Twilight and Dawn; Or, Simple Talks on the Six Days of Creation Part 29

I said they certainly do belong to the great Backboned family, and are placed in a cla.s.s by themselves, as they are neither Mammalia, Birds, Fishes, nor Reptiles, properly speaking, and are called Amphibia, because they live, as it were, a double life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROWN FROGS.]

They have gills, which enable them to breathe in water, to begin with, and lungs which enable them to breathe in air, later on. They are mostly without scales, and do not need to drink, because they imbibe moisture from the air through their soft damp skin. When you see a frog hopping across your path, you see a creature which has known many a change in its life, for frogs are among those very interesting animals which undergo what are called _metamorphoses_. We have met with this word before, and may remember that it is used to express the change from one form to another which is wrought in some living creatures in the course of their growth. I daresay you imagine as I once did, that all young animals are like their parents, only on a smaller scale; for you see that a young horse, or elephant, or whale, a pup or a kitten, is at its birth in all respects just what it will be when full-grown, only smaller. So it is with the reptiles and the birds--the young ones, when hatched, are like the parents. But in the case of frogs and newts, and also most insects, the young ones do not merely increase in size as they grow, but pa.s.s from one stage of growth to another, each different from the former, until like the b.u.t.terfly when it emerges from the chrysalis, they reach what is called their perfect state--and these metamorphoses or changes are very curious and interesting indeed.

When Master Froggie was a young tadpole, some pond or ditch was his home, for he was an aquatic animal; but now that he is full-grown he has pa.s.sed into another way of living: he breathes, or rather swallows _air_, and must, as he swims about with his beautifully webbed feet, come to the surface of the water now and then, or he would die. I am sure you know the frog well enough, and you may even have heard the harsh croak from which it has its name, as you have pa.s.sed some damp meadow or weedy pond, on a summer evening. But I wonder whether you know frogs' eggs when you see them?

My brothers and I did not, long ago, when we used to fish with sticks in a pond by the cross-roads for what we called "bunches of grapes!" The grapes were little b.a.l.l.s of jelly with a tiny black spot in each, and we never guessed that they were really eggs, and that the little black spot in the slimy covering would one day actually turn into a live, leaping, croaking frog. If we had had the patience to watch, we should have seen that little black dot grow and grow, until it seemed to have become a creature almost all tail, with the head and body still only a tiny ball. By-and-by we should have seen legs and feet begin to appear, and as the legs grew longer, the tail become shorter, until it quite disappeared. Meanwhile, other changes which we could not see would have taken place; instead of the gills, which made the tadpole a water-breather, Master Froggie would have acquired lungs, like any land animal; the aquatic would have changed into an aerial, the herbivorous into a carnivorous creature, so that we may well say it has lived two lives.

The beautiful little newts' life-history is much the same, only that their transformation is not quite so complete, for they never lose their lizard-like tails, but remain little crocodiles to the end of the chapter.

"_Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father who is in heaven is merciful._"

"Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside, Nor crush that helpless worm; The frame thy wayward looks deride None but our G.o.d could form.

"The common Lord of all that move, From whom thy being flow'd, A portion of His boundless love On that poor worm bestow'd.

"The light, the air, the dew He made To all His creatures free, And spreads o'er earth the gra.s.sy blade For them as well as thee.

"Let them enjoy their little day, Their lowly bliss receive; Oh! do not lightly take away The life thou can'st not give."

GISBORNE.

THE SIXTH DAY.

THE ANIMAL WORLD.

"_Every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills._"--PSALM l. 10.

"_... G.o.d ... who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven._"--JOB x.x.xv. 11.

"_Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?_"--ECCLESIASTES iii. 21.

Now that we have come to the last of those wonderful working-days of which G.o.d has told us, I want you--just as we all did when we had reached the SIXTH DAY in our readings--to read over again all the verses in the first chapter of Genesis down to verse 26, and to notice carefully the _words_ which G.o.d has used in speaking to us about what He created and made. And I want you especially to think of those two words of which we were speaking a little while ago--G.o.d _created_, and G.o.d _made_.

Before G.o.d speaks to us of the FIRST DAY, with its evening and its morning, He tells us that "in the beginning" He "created the heaven and the earth."

(_Day I_.) Then--we do not know how long after--G.o.d spoke, and commanded the light to s.h.i.+ne out of the darkness; so that where the dark had been the light now was. "And G.o.d saw the light, that it was good," and divided it from the darkness. The light G.o.d called Day. Then after the night had pa.s.sed, the light returned, and there was morning. "And the evening and the morning were the First Day."

(_Day II_.) Again G.o.d spoke, and that great globe of air which surrounds the earth was formed--the blue sky above us, and the clouds, the treasure-house for the rain. "And G.o.d called the firmament," or expansion, "Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the Second Day." Upon this day we do not read of anything new being made; and it is not said, "And G.o.d saw that it was good," as after the work of the other days.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE JOY OF HARVEST."]

(_Day III_.) Again G.o.d spoke, and the dry land appeared'; so that upon this Day there were already in existence earth and sea, air and water, day and night. And G.o.d Himself saw that all was good in the world which He had made. Then He adorned the earth with verdure and beauty, and brought out of it gra.s.s, corn, fruit-trees; each "after its kind," "And G.o.d saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the Third Day."

(_Day IV_.) Again G.o.d spoke, and the two great lights, sun and moon, were set to give light--day and night--upon the earth, and to order the seasons.

"And G.o.d saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the Fourth Day."

(_Day V_.) Again G.o.d spoke; living creatures swarmed in the waters, and "winged fowl" flew "in the open firmament of heaven." It is now, in connection with air and sea being filled with living beings, to which G.o.d gave not only the same power to grow and multiply with which He had endowed the trees and the herbage, but in addition to it, power to move from one place to another at will, power to enjoy, and to go in quest of that which seems to them desirable, that we have again the word, "G.o.d created," and also a new word, never before used about day or night, earth or sea, sun or moon, tree or flower--"G.o.d blessed."

You remember how we noticed, when we were reading about the work of G.o.d on the Fifth Day, that as soon as He had made, not stones or plants, but fishes and birds, He blessed them. G.o.d made these living creatures happy, each in the place suited to the kind of life He had given it. And again of this Day's work we read, "And G.o.d saw that it was good.... And the evening and the morning were the Fifth Day."

Now let us read verses 24 and 25 very carefully. These verses tell us of part of G.o.d's work on the Sixth Day; and we notice that this Day begins, like the former ones, with those three words which we have read so many times in this chapter--"And G.o.d said."

(_Day VI_.) I wish you to stop at the end of verse 25 because there the account which G.o.d has given us of His creation of the world ends. All was now complete; and all was very good in the eyes of Him who had made and fas.h.i.+oned it. The rest of the chapter speaks of a distinct part of G.o.d's Creation, when man, who was to be over it all, was made; a part of the Creation, but head and Crown of all; a being distinct from any other inhabitant of earth, air, or sea, because created _in the image of G.o.d_.

The old writer who speaks so quaintly about the "great pond of the world,"

and the "guests" which it contains, exclaims with wonder when he thinks of the "tenant" which G.o.d, when He had made the great house of the world and furnished it, brought in to possess it. He says:--

"But, oh G.o.d, what a little lord hast Thou made over this great world!...

yet none but he can see what Thou hast done; none but he can admire and adore Thee in what he seeth.... Other creatures Thou madest by a simple command, man not without a divine consultation; others at once, man Thou didst first form, then inspire; others in several shapes, like to none but themselves, man after Thine own image ... others with qualities fit for service; man for dominion; other creatures grovel to their earth, and have all their senses upon it, this is reared up towards heaven."

We talked a good deal about this; for I wished that Eustace and Leslie, and even little d.i.c.k, should understand something of the great difference which G.o.d has put between those creatures--the cleverest and best of them--who live their little life in the sea or on the earth, and then pa.s.s away altogether, and even a little child who does not know its right hand from its left, and cannot take care of itself perhaps nearly so well as a bird or a beast, but who has within it what G.o.d has given to no bird or beast, a spirit which can never die, a spirit which must some time "return unto G.o.d who gave it," because it belongs to Him.

No beast will have to give an account of itself to G.o.d; for to these creatures of a day, He has given their bodies, so wonderful and beautiful, and the breath by which they live; but not that deathless part, the spirit, because of which every man is responsible to G.o.d, and knows that he is, even though he may never have read in G.o.d's Word that "every one of us shall give account of himself to G.o.d."

Let me tell you how a missionary explained this, not long ago, to a king far away in the heart of Africa.

He had been talking to him about the stars and the sun; and the king presently asked where G.o.d, who had made the sun, dwelt, and what He did with people after they were dead.

The missionary says, "I answered that G.o.d was not confined to one place as we are; that when man's body died, the spirit of him who was a child of G.o.d went above, and dwelt for ever in the presence of G.o.d, and those whom G.o.d knew not here in this life were cast out into a place of sorrow and burning."

"But why does G.o.d do so?" the king asked. "What reason has He for putting man from Him?"

The missionary explained that G.o.d is righteous, and must punish those who are guilty in His sight.

"But," said the king, "_we_ did not know the laws of G.o.d _here_. How can He punish _us_ for not keeping them?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: KAFFIRS OF VARIOUS TRIBES.]

The missionary answered that G.o.d had put His law in their hearts, so that they all knew what was right and what was wrong.

"You know," he said, "when a man lies to your face and steals from you, that he injures you; and call him bad and wicked. So when you tomorrow do the same thing, G.o.d judges you with the same judgement with which you judged your fellow-creature yesterday."

"Yes," replied the king, "that is true; that I understand."

We shall think more by-and-by about the great difference which G.o.d has put between man, whom He created in His own image, and every other creature, but I want you never to forget it.

In reading of the beautiful life which G.o.d gave to the fishes and the birds, and to those beasts that He commanded the earth to bring forth, about which we are going to speak a little today, we must always remember, while we admire the wonderful gifts and powers which they have from G.o.d, that He has put the widest possible distance between us and them.

We shall see that many of these animals are much stronger than the strongest man; that to some of them G.o.d has given senses keener than ours; and to others, in an especial degree, that great gift called instinct, by which the little swallow finds its way over sea and land, the ants "prepare their meat in the summer," the beaver makes dams across the stream, and the little prairie dogs build pleasant towns, where they can all live together, one of them always keeping watch lest any enemy should surprise the workers.

All these are beautiful proofs of the kindness and faithfulness of G.o.d towards the creatures He has made; and we may admire them, and learn all we can from them; but never imagine for one moment, that man is only a grander and more wonderfully made sort of animal, as a lion is superior to a mole, and a mole to a worm.