Having killed a full-grown
caterpillar, he let it remain for a minute or two in boiling water, then
gently drew off the outer skin, and beheld to his delight "a perfect and
real butterfly." But though I tell you of this, I do not wish you to
try the experiment, as he warns us that it requires great care, for the
limbs of the butterfly are very tender and small, and folded in a very
complicated manner. Nor should I advise you to try hatching butterflies
like chickens, by enclosing some chrysalides in a glass shaped like an egg,
and placing them under a hen, though it has been done successfully!
There seems no doubt that all the while the caterpillar sleeps within its
chrysalis, it is being made ready for the new kind of existence it is to
enjoy; and just as, while the grub lay dormant in the egg, its food was
being prepared, so while the butterfly that is to be sleeps in its dark
tomb, the flowers upon which it is to live are slowly unfolding to the
light.
And now, what words can describe the wonder of the _third_ chapter of this
story of life in its changes? The pupa dies and falls to pieces,
"An inner impulse rends the veil
Of his old husk,"
and the butterfly comes forth, a glorious creature, "a living flash of
light" whose home is in the sunbeam!
What a change! No wonder that it has so long been looked upon as a parable
and type of resurrection, an image of what will come to pass when the Lord
Jesus comes, according to that promise which was a comfort to that little
girl in the Children's Hospital, for His own--whether they have "fallen
asleep in Jesus," or are living on this earth--and all "they that are
Christ's at His coming" shall be "changed in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye.
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