Nature has
used the same seasoning for both, though one is a straggling vine, the
other a big tree.
"Now, surely you cannot imagine that all these similar characters are
mere coincidences. Do they not rather go to show that the Creator in
making the pea vine and locust tree had the same idea in mind, and
that plants are not classified arbitrarily? Man has nothing to do with
their classification. Nature has attended to all that, giving
essential unity with boundless variety, so that the botanist has only
to examine plants to learn the harmony of their relations."
This fine lesson charmed me and sent me to the woods and meadows in
wild enthusiasm. Like everybody else I was always fond of flowers,
attracted by their external beauty and purity. Now my eyes were opened
to their inner beauty, all alike revealing glorious traces of the
thoughts of God, and leading on and on into the infinite cosmos. I
wandered away at every opportunity, making long excursions round the
lakes, gathering specimens and keeping them fresh in a bucket in my
room to study at night after my regular class tasks were learned; for
my eyes never closed on the plant glory I had seen.
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