"I have often tried in vain," replied William; "yet some animals are so much alike, that I cannot perceive any difference between them - sheep, for instance."

"Very true; you cannot tell the difference, because you have not examined them; but a shepherd, if he has seven hundred sheep under his care, will know every one of them from the others; which proves that there must be a great difference between them, although not perceptible to the casual observer; and the same, no doubt, is the case with all other classes of animals."

"Yes, William," observed Ready; "I have often wondered over the things that I have seen, and I have even in my ignorance felt what your papa has now told you; and it has brought into my mind the words of Job: `When I consider, I am afraid of him'."

"Papa," said William, after a pause in the conversation, "you have referred to the variety - the wonderful variety - shown in the works of the Deity. Tell me some other prominent feature in creation."

"One of the most remarkable, William, is order."

"Point out to me, papa, where and in what that quality is most observable."

"Everywhere and in everything, my dear boy; whether we cast our eyes up to the heavens above us, or penetrate into the bowels of the earth, the principle of order is everywhere - everything is governed by fixed laws, which cannot be disobeyed: we have order in the seasons, in the tides, in the movement of the heavenly bodies, in the instinct of animals, in the duration of life assigned to each; from the elephant who lives more than a century, to the ephemeral fly, whose whole existence is limited to an hour.

"Inanimate nature is subject to the same unvarying laws. Metals, and rocks, and earths, and all the mineral kingdom follow one law in their crystallization, never varying from the form assigned to them; each atom depositing itself in the allotted place, until that form is complete: we have order in production, order in decay; but all is simple to him by whom the planets were thrown out into space, and were commanded to roll in their eternal orbits."