SPINNING CATERPILLARS

Extract

Milton, when he wrote of Nature's bounty, and referred to the . . . . “Millions of spinning worms That in their green shops weave the smooth-haid'd silk,” had thoughts no doubt of the obedience due from Nature's subjects to Nature's King. A work ordered and a work performed. Were men as loyal to their King, what a garment of righteousness would each man weave wherein to appear, amid the flood-light at the Court on high! The caterpillar, at the sighing of the antumnal wind, enfolds itself in its silken shroud, preparatory to a winged flight, leaving to the world the record of a life well spent—an unbroken thlead of duty done: a treasury of silk to deck the sons of men “In courts, in feasts, and high solemnities.”