Societies
now exist in every part of England, who will be happy to exchange
their duplicates for yours. As your collection increased in
importance, old members abroad would gladly contribute foreign
curiosities to your stock. Neighbouring gentlemen would send you
valuable objects which had been lumbering their houses, uncared for,
because they stood alone, and formed no part of a collection; and I,
for one, would be happy to add something from the fauna and flora of
those moorlands, where I have so long enjoyed the wonders of nature;
never, I can honestly say, alone; because when man was not with me,
I had companions in every bee, and flower, and pebble; and never
idle, because I could not pass a swamp, or a tuft of heather,
without finding in it a fairy tale of which I could but decipher
here and there a line or two, and yet found them more interesting
than all the books, save one, which were ever written upon earth.
THE NATURAL THEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE
Read at Sion College, January 10th, 1871.
When I accepted the unexpected and undeserved honour of being
allowed to lecture here, the first subject which suggested itself to
me was Natural Theology.
It is one which has taken up much of my thought for some years past,
{313} which seems to me more and more important, and which is just
now somewhat forgotten; I therefore determined to say a few words on
it to-night.
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