ot the
hawk, and it fell perchance into a stream, and was carried down into the
sea; and when its body decayed, the little grain sank through the water,
and was mingled with the mud at the bottom of the sea. But do its
wanderings stop there? Not so, my child. Nothing upon this earth, as I
told you once before, continues in one stay. That grain of mineral might
stay at the bottom of the sea a thousand or ten thousand years, and yet
the time would come when Madam How would set to work on it again. Slowly,
perhaps, she would sink that mud so deep, and cover it up with so many
fresh beds of mud, or sand, or lime, that under the heavy weight, and
perhaps, too, under the heat of the inside of the earth, that Mud would
slowly change to hard Slate Rock; and ages after, it may be, Madam How
might melt that Slate Rock once more, and blast it out; and then through
the mouth of a volcano the little grain of mineral might rise into the
open air again to make fresh soil, as it had done thousands of years
before. For Madam How can manufacture many different things out of the
same materials. She may have so wrought with that grain of mineral, that
she may have formed it into part of a precious stone, and men may dig it
out of the rock, or pick it up in the river-bed, and polish it, and set
it, and wear it. Think of that--that in the jewels which your mother or
your sisters wear, or in your father's signet ring, there may be atoms
which were part of a live plant, or a live animal, millions of years ago,
and may be parts of a live plant or a live animal millions of years
hence.

Think over again, and learn by heart, the links of this endless chain of
change: Fire turned into Stone--Stone into Soil--Soil into Plant--Plant
into Animal--Animal into Soil--Soil into Stone--Stone into Fire again--and
then Fire into Stone again, and the old thing run round once more.

So it is, and so it must be. For all things which are born in Time must
change in Time, and die in Time, till that Last Day of this our little
earth, in which,

"Like to the baseless fabric of a vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all things which inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like an unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."

So all things change and die, and so your body too must change and
die--but not yourself. Madam How made your body; and she must unmake it
agai