SECTION II.
NOXIOUS ANIMALS, PLANTS, AND MINERALS.
It has ever been considered a strange and mysterious fact, that there should exist, in the creation of a God of goodness, things of a hurtful and destructive nature, injurious and often fatal to man,—such as ferocious beasts, noxious vermin, and poisonous plants and minerals. It does indeed seem strange, that there should be found, scattered amongst the useful and beautiful things of God's charming creation, existences not only unpleasing and ugly, but useless and venomous: that beneath the pretty flowers should lurk the deadly serpent; that among rich groves, where all the air is balm, should stalk the fierce lion, or couch the bloodthirsty tiger, ready to spring upon the passing traveler; that under the soft light of the midnight moon, the tameless hyæna should wander howling for his prey, casting on the grass his ugly shadow as he goes. It does seem strange, that, with the growing corn, there should be given also the worm at the root; that, with the garnered corn, there should be vermin to devour it; that our pleasant slumbers should be disturbed by annoying and dark-loving insects, and that with the music of our dreams should be mingled the dull song of the mosquito, ere he alights to worry and awake us. It does seem strange, that in our morning walk in the fields or ramble through the woods, we should be exposed to scratches from thorns, or to poison from the hemlock or the fox-glove; that, at home, the deadly arsenic, lying on the shelf, should tempt the unwary by its seemingly innocent, but murderous, whiteness; and
