[201] I have found C. Suecica growing along with C. Canadensis in shaded and northern exposures on the south side of the St. Lawrence, near Caconna and Metis. Its seeds may have been brought over from Labrador by migratory birds.
I can but glance at such points as these; but they raise great questions which are to be worked out, not merely by the patient collection of facts, but by a style of scientific thought very much above those which, on the one hand, escape such problems by the supposition of multiplied centres of creation, or on the other, render their solution worthless by confounding races due to external disturbing causes with species originally distinct. Difficulties of various kinds are easily evaded by either of these extreme views; but with the fact before him of specific diversity and its manifestly long continuance, on the one hand, and the remarkable migrations of some species on the other, the true naturalist must be content to work out the problems presented to him with the data afforded by the actual observation of nature, following carefully the threads of guidance thus indicated, not rudely breaking them by too hasty generalizations.
But it is time to leave the scientific teachings of our little Alpine friends, and to inquire if they can teach anything to the heart as well as to the head.
The mountains themselves, heaving their huge sides to the heavens, speak of forces in comparison with which all human power is nothing; and we can scarcely look upon them in their majesty without a psalm of praise rising up within us to Him who made the sea, and from whose hands the dry land took its form. As we ascend them, and as our vision ranges more and more widely over the tops of wooded hills, along the courses of streams, over cultivated valleys, and to the shores of the blue sea itself, our mental vision widens too. We think that the great roots of these hills run beneath a whole continent, that their tops look down on the wide St. Lawrence plain, on the beautiful valleys of New England, and on the rice fields of the sunny south. We are reminded of the brotherhood of man, which overleaps all artificial boundaries, and should cause us to pray that throughout their whole extent these hills may rise amidst a happy, a free, and a God-fearing people.
Our Alpine plants have still higher lessons to teach. They are fitting emblems of that little flock, scattered everywhere, yet one in heart, and in all lands having their true citizenship in heaven. They tell us that it is the humble who are nearest God, and they ask why we should doubt the guardian care of the Father who cares for them. They witness, too, of the lowly and hidden ones who may inhabit the barren and lowly spots of earth, yet are special subjects of God's love, as they should be of ours. We may thus read in the Alpine plants truths that beget deeper faith in God, and closer brotherhood with His people.
The history of these plants has also a strange significance. It might have been written of them, "Though the dry land be removed out of its place, and the mountains cast into the midst of the sea, yet the Lord will not forsake the work of His hands"; for this has been literally their history. In this they hold forth an omen of hope to the people of God in that once happy land through which these hills extend, and who now mourn the evil times on which they have fallen. The mountain plants may teach them that though the floods of strife should rise even to the tops of the hills, and leave but scattered islets to mark the place of a united land, their rock is sure, and their prayers will prevail.[202] The power that has waked the storm is after all their Father's hand. For years a cry has risen high above these hills: the cry of the bondman who has reaped the fields and received no hire. That cry is sure to be heard in heaven, whatever other prayers may go unanswered. An apostle tells us that it enters directly into the ears of the God of Sabaoth, and is potent to call down the day of slaughter on the proud ones of earth. The prayer of the slave has been answered; and the tempest is abroad, sweeping away his oppressors and their abettors. Yet God rules in all this, and those whom He has chosen will be spared, even like the hardy plants of the hill tops, to look again on a renewed and smiling land, from which many monsters and shapes of dread have for ever passed away.
[202] This paper was originally written at the time when the American Civil War was raging.
But last of all, the Alpine flowers have a lesson that should come near to all of us individually. They tell us how well natural law is observed, as compared with moral. Obeying with unchanging fidelity the law of their creation, they have meekly borne the cold and storms of thousands of winters, yet have thankfully expanded their bosoms to the returning sun of every summer, and have not once forgot to open their tiny buds, and bring forth flowers and fruit, doing thus their little part to the glory of their Maker and ours. How would the moral wastes of earth rejoice and be glad, did the sunshine of God's daily favours evoke a similar response from every human heart!
References:—Paper on Destruction and Renewal of Forests in North America, Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 1847-8. Alpine and Arctic Plants, Canadian Naturalist, 1862. "The Geological History of Plants," International Scientific Series, 2nd edition, 1891. "The Pleistocene Flora of Canada," Dawson and Penhallow, Bulletin American Geological Society, 1890. Papers on Pleistocene Climate of Canada, Canadian Naturalist, 1857 to 1890.