All things that live are made up chemically principally of four of the elements of the universe which are best adapted by their characteristics for the purposes of life. Three are gases, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen; one is a solid, carbon. All these have what is technically known as affinities of narrow range and low intensity except oxygen. Oxygen is greedy to attack almost everything, the others unite but sparingly and feebly. From these elements, life chooses combinations that are easily changed in form and light enough to stand up from the earth, to swim in the waters, and even to fly in the atmosphere. So gaseous and quick to change are the things of life that life itself has the reputation of being fleeting. Development is a change in the arrangement of parts, and function is a transformation of motion. These four elements, three gaseous and one solid, three very exclusive and one very free in choosing all sorts of associates, have been the means whereby life has been possible upon the earth. Their characters have provided for what are known as differentiation and integration.

With these materials is formed the mass which is the lowest form of life, protoplasm. This may be formed into cells or not, but it is from this beginning the scale of living things springs, rising in beautiful and mysterious forms till the earth is enveloped and beautified so that we can hardly think of it except as the receptacle prepared by Omniscience for the entertainment of living beings, all of which point to the highest and speak of the expansion and eternal value of the human soul.

By getting next to other substances, or by getting them inside, the organism draws within itself new matter of its own selection. It chooses always material that is chemically similar to itself, and we say it grows. Where it wears away in the pursuit, it makes repairs with the fresh material. Where the pursuit is wearing, and requires great activity or strength, the new matter is consumed in furnishing energy alone.

When the period of growth is well advanced, the living thing matures organs for the preservation of its kind. Male and female are distinguished. A seed marks the female element in the plant, and in the animal an ovum or egg. And as soon as the race has been provided for, the individual is of no more use upon the face of the earth. It has served its purpose, and merits a reward. But whether in the economy of nature the joys of life are regarded as sufficient reward to every living creature, there follows fast upon the heels of its usefulness a period of lamentable decline. The elements which were so facile in building up the individual are no longer active in furnishing energy, repair, and growth. All these products are lopped off. Weakness, debility, and shrinking ensue. The organism loses its attractiveness for its kind, the pulse of life weakens, and the corpse falls to the earth, yielding rapidly to a process of transformation called decay, which is merely a giving up of what has been recently of use to this form of life to some new form of the same sort or a different one. Life is so swift and relentless that most of its subjects fall by the way and give up their substance so effectually that there is no memory or record left upon the face of the earth that such a form has ever been.

And so God is creating the heavens and the earth. While we participate in a measure in this creation, let us observe and enjoy it and be wise.