"It is because you see so much of God's knowledge in them; is it not?"
"Yes, my dear boys, it is. When I look at many things which man makes or does, I think to myself, 'Now this thing is likely to have a mixture of sense and nonsense in it; the sense is God's, and the nonsense is man's.' But when I look at a thing made by one of the dumb creatures for its own comfort and safety, like the spider's house, with its door and hinge, for instance, I say to myself, 'Now here is the wisdom of God, without any of man's nonsense.' And yet, boys, men are far wiser than any other animal in this world."
"But, Uncle Philip, you said that a piece of man's best work was really coarse: some things must be neat, we should think. Is the point of a needle coarse? It does not seem so."
"Boys, you have mentioned the very thing which was in my mind when I spoke. The point of the smallest needle is very coarse. You have heard me talk of the microscope. I told you it was a set of glasses, so fixed that when you looked through them, it made small things appear very large: on some other day, perhaps, I will let you look through my microscope for yourselves; but now, I just wish to show you the difference between the work of God and that of man. Let us go home, and I will show you some pictures I made, and you can see in them the difference. Last winter, you know, was very cold, and there was a great deal of snow: one day, while the snow was falling pretty fast, I was obliged to go out; and as the flakes of snow fell upon the sleeve of my coat (which was black), I thought they had a curious shape, and did not all appear alike; so when I returned home I caught some of the flakes, and looked at them through my microscope. They were so beautiful that I made pictures of them; and as we have now reached home, just let me step into my study, and I will bring them to you. Here they are, boys."
Snow-flakes, seen through a Microscope.
"Oh, Uncle Philip! these are very pretty; they are all so different, too!"
"Yes, boys, I picked out different ones to draw: when I was done, I began to look into my books to find out what others had written about this thing; and I found that a gentleman named Dr. Hook had seen more than a hundred different shapes and sizes of these flakes. This is God's work, boys.