ould enter this house of mourning,
and by a single word, cause all these demonstrations of agony to give
place to smiles and congratulations, the change could not be more
wonderful and instantaneous, than that produced when the bees received
the brood comb!

The Orientals call the honey bee, Deburrah, "She that speaketh." Would
that this little insect might speak, and in words more eloquent than
those of man's device, to the multitudes who allow themselves to reject
the doctrines of revealed religion, because, as they assert, they are,
on their face so utterly improbable, that they labor under an _a priori_
objection strong enough to be fatal to their credibility. Do not nearly
all the steps in the development of a queen from a worker-egg, labor
under precisely the same objection? and have they not, for this very
reason, always been regarded by great numbers of bee keepers, as
unworthy of credence? If the favorite argument of infidels and errorists
will not stand the test when applied to the wonders of the bee-hive, can
it be regarded as entitled to any serious weight, when employed in
framing objections against religious truths, and arrogantly taking to
task the infinite Jehovah, for what He has been pleased to do or to
teach? Give me the same latitude claimed by such objectors, and I can
easily prove that a man is under no obligation to receive any of the
wonders in the economy of the bee-hive, although he is himself an
intelligent eye-witness that they are all substantial verities.

I shall quote, in this connection, from Huish, an English Apiarian of
whom I have already spoken, because his objections to the discoveries
of Huber, remind me so forcibly of both the spirit and principles of the
great majority of those who object to the doctrines of revealed
religion.

"If an individual, with the view of acquiring some knowledge of the
natural history of the bee, or of its management, consult the works of
Bagster, Bevan, or any of the periodicals which casually treat upon the
subject, will he not rise from the study of them with his mind
surcharged with falsities and mystification? Will he not discover
through the whole of them a servile acquiescence in the opinions and
discoveries of one man, however at variance they may be with truth or
probability; and if he enter upon the discussion with his mind free from
prejudice, will he not experience that an outrage has been committed
upon his reason, in calling upon him to