SPIRITUAL LAW IN
THE NATURAL WORLD:
CHAPTER XI.
LIFE IN ITS LOWEST CIRCLE.
BRIEF as our glance has been, we must now leave the Animal
Kingdom, to take up another volume of Natures 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
childs 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
Planari 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 ones 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.
4. For with all this will go the sense of WEAKNESS, the
conscious need of strength not ones own, the craving and the finding it
as inward realization, though leaving one still to the conviction that it is
not ones 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,
Gods "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. Gods 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 Solomons. 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
mens 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 ones 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 Goulds "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.
3. I go on, therefore,
to the Thallogens, where, among the Algæ, 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 Mollusks 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. 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.
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.
"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 Gramineæ 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 Algæ 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
algæ, 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 æneus. 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.
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 Lumus 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 Ugolinos
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
Gods work in renewal, as spiritually is indeed the case. "Mans 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 Gods 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 -
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 mollusks 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 Fathers 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. "
THE END
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