The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-28


 finds a gospel lesson in the wonders of the awakening insect world. The text is Proverbs xxx: 27. "The locusts have no king. yet go they forth all of them by bands"
 The more I study the Bible in connee- tion with the revelations which science has given to us in the natural world the more wonderful and marvellous the om- impotence and omnipresence of God ap- pear to me. There are some people who never study the goodness and mercy of God outside of the leaves of the holy book. When you begin to talk to them about the wonders of God in nature, they reply, Why don't you preach the old gospel instead of talking about tadpoles and snakes and bugs and beetles and such stufY The reason l talk so much about nature, my friend, is because I find the character of God revealed there and the gospel preached there, and I am sus- tained by the example of the Bible itself, which is full of such sermonic themes I have also the authority of the wisest of men, who bids us watch the comics DuliI- Ing their houses in the rocks, and the ants providing food for the winter storm, and the spider swinging her silken nammocks in the kings palaces, and the locusts marching forth to their conquests in great bands.
 It is amazing how much our love and reverence for God will grow if we only study closely the marvellous conforma- tions and habits of the lowest and most despised of his creatures If we do not see God in the natural world, then it Is because we have eyes that are blind, and it is about time we scattered the dark ness of ignorance by letting in the light of investigation and study. When a new student entered one of Professor Agas- siz's classes, the great teacher of natural science would place before him the skel- oton of an ordinary fish like the black bass. Study that" would be his first command, and then come and tell me what you sec" The student in amaze ment would sit down and look at those dried bones for little while, and then he would go to the professors desk and say: Why, teacher, l see the skeleton of a fish. That is all' Then the professor would show him how the fishs skeleton is joined together by one big backbone, like the skeleton of man; how the fish's tail and his fins are used by the fish as mans hands, and feet are used when he swims; how the fish has a series of spines above and beneath it to keep 1t in per pendicuar position, so it can cut it's way through the water. The professor would point out that the head of the fish Is made of strong bony substance like the iron prov of boat. There the strength of the fish must be very great. Thus the new student learned how the bones were fitted together and how the jaws were set for catching the prey. After he had spoken thus for a long time Professor Agassz would say: My son. never say again that a bone is simply a bone. When you study bone, you must notice how 1t joins with other bones and learn what is the purpose of that bone Now you are ready to begin your scientific studies as one of my students" Thus, in my text, Solomon bids us study the locust. that marvellous little insect whose ravages are the dread of the farmer He would have us observe how 1t is constructed, how t is adapted for the work 1t has to do and how it co-operates with it's fellows, like a soldier in an army. This opening spring season is an appropriate time for follow ing Sslomons advice and considering "the locusts, who have no king, but who 20 forth in bands.'
 The Helpless Locust.
 In the first place, when l began to study the little creature of my text I was surprised to find out what an in- significant insect 1t was individually God seems to have given it no means of self protection. It has no rapier with which to stab like the ghornet, no sting like the bee, no cruel beak like the hawk, no deadly claw like the tiger, no deadly poison like the tarantula or the snake, no viselike jaw as has the alligator, and no powerful wing like the wing of the albatross. It is so helpless as an individ- ual that the >mallest kind of insects can attack 1t with impunity. It Is the prey of innumerable destroyers. Wherever the swarms of locusts go, there fly great focks of greedy birds, feeding upon them. When the locusts are in the egg or the larvae state, they are destroyed by the millions, yet these seemingly helpless insects have been the most feared of all the insects of the world No plague of Egypt struck more terror to the hearts of Pharaoh and his subjects than this plague of clawess, beakless, poisonless, stingess locusts, but when this thought dawned upon me I said, "Is 1t not a fact that the men and the women in this world who have accomplished most for God have carried no antlers, whose laws concealed no poisonous fang, whose tongue never gave rapier thrust and whose hand was never the murderouS claw of the wild bea st?"
 But there is another fact to which I want to draw your attention in refer ence to these insignificant insects. They are insignificant as to the strength of their bodies It seems as though the span of their life Is a breath. Hardly are they matched and their wings grown than, like a moth flying about in a can dle light their lives seem to be snuffed out in a day, and yet the brevity of the loeust's life does not startle me, for I find that some the greatest men have been the shortest lived men.
 Soon after Percy Shelley was drowned in the bay of Spezia his widow, Mary Shelley wrote these beautiful words: Shelley, my beloved, this year has 0 new name from any thou knowest. When spring arrives, leaves that you never saw will shadow the ground, and flowers you never beheld will star it. and the grass will be of another growth. Thy name is added to the list which makes the earth bold in her age and proud of what has been." But, though Percy Shelley climb ed to the highest pinnacle of fame, like John Keats, and Arthur Henry Hallam, and Raphael, and Robertson, and Alexan- der and hosts of others of the worlds greatest leaders, he died before middle life had been reached. You cannot judge a mans usefulness by the numerical list of his earthly days. Some of the worlds greatest benefactors have been men who died before the silver hair was ringing their foreheads or before their youth had waned.
 But the insignificance of the locusts intellect is even more startling than the brevity of it's physical life. These locusts seem to be like the camels among the beasts and like the turkeys among the birds They seem to be the stupidest of all insects. They seem to have no law of organization. They seem to have no skill in hive building, like the ant. They do not have the genius of the bee or the