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Lessons from the world of matter and the world of man
Lessons from the world of matter and the world of man Author:Theodore Parker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RESERVED POWER. Everywhere in the world there is an exhibition of power, force active to-day. Everywhere, likewise, there is a reserve of power, force wai... more »ting for to-morrow. Force is potent everywhere, but latent as well. All men see the active power, all do not see the power which waits till it comes of age to do its work. In order to get the general analogy of the universe to bear upon this particular matter in hand, the power of progressive development in the human race, look at the plainest examples of this reserved power in nature. All around us the fields lie sleeping under their coverlet of frost. Only the mosses, the lichens, and other cryptog- amy have any green and growing life. Every hide-bound tree has taken in sail, and sent down its topmast, housed the rigging, and lies stripped there in bay, waiting for navigation to open in March and April. Even the well- clad bear has coiled himself up for his hybernating sleep all winter long; the frogs and snakes and toads have hid their heads; the swarms of insects all are still. Nature hw put her little ones to bed. " Hash, my babe! lie still and slumber! Holy angels guard thy bed, Heavenly blessings without number Best upon thy infant head!" This is the evening cradle-song wherewith Nature lulls the reptile, insect, bear, and tree, to their winter sleep. Look at the scene next June. What life in the ground, in the trees spreading their sails to every wind, in the reptiles, in the insects! Nature wakens her little ones in the new morning, and sends them out'to the world'sgreat vineyard to bear the burthen in the heat of the day, sure of their penny at its end. What a reserve of power lies in the ground under our feet, in the silent throat of every bird, in the scale-clad buds on oak and apple-tree ! W...« less