Beauty of some very small insects.
There is great variety in the coverings of insects. In some the covering is like burnished armor. The variety of colors is exceedingly great, and in many they have a splendid brilliancy. Some of the smallest insects, which most people never notice, are surpassingly beautiful when examined with the microscope. It is with them in this respect as it is with some of the smallest flowers. We know not how much beauty there is all around us in the small things that God has created till we take the microscope and look at them.
Butterflies.
The butterflies are among the most beautiful of insects. Almost every variety of color is to be seen in them, and often many colors are seen together, arranged in the most beautiful manner. You can not have any idea of the great variety of their beauty unless you see some collection of them in cases in some museum.
Colors in shells.
You have often admired the beauty of different shells. These are the coverings of animals who lead a very quiet life in them, as I told you about the oyster. Very splendid are the colors often on the inside of these coverings, and sometimes on the outside also; and even when the outside is not at all handsome when we get the shell from the water, we often find that clearing off the outer coating with acid, or by rubbing, will show us beautiful colors. Then, too, by grinding the shell in different parts of it, different layers are seen of different hues.
Why God made shells so beautiful.
The beauty of these coverings is of no use to the animals that live in them. They have no eyes to see it. For what, then, is it intended? It is for our gratification. The Creator strews beautiful things even on the bottom of the ocean for us. If the coverings, or houses, as we may call them, of all the animals that live there were as homely as that of the oyster, they would be as useful and comfortable for them as they are now, decked with their elegant colors. So far as they are concerned, the beauty is thrown away. But men gather the shells, and, while they admire them, they see in the beauty which the Creator lavishes even in the depths of the sea the evidence of his abounding goodness.
