Many of the boys had never seen or even heard of one before, and it puzzled them very much to be told that what looked to them very like a small lobster's claw was the foot of a fly.
"What beautiful little feathers!" exclaimed one boy.
"You know the sort of dust that sticks to your fingers if you touch the wings of a moth or a butterfly, don't you?" asked Harry.
"Yes, sir,"' answered the boy.
"Then that is some of it, magnified; the wings are covered with those beautiful little feathers, although we cannot distinguish them without the microscope."
But I cannot attempt to tell you one half of the wonders that the microscope revealed to them that night, or the lessons it taught them of the power and wisdom of the Creator. Mrs. Greenwell pointed out to them the immense inferiority of man's best and most careful work when compared with the simplest work of God, A piece of delicately woven silk, of the finest texture, that looked perfect to the eye, when placed under the microscope appeared rough, coarse, and uneven—rather like a common door-mat, in fact; but the wing of a fly, the hair of a mouse, the eye of an insect, the scale of a fish, the dust of a moth's wing, the leaf of a plant—anything made by God, and owing nothing to the hand of man—the more it was magnified, the more beauties you discovered. Examine by the microscope the humblest and most minute of God's creations, and you will always find beauty, order, and perfection.
CHAPTER VII.
A SAD BIRTHDAY.
