the Butterfly give you his own history. You may ask him any question you please. W. That will be a famous plan! Now, Sir Butterfly, we shall keep you prisoner for half-an-hour. You are to give a faithful account of yourself, and answer all questions in a respectful manner. And, if you do this to our satisfaction, we will give you your liberty again. Ion. And perhaps a piece of sugar too. But, mamma! how is he to speak? M. Oh, very easily. To be sure, he does not know the English dialect, but he can tell me in the butterfly tongue, and I will interpret. Butterfly. I AM A CABBAGE BUTTERFLY! W. Yes, we all know that." M. It is not good manners to interrupt him; he will be frightened. Butterfly. And I am as much a gentleman as any butterfly with red and gold wings, for I never demean myself by doing anything in particular. I fly about like a merry fellow as soon as the sun has aired the day, and the flowers are opened to receive visitors and a very happy time I have too, except when certain rude boys come slily behind me, with their caps in their W. Just please to keep to the subject before you, sir, if you want ever to get out of that glass again. We want the history of your birth and life. B. So I will. I cannot boast of having been born in a very genteel place, but it was not my fault. Ada. Ask him if he was "born in a bower." B. No. I was born on a leaf. There were a number of little eggs on it, close together, looking just like pins' heads. One of these eggs must have been my sleeping apartment, for I know that after having dwelt in it for some time, the sun shone on me and my brothers until we were so warm that we woke up, and set out to seek more comfortable quarters. I have heard people say that the sun was "hatching" our eggs and bringing us to life, but I don't understand that, and do not believe it. Ion. What little butterflies you must have been! How curious you must have looked—one hundred of you flying away together! B. Oh! Do you not know better than that? We were not born Butterflies, we were all very tiny caterpillars, with long rows of little feet, and large heads. I soon found, too, that I had a mouth, and jaws, but my mouth, instead of being placed in my head this way, like the mouths of your backboned animals, was placed so, |, and my jaws, instead of moving up and down like yours, opened and shut sideways. You should have seen me using them on a cabbage! Eating, with me, was at first only an occasional exercise; but at last I felt a passion for the work. My companions and I never seemed tired of it. Could you in one day eat food twice the weight of your body? W. No. B. Well, then, I did, and digested it too. But that is nothing! I have read in one of Dr. Carpenter's books of a number of silkworms, which, in their eggs, only weighed half-an-ounce altogether :—but, when they were full grown, they managed to eat four thousand ounces of mulberry-leaves in a day! Ion. Then each one, in a day, ate four thousand times as much as its body once weighed! I have been thinking, sir, that you must have grown rather quickly. B. I should think we did, indeed! we often burst our skins because they were not large enough, and had new ones. I changed my skin seven times! L. Mamma, are we to believe what he is saying? M. Yes, it is quite true. B. At last we found our appetites failing us. All my friends had grown to such a size, that I did not know them. Some of them, I saw, began to hang up their bodies by little threads; and I observed a new skin growing all over them—head and body-until it quite covered them, and shut them up. This skin appeared green at first, but, in time, it hardened and became a sort of shell, something like a coffin. Soon afterwards the same accident happened to me, and I became as crusty as they were. W. Ah! I can tell you what was the matter. You were changed into a chrysalis. B. I am quite in the dark as to what I was, or where I was. It was very dark inside, until one day a part of my shell opened. Oh! then I found out strange things! I had new eyes, with which I saw my new thin body wrapped up in four very thin wings. I had six long legs, two long "antennæ" on my head, two "palpi;" and instead of my old mouth, a beautiful curly trunk. No more cabbage-leaf! Such a mouth was not made to eat that. I fly from one garden to another, dip my tube far down into the flowers, and suck up their sweetest juices. If you will let me out on the lawn, I will then shew you how I do it. L. Oh no, sir! we cannot spare you yet. We want, more particularly, to observe your different parts, and to find out what division you belong to. 66 B. Well, then, notice first my body. You see I am not troubled with any such thing as a backbone," but my skin is hardened to keep the body in shape. Ion. Yes, and I have been noticing that your skin is not all in one piece, but it is divided, and forms little hoops all round you. B. Ah! This is much better than having a backbone. Notice how I can twist my body about. W. I see! it is because these hoops are jointed together. B. Some of my friends have very large horny rings. The beetles, and the locusts, the grasshoppers, crickets, bees, and wasps. We have, too, some very distant relations which have shelly rings round their bodies, such as the lobster, and others. W. I think that is enough. Now, we will make a lesson about you. Now, Lucy, write down-1st. "His body has an outside-no, say external-skeleton, made of a number of jointed rings, which do not consist of bone, but of horny, or shelly substance. B. And, Miss Lucy! Please to look at me again. You may write down that I have six legs. Some people in our division, the spiders, have eight. The crabs and lobsters have ten. And some nearly a hundred legs; but none have less than six. W. Pray, sir, what colour is your blood? Red? B. I never heard of such a thing! Do you think I could be so nasty? My blood was of a beautiful green colour when I was á caterpillar. Now it is a greenish white. L. Thank you, that will do nicely. We only wanted to understand about these three parts. Now, see us write down your "description." LESSON 2. The Butterfly and many other animals have— 1st. A BODY with an external skeleton consisting of rings, made of horny or shelly substance, and jointed together. 2nd. LIMBS, never less than six in number. 3rd. BLOOD, of a greenish white colour. B. But let me tell you about my compound eyes-and airvessels. I'll surprise you! L. No, thank you. That is sufficient. We only wanted to hear of those three parts. Mamma, what name shall I give this division? M. "Jointed Animals." L. (writing), They are therefore called JOINTED ANIMALS. This division includes the Bee, the Fly, the Gnat, the— 66 B. I will tell you some names: Papilio Brassica," "Gentlemen of the class Arachnida," of the class Crust W. Thank you, but we would rather not hear them in latin. We will write out their names on the nursery wall. B. But then, you won't know their addresses. Ion. We shall know that in time. Now I will let you out, sir. We are very much obliged to you. Shall I give you the piece of sugar? B. I'd rather not, I thank you. W. But pray stop a minute. Would you like "a drop of beer ?" B. Bah! How can you offer alcohol to a gentleman! Come and see me sip nectar on the lawn.-Pleasant Pages. Enquiries and Correspondence. ANSWERS TO ENQUIRIES, at p. 330. "SHALL we know each other in heaven?" is the question proposed by Elizabeth. Permit me to attempt a brief reply. The conclusion to which I have come is, that those who have known each other in this world, will know each other in the next. The chief difficulty, perhaps, and almost the only objection in reference to this conclusion, is truly stated by your correspondent; "that our happiness would be liable to interruption, should we miss any of our beloved relations or friends from the number of the redeemed." This may be met by the consideration, that so clearly shall we see, and so fully shall we realize the divine wisdom, goodness, and justice; and so completely shall we be "satisfied" that nothing shall mar or diminish our happiness: we shall see with other eyes, and reflect with other emotions upon what God does then, and therefore shall find matter for praise in much which is now obscure and difficult: we shall then know what we now believe, "that He is clear when He judges," and this will be enough, for not natural feeling but principle will then control us. All objections against the doctrine of mutual recognition hereafter, seem to arise from wrong views of that state; we reason as if heaven were earth, or, as if everything would be removed from heaven which can pain us here. Neither seems true; for much that we feel here, we shall not experience there, and much that pains us here, will not distress us there. Our will and that of God are sometimes discordant now, and therefore we are sorrowful; but there will be perfect harmony between them then, and therefore we shall be happy. Iu support of the opinion maintained, let me submit the following facts for consideration; 1. I can find no Scripture assertion to the contrary. 2. There is no loss of conscious personal identity on a soul's removal to heaven; and if Stephen knows that he is the same Stephen who was stoned to death, why should he not know that Paul is that same man, at whose feet his murderers laid their garments? 3. The saints in heaven are described by their experience when on earth. Rev. vii. 14. 4. Their life and character here decide their position, and the degree of their glory hereafter. 5. No known advantage results from supposing glorified saints eternally strangers to each other, but many from their mutual recognition. 6. The parable in Luke xvi. 19-31, favors it. |