And as she grew weaker and weaker, I am sure the Good Shepherd taught her that even if she could not cling to Him--and it was no longer "the weak clinging to the Strong, but the Strong clinging to the weak"--she was safe, for He has said of His sheep, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father"s hand. I and My Father are one."
Alice had near her bed, where she could always see it, a beautiful picture of a shepherd with a lamb upon his bosom. She was very fond of looking at it, and saying how it made her think of herself. "If you see a flock of sheep going along the road, and one of them is very weary," she said--one day when she was very tired, and her feet were very hot, so that she felt as if they would never be cool again--"you would not like to see them go on driving it, but would wish to see the shepherd take it in his arms to the fold." She asked that these works, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His,"
should be put upon her gravestone, saying that it was her favourite text; and against her name in the family Bible she wished them to write,... "so He bringeth them unto their desired haven."
When she was almost Home, her father spoke to Alice about the many she had to love on earth, and the many in heaven; for two little sisters, Constance and Eva, were already with the Lord. Looking up with a smile, as if she really saw the One who had been her Friend in life, and from whose love death could not separate her, she said softly, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee?"
I think these were her last words; a little before, she had said, "It seems strange to be going where you can none of you come with me; but He is there, and that is enough."
If you are like the rest of my young friends, you do not mind having the Spider"s history interrupted, that we might think of this sweet story of Alice, and how she too "tried the ropes," and found them "all right." But there was one great difference, was there not? The spider"s ropes are spun out of his own body; they are twisted so strongly and firmly by his own feet; but Alice knew that if she was to be safe in life and in death, nothing of her own was strong enough to hold by; she could be saved only because the Lord Jesus Christ had finished the work which G.o.d gave to Him to do. It was because Alice knew Whom she had believed that she could say she had tried the ropes and found them all right; she knew they would bear _any_ strain, and so she could answer that question about being afraid, and reply that she had no fear whatever.
I want just here to copy for you some beautiful lines, written by one who "fell asleep in Jesus" when he was quite young, not yet sixteen; they were found in his pocket-book.
"Oh! I have been at the brink of the grave, And stood on the edge of its dark, deep wave; And I thought, in the still calm hours of night, Of those regions where all is for ever bright; And I feared not the wave Of the gloomy grave, For I knew that Jehovah was mighty to save.
"I have watched the solemn ebb and flow, Of life"s tide which was fleeting sure though slow; I"ve stood on the sh.o.r.e of eternity, And heard the deep roar of its rushing sea; Yet I feared not the wave Of the gloomy grave, For I knew that Jehovah was mighty to save.
"And I found that my only rest could be In the death of the One who died for me; For my rest is bought with the price of blood, Which gush"d from the veins of the Son of G.o.d; So I fear not the wave Of the gloomy grave, For I knew that Jehovah is mighty to save."
How happy it was for his parents to read these words in their dear boy"s own writing, after they had laid his body to rest in the grave which had no terror for him!
But to return to our Spider, or Spinner, as his name means. You have not only watched him coming down from the ceiling upon his own strong rope, spinning it longer and longer as he travels, but have seen him crawling along the ceiling head downwards, and perhaps wondered that he did not fall. If you were to look at one of those eight feet of his through a microscope, your wonder would be turned into admiration, as you saw the beautiful little brushes by which he is enabled to cling fast to the smooth surface, and walk along the ceiling as securely as you do on the floor.
And now I will leave you to read in some interesting book how prisoners have tamed House-spiders, and about the Water-spider which has been known to spin its nest in a tumbler of water, and the great Americans, as large as sparrows, which catch tiny birds; for it is time to pa.s.s on to the Insect family. But I must first tell you a story about a Tarantula, a very large spider, which lives in the south of Europe, as well as in tropical countries, and makes holes for itself about four inches deep in the ground.
Two officers from India agreed to spend their furlough together in a visit to Australia, the one for the sake of making researches in natural history, the other for any chance interest or amus.e.m.e.nt that might offer itself in a new country.
The former, Dr. Prendergast, was one day writing in his log cabin, when a huge Tarantula spider gently lowered itself from the roof by its slender cord, and dangled in front of him. "Ha!" said the naturalist, making sure of the handsome specimen that had thus unwittingly come within his reach, "I"ll have you, my good fellow"; and taking a valuable pin from his necktie he made a dexterous shot, and pierced him through the body.
To his dismay, however, the spider, quite equal to the occasion, turned and bit him so sharply that he drew back with a cry, and before he could recover himself, the Tarantula had scrambled back up its rope, bearing the pin with it, and was again safe in its hiding place in the roof.
Now as the pin contained a precious stone which Dr. Prendergast had had set in order to carry it about in safety, he was exceedingly annoyed at this loss, and he and his companion searched the roof with care in the hope of finding it; but all in vain, and Dr. Prendergast could only reproach himself with having made such a foolish experiment.
A few days later he was again writing in the same position, when he beheld his enemy the spider once more descending from the roof, and to his surprise and joy it carried with it the pin, still sticking through its body. This time our naturalist made no vainglorious display of his power as a marksman, but beating down the spider with the nearest object at hand, he again possessed himself of the lost treasure, now doubly valuable on account of its extraordinary adventure, and his mother, for whom he was preserving the beautiful stone, afterwards wore it, set in a small brooch.
There are six "orders" of Insects, arranged according to their form, and the number of their wings, and one of each is chosen to represent the whole cla.s.s.
First, the Beetle.
Second, the Gra.s.shopper.
Third, the Dragon-fly.
Fourth, the Bee, the Wasp, and the Ant.
Fifth, the b.u.t.terfly, and the Moth.
Sixth, the Fly and the Gnat.
I wonder which of all these we had better discuss; for there are such wonderful things to tell even of the tiniest creeping and winged creature, that I only wish we had time for them all--the honey-making bees and the paper-making wasps, the many coloured dragon-flies, the moths, the b.u.t.terflies and the beetles--but as we must choose one out of this great family, it shall be the "wise" and busy little ant: for how are we to learn the lesson which G.o.d has given her to teach us, if we do not, as He bids us, "consider her ways?"
Before we attempt to do so by noticing her "city," so full of life and bustle, suppose we ask ourselves for a moment how it is that we see so very few insects in winter. Did you ever stand very still, in the silence of a clear frosty day in the country, and wonder what made all around so strangely quiet?
One reason is, that the myriads of insects, whose hum and buzz make a good part of the noise and stir of a summer afternoon, are all gone. No whirring wings rush past; there is no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or musical winged bee" to break the stillness; all the insect-world seems dead, or flown south with the swallows--though, as there are still spiders"
webs to be seen, each delicate thread marked in sharp outline, like the rigging of an icebound ship, it would seem that there must still remain some unwary fly to be taken in the beautiful snare.
But _are_ they all dead and gone, those happy winged things that danced up and down in shady nooks, or so lately shone like jewels in the sunshine?
Where are the topaz-coloured b.u.t.terflies that glanced from flower to flower, the emerald tiger-beetles, the ladybirds, and the gra.s.shoppers?
Some of them are indeed dead; their little life, bounded by a few summer days, was soon lived out; they have laid their eggs, making careful provision for the protection and food of the young ones which they will never see--for the eggs of insects will bear the cold which so soon proves fatal to their mothers--and their little hour of work in this busy world is finished; but many more are only very fast asleep. Like the dwarfish Esquimaux, when _their_ long dark winter comes, and they draw their mossy blankets over them, they are taking their winter rest, and lie hidden safely in depths of soft moss, or beneath the bark of some ivy-grown tree, or deep in the lap of Mother Earth herself.
And with many of them, before they wake to life again, such changes will have taken place that they will come forth from their hiding-places like new creatures, fitted to enjoy a new mode of living. It is not difficult to see that this winter-sleep, or torpor, is no wasted time, but a means by which G.o.d has ensured the lives of hosts of His creatures which, having no extra clothing to protect them from the frost, and no power of migrating to a land of sunshine and plenty, would otherwise be liable to perish during the long season of cold and dearth.
So when
"Bright yellow, red, and orange, The leaves come down in hosts,"
those insects whose life is in "the herb of the field" have the instinct ("that power," as it has been well explained, "of doing without thinking what _we_ do by thinking") which makes them seek out some safe shelter or quiet hole, and there give themselves up to sleep, awakening only when the time of the singing of birds has come, and all the green things are sprouting and budding, and there is food for them everywhere.
Those who have watched this mysterious slumber, tell us that when it begins the insect is as if benumbed, and will move when touched; but that as the cold increases, the torpor deepens, until the little dormant creature seems no longer to breathe, but lies to all appearance dead, until the warmth of the sun shall break the spell, and call it up to life again.
We are a long time reaching the ant-city, but it would be quite an insult to the Insect-family to give no thought to the most wonderful thing about it--the "transformations" by which many of its six-legged members pa.s.s through their three distinct stages of existence; so it will be well to turn over a few pages in the story of the b.u.t.terfly, one of the family-branch called Lepidoptera, because its wings are covered with thousands of tiny scales, which enclose the colouring that makes them as softly tinted as the flowers upon the nectar of which it feeds.
[Ill.u.s.tration:... "Little b.u.t.terfly, indeed I know not if you sleep or feed."]
When we, by rough handling, brush the bloom off a b.u.t.terfly"s wing, we have really torn away these delicate scales.
Let us suppose we have been so fortunate as to find a Red-admiral, the most gorgeous of British b.u.t.terflies--often found late in the summer near nettles, because its caterpillar used to like their leaves better than any other.
We will look at this beautiful insect and see what it _is_, and then go back in its history and find out what it _was_.
It has six feet, and its head bears two horns or feelers ("antennae," they are called), two large eyes which, when seen under a microscope, seem as if cut like precious stones, and a trunk like that of an elephant, which it can uncurl so as to suck the honey from the very heart of the flowers. Its legs are hairy, and very little used; its body, light and slender. Of the broad, beautifully-marked wings, generally erect when at rest, we need not speak, for it would be impossible to describe them.
Now for a page or two in the early history of this brilliant creature.
We will go back to the time when it was a tiny egg, laid by the mother Red-admiral shortly before her own death; this egg soon develops into the "larva," or caterpillar--the word, which means a _mask_, expressing that the b.u.t.terfly that is to be, is thus disguised in its first form.
How admirable are G.o.d"s orderings--the same spring sunbeams which, as it were, waken up the living creature sleeping in the egg deposited by Mrs.
Red-admiral, also cause the green things, upon which it will feed so voraciously, to appear!
For the little worm is a tremendous eater; it seems to do almost nothing else during its grub existence; but eats and grows, eats and grows; constantly changing its skin for a new one in order to obtain room for itself, while it is laying up a store against the time when it will be unable to take in food.
At last it really seems tired of eating, and after it has cast its skin four times, the fifth one becomes thick and hard, and the caterpillar hangs itself by a fine silken thread of its own spinning to a twig, and pa.s.ses into its second stage--that of the "pupa," or chrysalis, from which it will awaken, a thing of life and beauty, to live in the air instead of crawling.
[Ill.u.s.tration: (A) CATERPILLAR; (B) CHRYSALIS.]
The name "pupa" or doll, was given to the creature in this stage, because long ago people thought the way in which insects are thus enclosed was somewhat like the way in which the babies used to be wrapped round in bandages or "swaddling clothes": it is also called a "chrysalis," because sometimes dotted with gold or pearly spots. But the wonder of it is that inside that narrow sh.e.l.l lies an insect quite unlike the caterpillar which lay down to rest; a creature with legs and wings beautifully folded, all ready for use when the time for its release has come.
How little we dream, as we watch a caterpillar crawling along a leaf, of what lies hidden beneath its skin! Yet I have read of a naturalist who proved for himself that it was actually so. Having killed a full-grown caterpillar, he let it remain for a minute or two in boiling water, then gently drew off the outer skin, and beheld to his delight "a perfect and real b.u.t.terfly." But though I tell you of this, I do not wish you to try the experiment, as he warns us that it requires great care, for the limbs of the b.u.t.terfly are very tender and small, and folded in a very complicated manner. Nor should I advise you to try hatching b.u.t.terflies like chickens, by enclosing some chrysalides in a gla.s.s shaped like an egg, and placing them under a hen, though it has been done successfully!
There seems no doubt that all the while the caterpillar sleeps within its chrysalis, it is being made ready for the new kind of existence it is to enjoy; and just as, while the grub lay dormant in the egg, its food was being prepared, so while the b.u.t.terfly that is to be sleeps in its dark tomb, the flowers upon which it is to live are slowly unfolding to the light.