it of all its nourishing
constituents; the winds would scatter it far and near, and fill the
whole atmosphere with its blinding, choking clouds. It is impossible to
imagine all the disastrous effects that would be produced over the
whole earth, were the disintegration of the elements not counteracted
by the conservative force of vital growth, and the destructive powers
of nature not kept in check by the apparently insignificant, but
actually irresistible emerald sceptre of the grass. The earth would
soon be deprived of its vegetation and inhabitants, and become one vast
desert catacomb, a gigantic lifeless cinder, revolving without aim or
object round the sun."
For its place in this conflict it is marvellously adapted.
"The root, in proportion to its size, is more
fibrous and tenacious than that of any other plant. In some instances
it is so vital that, like Hercules hydra, the more it is hacked and
cut, the faster it spreads itself; and it runs so extensively, each
joint sending up a new shoot, that it encloses a considerable space of
soil. . . . The stem, or culm, is hollow, provided at intervals with
knots, and invested, as if by some mysterious process of electrotype,
with a thin coating of flint. It is constructed in this manner so as to
combine the utmost strength with its light and elegant form; and so
efficient are these mechanical appliances, that it rarely gives way
under the force of the most violent winds."
The endogenous
growth in such opposite developments, then, as the grasses and the
palms, gives a true indication of the thought which is embodied in this
division of the vegetable kingdom; and the grasses refer us to the
Articulata in more than their jointed stems. But while nutritive
products abound among the endogens, there are few that are injurious:
the "types of evil" of which Mr. Swainson speaks, are found but seldom
throughout this class. They are largely the benefactors and ministers
to the need of man; uniting with this the thought of separation from
surrounding influences. The walled stem is, as it were, a "garden
inclosed." The love, as well as the "fear of the Lord, is to depart
from evil.
As a second division, and in this way corresponding
with the animal kingdom, it is natural that it should approach this in
its spiritual idea. But the endogen is still vegetable, not animal,
life not soul, and its very fruits and stored up nutriment are
indicative of this. They are the result of growth, and internal: they
are as fruits of love enriching the heart, but which of course
necessarily imply the ministry of love which will be the issue.
3. THE THALLOGEN.
Although the lowest form in the vegetable world, the
thallogens nevertheless find, through the Duckweed and the Grasswrack
of the last division, their connection with it. These two orders, says
Carpenter, -
"Both consisting of aquatic plants, may be considered
as presenting a near approach to the aquatic Cryptogamia in general
structure; and some species are very like Algae in external aspect.
They are clearly separated from them, however, by their organs of
fructification; but these seem reduced to almost their simplest
possible form."
Thallogens are flowerless plants, composed of
cellular tissue without vessels, and in which root, stem, and leaves
are fused in one general mass, which is the thallus. While on the one
hand we must consider them the lowliest form of life, there are on the
other hand none in which the power of life is more manifest and more
pervasive. In the stately tree a large part is considered to be dead,
as no longer active, however much it may have its use and its necessity
in relation to the welfare of the whole. But in the algae, the lichen,
and the fungi, - the three orders into which the thallogens are
divided, - there is no part dead. An intensity of life characterizes
them, and almost every function of life - in the lowest forms
absolutely so - is performed by every part. They are all root, all
leaf, and often with various modes of propagation, they diffuse
everywhere their microscopic spores, to find wherever they may a place
favourable to development. They fill the water and the air; they
germinate on barren rock, amid snow and ice, on the bark of trees, on
decaying or living organisms, and their tremendous power in the
production of epidemic and other diseases has only of late begun to be
appreciated. Like the eyes of the Lord, which are in every place
beholding the evil and the good, they are His ministers and messengers
for wrath or mercy.
Some, as the lichens, with slow growth,
seem types of endurance and longsuffering, resisting cold and heat, and
the fury of the storm, and able -
"When scorched by the summer
sunshine, deprived of all their juices, and reduced to shapeless,
hueless masses, which crumble into powder under the slightest touch of
the hand or the foot - to revive again when exposed to the genial
influences of the rain, assume their fairest forms and develop their
organs of fructification for the dispersion of their kind."
On
the other hand, some, like the final outbreak of long-slumbering
judgment, burst out in a night, spotting the face of nature with an
eruptive growth, from which some malignant formations are called
"fungous." Yet these also, as judgment passes in the divine compassion
from the penitent, pass quickly away as they arise. They are the signs
of existing corruption, as an ordinance of God for its removal, and the
work being done, they pass away.
Looking at these plants as in
the third rank of vegetable existence there seems in them as a whole
the assurance of the life they represent as having in it the pledge and
power of resurrection. The lichen is above all that in which the
generative power which characterizes the plant is found. It is the
first growth which, diminutive as it may be, "ploughs upon the rock,"
where no plough of man will venture, and prepares the way for future
harvests. The Fungi more plainly still speak of resurrection, springing
as they do out of decay and death; though we must unite to this the
permanence of the lichen, to find the type filled out. Each type, in
Scripture as in Nature, emphasizes its special point.
Out life
as children of God is indeed a resurrection, and if this be the point
emphasized here, we need not wonder if there be mystery accompanying
it, though this, rather than discouraging, should awaken interest. Here
we touch some of the deepest problems of divine work in the soul; and
the humble forms before us, while in their lowliness they remind us of
what our own origin is, indicate power and forces which are in
themselves inscrutable. We see them in their operations only, and
indeed as "through a glass, darkly."
It may be thought that,
as to the fungus, the type of resurrection is incongruous with that
character of it, as representing judgment, which had been before
referred to, and which seems in many cases to be less a figure than a
fact. Smut, ergot, bunt, mould, in all their varied forms, are surely
this; and it would be useless to dispute it. The reconciling truth,
however, may be found in different ways. First in this, that even the
new life given to us when born again is in itself a judgment upon the
old; and it begins in us with the apprehension of such judgment. And
note here that in fact in the fungi, (and strangely enough in forms as
low as these,) some tokens of a higher life appear.
"In many
of their properties," says one of the most appreciative observers of
nature, "the fungi are closely allied to some members of the animal
kingdom. They resemble the flesh in animals in containing a large
proportion of albumenous proximate principles; and they are almost the
only plants that contain azote or nitrogen, formerly regarded as one of
the principal marks of distinction between plants and animals. This
element reveals itself by the strong cadaverous smell, which most of
them give out in decaying, and also by the savoury meat-like taste
which others of them afford. Unlike other vegetables, they possess the
remarkable property of exhaling hydrogen gas; and the great majority of
species, like animals, absorb oxygen from the atmosphere."
He goes on to speak of the luminosity of some of them as another link, and adds, -
"It
may be remarked in connection with this luminous property, that many
fungi are capable of generating considerable heat. Dutrochet
ascertained that the highest temperature produced by any plant, with
the exception of the curious cuckoo-pint of our woods, was generated by
a species of toad-stool called Boletus Aeneus. Such being the curious
properties exhibited by these plants it is not surprising that at one
period they should have been suspected to be animal productions, formed
by insects for their habitations, somewhat like the coral structures of
zoophytes and sponges. Though this view has long been felt to be
utterly untenable, inasmuch as they have the growth and texture of
plants, and it is well ascertained that they produce, and are produced
from seeds like other plants, yet they are evidently one of the links
in the chain of nature which unite the vegetable to the animal kingdom
and show how arbitrary and unfounded were the old definitions which
served to distinguish them from each other."
This would surely
strongly confirm the view that the fungi really stand as types of
resurrection, an ascent as this is to a higher life. But this is not
all that is to be said in answer to the question asked as to how they
can be types of judgment also. The answer is that here as elsewhere we
have many forms, and types of many things, evil as well as good; and
that there is a resurrection of judgment as well as a resurrection of
life. All kinds of resurrection possibly have here their
representatives, as well as connected truths of many sorts. It is
enough for us now to be able to find what seems the leading thought,
already expressed by one whom we have often quoted, "fungi the
resurrection of plant-death."
thallogens nevertheless find, through the Duckweed and the Grasswrack
of the last division, their connection with it. These two orders, says
Carpenter, -
"Both consisting of aquatic plants, may be considered
as presenting a near approach to the aquatic Cryptogamia in general
structure; and some species are very like Algae in external aspect.
They are clearly separated from them, however, by their organs of
fructification; but these seem reduced to almost their simplest
possible form."
Thallogens are flowerless plants, composed of
cellular tissue without vessels, and in which root, stem, and leaves
are fused in one general mass, which is the thallus. While on the one
hand we must consider them the lowliest form of life, there are on the
other hand none in which the power of life is more manifest and more
pervasive. In the stately tree a large part is considered to be dead,
as no longer active, however much it may have its use and its necessity
in relation to the welfare of the whole. But in the algae, the lichen,
and the fungi, - the three orders into which the thallogens are
divided, - there is no part dead. An intensity of life characterizes
them, and almost every function of life - in the lowest forms
absolutely so - is performed by every part. They are all root, all
leaf, and often with various modes of propagation, they diffuse
everywhere their microscopic spores, to find wherever they may a place
favourable to development. They fill the water and the air; they
germinate on barren rock, amid snow and ice, on the bark of trees, on
decaying or living organisms, and their tremendous power in the
production of epidemic and other diseases has only of late begun to be
appreciated. Like the eyes of the Lord, which are in every place
beholding the evil and the good, they are His ministers and messengers
for wrath or mercy.
Some, as the lichens, with slow growth,
seem types of endurance and longsuffering, resisting cold and heat, and
the fury of the storm, and able -
"When scorched by the summer
sunshine, deprived of all their juices, and reduced to shapeless,
hueless masses, which crumble into powder under the slightest touch of
the hand or the foot - to revive again when exposed to the genial
influences of the rain, assume their fairest forms and develop their
organs of fructification for the dispersion of their kind."
On
the other hand, some, like the final outbreak of long-slumbering
judgment, burst out in a night, spotting the face of nature with an
eruptive growth, from which some malignant formations are called
"fungous." Yet these also, as judgment passes in the divine compassion
from the penitent, pass quickly away as they arise. They are the signs
of existing corruption, as an ordinance of God for its removal, and the
work being done, they pass away.
Looking at these plants as in
the third rank of vegetable existence there seems in them as a whole
the assurance of the life they represent as having in it the pledge and
power of resurrection. The lichen is above all that in which the
generative power which characterizes the plant is found. It is the
first growth which, diminutive as it may be, "ploughs upon the rock,"
where no plough of man will venture, and prepares the way for future
harvests. The Fungi more plainly still speak of resurrection, springing
as they do out of decay and death; though we must unite to this the
permanence of the lichen, to find the type filled out. Each type, in
Scripture as in Nature, emphasizes its special point.
Out life
as children of God is indeed a resurrection, and if this be the point
emphasized here, we need not wonder if there be mystery accompanying
it, though this, rather than discouraging, should awaken interest. Here
we touch some of the deepest problems of divine work in the soul; and
the humble forms before us, while in their lowliness they remind us of
what our own origin is, indicate power and forces which are in
themselves inscrutable. We see them in their operations only, and
indeed as "through a glass, darkly."
It may be thought that,
as to the fungus, the type of resurrection is incongruous with that
character of it, as representing judgment, which had been before
referred to, and which seems in many cases to be less a figure than a
fact. Smut, ergot, bunt, mould, in all their varied forms, are surely
this; and it would be useless to dispute it. The reconciling truth,
however, may be found in different ways. First in this, that even the
new life given to us when born again is in itself a judgment upon the
old; and it begins in us with the apprehension of such judgment. And
note here that in fact in the fungi, (and strangely enough in forms as
low as these,) some tokens of a higher life appear.
"In many
of their properties," says one of the most appreciative observers of
nature, "the fungi are closely allied to some members of the animal
kingdom. They resemble the flesh in animals in containing a large
proportion of albumenous proximate principles; and they are almost the
only plants that contain azote or nitrogen, formerly regarded as one of
the principal marks of distinction between plants and animals. This
element reveals itself by the strong cadaverous smell, which most of
them give out in decaying, and also by the savoury meat-like taste
which others of them afford. Unlike other vegetables, they possess the
remarkable property of exhaling hydrogen gas; and the great majority of
species, like animals, absorb oxygen from the atmosphere."
He goes on to speak of the luminosity of some of them as another link, and adds, -
"It
may be remarked in connection with this luminous property, that many
fungi are capable of generating considerable heat. Dutrochet
ascertained that the highest temperature produced by any plant, with
the exception of the curious cuckoo-pint of our woods, was generated by
a species of toad-stool called Boletus Aeneus. Such being the curious
properties exhibited by these plants it is not surprising that at one
period they should have been suspected to be animal productions, formed
by insects for their habitations, somewhat like the coral structures of
zoophytes and sponges. Though this view has long been felt to be
utterly untenable, inasmuch as they have the growth and texture of
plants, and it is well ascertained that they produce, and are produced
from seeds like other plants, yet they are evidently one of the links
in the chain of nature which unite the vegetable to the animal kingdom
and show how arbitrary and unfounded were the old definitions which
served to distinguish them from each other."
This would surely
strongly confirm the view that the fungi really stand as types of
resurrection, an ascent as this is to a higher life. But this is not
all that is to be said in answer to the question asked as to how they
can be types of judgment also. The answer is that here as elsewhere we
have many forms, and types of many things, evil as well as good; and
that there is a resurrection of judgment as well as a resurrection of
life. All kinds of resurrection possibly have here their
representatives, as well as connected truths of many sorts. It is
enough for us now to be able to find what seems the leading thought,
already expressed by one whom we have often quoted, "fungi the
resurrection of plant-death."
4. THE ANOGEN.
We pass now to the mosses. That they fill a gap
between the lichens and the ferns needs no insisting on: it is the
place they fill for every botanist. They can be described, however,
rather negatively than positively. They are composed of cellular tissue
without either vessels or woody fibre, although roots and stem and
leaves appear again in them; humble plants, of small size, often
minute. Their spores are carried in seed-vessels whose mouths are
fringed with a single or double row of teeth, the "teeth being ranged
in each row in the geometrical progression of 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64,
there never being by any chance an odd number." Thus, in a singular
manner, the number of its place in the vegetable circle is impressed on
the Anogen.
between the lichens and the ferns needs no insisting on: it is the
place they fill for every botanist. They can be described, however,
rather negatively than positively. They are composed of cellular tissue
without either vessels or woody fibre, although roots and stem and
leaves appear again in them; humble plants, of small size, often
minute. Their spores are carried in seed-vessels whose mouths are
fringed with a single or double row of teeth, the "teeth being ranged
in each row in the geometrical progression of 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64,
there never being by any chance an odd number." Thus, in a singular
manner, the number of its place in the vegetable circle is impressed on
the Anogen.
The meanings of this number are so few, however,
and the characters of the moss apparently so negative, that it would
seem difficult to trace any correspondence. The number 4 is that which
speaks of weakness and passiveness, as we have seen in the Radiates and
in the mineral kingdom. "Capacity for division" - 4 being the first
number susceptible of this - suits also these. It is the earth-number
also, and in this respect again agrees with them. What will it yield as
to the moss?
Here is one character in which they are assimilated to the Radiates
"Mosses
possess in a high degree the power of reproducing such parts of their
tissue as have been injured or removed. They may be trodden underfoot;
they may be torn up by the plough or the harrow; they may be cropped
down to the earth, when mixed with grass, by graminivorous animals;
they may be injured in a hundred other ways; but in a marvellously
short space of time they spring up as verdant in their appearance, and
as perfect in their form, as though they had never been disturbed. The
necessity of such a power of regeneration as this is abundantly
manifest, when we consider the numberless casualties to which they are
exposed in the bare, shelterless positions which they occupy."
Again, -
"Mosses
were fancifully termed by Luminus servi - servants, or workmen; for
they seem to labour to produce vegetation in newly formed countries,
where soil can scarcely yet be said to be. This is not their only use,
however. They fill up and consolidate bogs, and form rich vegetable
mould for the growth of larger plants, which they also protect from
cold during the winter. They likewise clothe the sides of lofty hills
and mountain ranges, and powerfully attract and condense the watery
vapours floating in the atmosphere, and thus become the living
fountains of many streams."
Lichens are similarly credited with the power to produce soil on barren spots: it is, however, .by a different method: -
"The
mode in which they prepare the sterile rock for the reception of plants
that require a higher kind of nourishment is most remarkable. They may
be said to dig for themselves graves for the reception of their
remains, when death and decay would otherwise speedily dissipate them.
For whilst living, these lichens form a considerable quantity of oxalic
acid (which is a peculiar compound of carbon and oxygen, two
ingredients supplied by the atmosphere); and this acts chemically upon
the rock, (especially if of limestone,) forming a hollow which retains
the particles of the structure, when their term of connected existence
has expired. The moisture which is caught in these hollows finds its
way into the cracks and crevices of the rocks, and, when frozen, rends
them into minute fragments by its expansion, and thus adds more and
more to the forming soil."
The moss does not produce soil by
such action upon the rock, and on the other hand is a manufacturer of
it on a larger scale, gathering from the air the materials of its
growth, and then giving them to the formation of soil while it grows
on. Says Ruskin, -
"That blackness at the root, though only so
notable in this wood-moss and collateral species, is indeed a general
character of the mosses, with rare exceptions. It is their funeral
blackness; - that, I perceive, is the way the moss-leaves die. They do
not fall - they do not visibly decay; but they decay invisibly, in
continual secession, beneath the ascending crest. They rise to form
that crest, all green and bright, and take the light and air from those
out of which they grew; and those, their ancestors, darken and die
slowly, and at last become a mass of mouldering ground. In fact, as I
perceive farther, their final duty is to die. The main work of other
leaves is in their life, but these have to form the earth out of which
all other leaves are to grow."
He adds, in a note written at an after-time, -
"Bringing
home here, evening after evening, heaps of all kinds of mosses from the
hills among which the Arch-bishop Ruggieri was hunting the wolf and her
whelps in Ugolino’s dream, I am more and more struck, every day, with
their special function as earth-gatherers, and with the enormous
importance to their own brightness, and to our service, of that dark
and degraded state of the inferior leaves. And it fastens itself in my
mind mainly, as their distinctive character, that, as the leaves of a
tree become wood, so the leaves of a moss become earth, while yet a
normal part of the plant. Here is a cake in my hand weighing half a
pound, bright green on the surface with minute crisp leaves; but an
inch thick beneath, in what looks at first like clay, but is indeed
knitted fibre of exhausted moss."
Here, then, comes the
meaning for it, quite in accordance with its place in the vegetable
series: exhaustion and decay doing God's work in renewal, as
spiritually is indeed the case. "Man's day" has to close in ruin, and
give place to that "day of the Lord" which is "upon every one that is
proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be
brought low," that the Lord alone may be exalted in that day.
Even
failure and evil, under God's hand, thus work often with us that
humiliation in which is the secret of future blessing. Out of defeat
comes victory; out of the experience of weakness, strength: the
discipline of the wilderness is the training for the battles by which
in the end the land of the inheritance is to be possessed. Nothing
could be a more needful lesson than that which here is taught us by the
lowly moss - dying to take possession of the earth.
But there
is another property of the moss, upon which largely depends its ability
to fill the place for which it is destined. It is its already mentioned
affinity for water. "Every part of them, and especially the leaves, is
endowed to a remarkable degree with the power of imbibing the faintest
moisture from the air," and thus clothing the sides of lofty hills and
mountain-ranges, they "powerfully attract and condense the watery
vapours floating in the atmosphere, and become the living fountains of
many streams."
How wonderful a property is this of a lowly
plant and spiritually, the thought is quite easy to be read. It is the
humble to whom God looks; the proud He knoweth but afar off. It is our
emptiness, when apprehended in the soul, which makes us fit vessels for
the Spirit of God to dwell in, - fit channels by which His fullness can
be poured out for the refreshment of others. This is a simple thought,
and as sweet as simple, while assuredly we need to be reminded of it.
The insignificant moss may help to impress upon us what is of
inestimable value for our souls.
We shall have yet to see this
in its place when we review presently this circle of nature-teachings.
One group only now remains to be considered, - that of the ferns, or -
5. ACROGENS.
STEM OF TREE-FERN ACROGENOUS.
With the ferns are grouped also the club-mosses and
the horse-tails, the former of which "are usually found in bleak, bare,
exposed situations in all parts of the world, and sometimes attain a
large size, forsaking the creeping habit peculiar to the family, and
becoming arborescent in tropical countries, particularly New Zealand,
rivaling in rank luxuriance the surrounding trees and shrubs of the
forest. . . . Lycopods may be said to present the highest type of
cryptogamic vegetation, the highest limit capable of being reached by
flowerless plants. Indeed, they are said, by botanists of the highest
reputation, to bear a close affinity to coniferous trees, - to be, in
fact, pine-trees in miniature." The Acrogens, therefore, lead us back
toward the Exogens, and the circle here too is complete.
Is it
complete from the other side - the spiritual one? This has been the
case so often, that, even before knowing, one cannot but have a
peaceful, happy confidence that so it must be here; but I did not know,
until I just now came to ask myself the question, that so indeed it is.
We have travelled round in the vegetable circle, just as we did in the
animal, until we have got to the fifth place, just opposite the
mollusk: what link can there be -
the horse-tails, the former of which "are usually found in bleak, bare,
exposed situations in all parts of the world, and sometimes attain a
large size, forsaking the creeping habit peculiar to the family, and
becoming arborescent in tropical countries, particularly New Zealand,
rivaling in rank luxuriance the surrounding trees and shrubs of the
forest. . . . Lycopods may be said to present the highest type of
cryptogamic vegetation, the highest limit capable of being reached by
flowerless plants. Indeed, they are said, by botanists of the highest
reputation, to bear a close affinity to coniferous trees, - to be, in
fact, pine-trees in miniature." The Acrogens, therefore, lead us back
toward the Exogens, and the circle here too is complete.
Is it
complete from the other side - the spiritual one? This has been the
case so often, that, even before knowing, one cannot but have a
peaceful, happy confidence that so it must be here; but I did not know,
until I just now came to ask myself the question, that so indeed it is.
We have travelled round in the vegetable circle, just as we did in the
animal, until we have got to the fifth place, just opposite the
mollusk: what link can there be -
FROND OF A FERN.
Showing the seed (or spore) in the leaf.
-
between a fern and a mollusk? True, there was some kind of analogy
attempted to be traced between them awhile ago, but it seemed after all
a faint one, especially the comparison of the mollusk's shell with the
cylinder of the tree-fern. Now, as we look at this last vegetable form,
what impresses one is, how thoroughly the leaf appears to be the whole
thing. The scars of the fallen leaves mark the stem outside in the
whole length of it; the living leaves are thrown out at the top, but
they, with the ducts and vessels which rise up into them, and the base
of the old leaf-stalks, form the solid part of the trunk; the centre,
which is of cellular tissue, often is deficient, so that the cylinder
is hollow; then the spores, which answer to the seeds in higher plants,
are on the under side of the leaves: so that the whole growth of the
plant seems to be, as it were, leaf. Just as the mollusk seems to exist
but for its shell, so does the fern throw all its vigour and energy
into that which is its crown of glory upon its summit, its crest of
leaves.
But what is the leaf? Here what it is elsewhere, of
course ; if we are to interpret it spiritually, as our rule is. And
thus, if the leaf be the glory of. the fern, it glorifies, as the
mollusk does, its confession: and this, for us, if we are His, is
Christ. So that the mollusk and the fern are really akin, more nearly
than at first we could have believed. There is a spiritual relationship
which goes beyond, while it enforces the natural. And the fern fills
thus the fifth place, as the mollusk does. It is the rounding off of
the life with God, that God is confessed with the tongue, as glorified
in the ways. And thus the circle is closed, and we are brought back to
the beginning again. In the Exogen, it is Christ held in the heart; in
the Acrogen, Christ confessed with the lips; and if He be confessed
because dear, yet He will be more dear for the confession. Yea, "if ye
be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of
glory and of God resteth upon you."
Notice here, that in the
fern, there is no flower, no fruit: the seed is in the leaf itself. And
how fruitful is this confession of Christ, when it comes in its place
in the filled out circle - when it is itself fruit, as we may say, the
fern-leaf is. What better fruit is there than this, when the testimony
to Christ comes out of a heart filled with, and a life given to, Him!
Here, then, we close our glance - mere glance it is - at the Vegetable Kingdom. We began with -
1.
Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, known by the Word of truth,
growingly more and more known, the stay and support of the soul, which
develops into power and individuality as it is built up on Him. Nothing
is more individual than the exogenous tree, strictly as it adheres to
the divine plan for it.
2. Then we had the fruitful life, separate from the world, armed
against evil, elastic under pressure, - the result of the former. This
is the walled and fruitful Endogen.
3. Then we go deeper, to see this life as a life in resurrection, a
life which thus has power over death, though it implies the judgment of
the old man, and the old things passed away. This is the Thallogen.
4. Then in the lowly moss, we learn the weakness which is strength,
a humiliation which implies exaltation, a discipline which is a
Father's hand, and how our need and nothingness attract the dew and
ministry of the Spirit.
5. And lastly, what this leads us to is joy in Christ, and the
confession of His name. Who else is worthy? what remains to us as the
necessary consequence, but that "Christ is all"?
And now I have
but to close this fragmentary sketch with the expression of the hope,
that, poor as it is, it will yet help some to a new reading of the
facts of nature, - be even in some measure a key to the language of
what the finger of God has written for our learning; that He Himself
may be better known and nearer, nature witnessing of Him as Scripture
does, and one with Scripture in its witness, - Christ the theme of
both.
-
between a fern and a mollusk? True, there was some kind of analogy
attempted to be traced between them awhile ago, but it seemed after all
a faint one, especially the comparison of the mollusk's shell with the
cylinder of the tree-fern. Now, as we look at this last vegetable form,
what impresses one is, how thoroughly the leaf appears to be the whole
thing. The scars of the fallen leaves mark the stem outside in the
whole length of it; the living leaves are thrown out at the top, but
they, with the ducts and vessels which rise up into them, and the base
of the old leaf-stalks, form the solid part of the trunk; the centre,
which is of cellular tissue, often is deficient, so that the cylinder
is hollow; then the spores, which answer to the seeds in higher plants,
are on the under side of the leaves: so that the whole growth of the
plant seems to be, as it were, leaf. Just as the mollusk seems to exist
but for its shell, so does the fern throw all its vigour and energy
into that which is its crown of glory upon its summit, its crest of
leaves.
But what is the leaf? Here what it is elsewhere, of
course ; if we are to interpret it spiritually, as our rule is. And
thus, if the leaf be the glory of. the fern, it glorifies, as the
mollusk does, its confession: and this, for us, if we are His, is
Christ. So that the mollusk and the fern are really akin, more nearly
than at first we could have believed. There is a spiritual relationship
which goes beyond, while it enforces the natural. And the fern fills
thus the fifth place, as the mollusk does. It is the rounding off of
the life with God, that God is confessed with the tongue, as glorified
in the ways. And thus the circle is closed, and we are brought back to
the beginning again. In the Exogen, it is Christ held in the heart; in
the Acrogen, Christ confessed with the lips; and if He be confessed
because dear, yet He will be more dear for the confession. Yea, "if ye
be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of
glory and of God resteth upon you."
Notice here, that in the
fern, there is no flower, no fruit: the seed is in the leaf itself. And
how fruitful is this confession of Christ, when it comes in its place
in the filled out circle - when it is itself fruit, as we may say, the
fern-leaf is. What better fruit is there than this, when the testimony
to Christ comes out of a heart filled with, and a life given to, Him!
Here, then, we close our glance - mere glance it is - at the Vegetable Kingdom. We began with -
1.
Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, known by the Word of truth,
growingly more and more known, the stay and support of the soul, which
develops into power and individuality as it is built up on Him. Nothing
is more individual than the exogenous tree, strictly as it adheres to
the divine plan for it.
2. Then we had the fruitful life, separate from the world, armed
against evil, elastic under pressure, - the result of the former. This
is the walled and fruitful Endogen.
3. Then we go deeper, to see this life as a life in resurrection, a
life which thus has power over death, though it implies the judgment of
the old man, and the old things passed away. This is the Thallogen.
4. Then in the lowly moss, we learn the weakness which is strength,
a humiliation which implies exaltation, a discipline which is a
Father's hand, and how our need and nothingness attract the dew and
ministry of the Spirit.
5. And lastly, what this leads us to is joy in Christ, and the
confession of His name. Who else is worthy? what remains to us as the
necessary consequence, but that "Christ is all"?
And now I have
but to close this fragmentary sketch with the expression of the hope,
that, poor as it is, it will yet help some to a new reading of the
facts of nature, - be even in some measure a key to the language of
what the finger of God has written for our learning; that He Himself
may be better known and nearer, nature witnessing of Him as Scripture
does, and one with Scripture in its witness, - Christ the theme of
both.
"And every creature which is in heaven, and on
the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, even all
that are in them, heard I saying, 'Blessing, and glory, and honour, and
power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb
forever and ever.' "